Victory displays: a game-theoretic analysis

Two rationales have been proposed verbally for the functionof victory displays, which are performed by the winners of contestsbut not by the losers. The "advertising" rationale is that victorydisplays are attempts to communicate victory to other membersof a social group that do not pay attention to contests or cannototherwise identify the winner. The "browbeating" rationale isthat victory displays are attempts to decrease the probabilitythat the loser of a contest will initiate a future contest withthe same individual. We formally explore the logic of theserationales with game-theoretic models. The models show thatboth rationales are logically sound; however, all other thingsbeing equal, the intensity of victory displays will be highestthrough advertising in groups where the reproductive advantageof dominance is low and highest through browbeating in groupswhere the reproductive advantage of dominance is high.