All animals are both social and competitive. Cooperative and hierarchical. Humans want to work together, but they also want to know who’s in charge. It’s in our blood. We enter a new environment, and we immediately look for weaknesses in others while hiding our own. We try to project strength, even if we’re trying not to threaten (and maybe we are trying to threaten a little, even when we don’t know it).
The point is that a lot of our behaviors are explained in this model. You don’t want to speak up in the meeting with the new team because some part of your brain is worried that they’ll kill you and eat you if you mess up. They probably won’t. Let them peck if they want to. You’ll be fine.
The Opportunity Machine 