What mechanisms make it possible for genes, chromosomes, genomes, multi-cellular organisms, and societies to remain stable and cohesive despite internal conflicts of interests among their constituent parts? Addressing this question requires 1) considering from a theoretical perspective what kinds of conflict management mechanisms should be present at different levels of biological organization, 2) assessing empirically whether the mechanisms predicted for a particular level of organization have analogs in the real world that 3) at the systems level do function as conflict management devices.

Within the framework of these broader objectives, I am specifically interested in how stability is maintained in the societies of human and nonhuman primates, and in how their social systems evolve in response to internal and external perturbations. My primary empirical objectives are to assess at the systems level what the operational effects are of conflict management mechanisms in primate societies, and whether the distribution of power among individuals in a primate society predicts the type of conflict management mechanism that is present. This work involves 1) the development of a testable, conceptual framework for studying power and its distribution in animal societies, 2) the investigation of whether proposed conflict management mechanisms (formal signaling of relationship type, conflict intervention, policing, and punishment via third parties, prescriptive social rules, and division of labor) are actually operational and effective in primate societies, 3) the assessment of whether the proposed conflict management mechanisms co-vary with the distribution of power and, 4) the assessment of the relationship between social structure and the distribution of power. To address these questions I use ethological methods to conduct systematic observational and quasi-experimental research on the social dynamics of large groups of macaques and chimpanzees at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

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