What do we need to know to recognize a contest?

Animals frequently use agonistic contests as a way to solve disputes over indivisible resources. Such agonistic contests often represent interactions between an owner and a non-owner of a resource. However, some behaviors adopted by rivals during agonistic interactions are similar to behaviors adopted in other types of interactions. Thus, the possibility exists that some interactions between individuals can be misinterpreted as actual agonistic contests. Herein, we synthesize information from prior studies that present interactions that may be confounded with actual agonistic contests. We also point potential problems when different types of confoundment occur and provide suggestions of how to distinguish between agonistic contests and alternative interactions. For this, we made a distinction between completely non-agonistic interactions and quasi-agonistic interactions (i.e., interactions in which at least one rival is not motivated to fight). We also show potential biases in the understanding of how rivals decide who is the winner of a contest for studies that consider non- or quasi-agonistic interactions as actual agonistic contests.