Before revision:  We apply this method to 172 social groups across 85 species in 22 orders. By looking for heuristics that depend upon rank information, we can back-infer the types of information individuals possess about the macro-level properties of their group. Summary measures of these heuristics then place groups within a taxonomy, providing a biologically-relevant "social assay" to quantify the amount of social information and to identify consensus strategies at the group level .
After revision:  We apply this method to 172 social groups across 85 species in 23 orders, it reveals three main patterns of rank-dependent social dominance: the downward heuristic (aggress uniformly against lower-ranked opponents), close competitors (aggress against opponents ranked slightly below self), and bullying (aggress against opponents ranked much lower than self) .