“…Instead, an animal can learn its dominance status relative to a few animals whose rank is similar to its own and then, through observation, learn the dominance rank of the other animals, relative to those animals whose rank is already known. Recent research suggests that such dominance hierarchies can be acquired through observation by pinyon jays (Pas-y-Miño, Bond, Kamil, & Balda, 2004), hens (Hogue, Beaugrand, & Lague, 1996) and even fish (Grosenik, Clement, & Fernal, 2007). Although transitive inference may aid in the acquisition of dominance hierarchies, it seems unlikely that the efficient development of dominance hierarchies is responsible for the arbitrary form of transitive inference that has been found in nonsocial tasks.…”