Seyfarth, R. M., Cheney, D. L. 2000 . Social awareness in monkeys . American Zoologist 40, 902-909.

Tests of self-awareness in nonhuman primates have to date been concerned almost entirely with the recognition of an animal's reflection in a mirror. By contrast, we know much less about non-human primates' perception of their place within a social network, or of their understanding of themselves as individuals with unique sets of social relationships. Here we review evidence that monkeys who fail the mirror test may nonetheless behave as if they recognize themselves as distinct individuals, each of whom occupies a unique place in society and has a specific set of relations with others. A free-ranging vervet monkey, baboon, or macaque recognizes other members of his group as individuals. He also recognizes matrilineal kin groups, linear dominance rank orders, and behaves as if he recognizes his own unique place within them. This sense of social self in monkeys, however, is markedly different from self-awareness in humans. Although monkeys may behave in ways that accurately place themselves within a social network, they are unaware of the knowledge that allows them to do so: they do not know what they know, cannot reflect on what they know, and cannot become the object of their own attention.In conclusion, monkeys appear to view their social groups not just in terms of the individuals that comprise them but also in terms of a web of social relationships in which certain individuals are linked with particular others. Their behavior is influenced not only by their own interactions with others but also by their observation of interactions in which they are not themselves involved. As a result, they recognize not only their own relative ranks and kinship relations but also the relative ranks and kinship relations of others. Perhaps more important, monkeys seem able to integrate information about their own social relations with information about the social relations that exist among others, and through such computations place themselves at the appropriate position in a network of social relationships. The acquisition of this knowledge, however, does not require active self-reflection or awareness. Indeed, it demands only observational learning and a sensitivity to complex behavioral contingencies. Although monkeys' knowledge of social relationships may exceed that of many other social mammals, they apparently achieve such knowledge without reflecting actively upon their behavior, examining their own knowledge, or conceiving of themselves as social agents. They place themselves within a social network without being aware of doing so.