I have learned so much from the behavior of my sister's cat in a natural world.
While my sister was out of town for two weeks, I took care of her cat. Her cat insists on having our attention. Every time I sit down reading, she comes up meowing, purring loudly and persistently, pulling me until I give in. I lock her in my sister's apartment at night, where she plays all the night by herself. After my sister came back, she insisted on having her way: her master plays with her at night and sleeps during the day.
The incident brought up many thoughts. (1) I learned of this long ago, of two persons in the room, if one behaves like a mouse, the other will become the cat. (2) A friend of mine once said, "There will be an abusive teenager if without abusive parents, one way or another."
(3) A Chinese saying 不是东风压倒西风，就是西风压倒东风 (Bù shì dōngfēng yā dǎo xīfēng, jiùshì xīfēng yā dǎo dōngfēng) either east wind overpowers the west or vice versa. The implied meaning is that in any conflict, one side will prevail over the other, and it can go either way in the power dynamics. In my sister's case, if she doesn't discipline her cat, the cat will discipline her.
All this seems to imply an inevitable power struggle and an either-or situation which eventually yields two mutually exclusive results: cat or mouse, win or lose.
In some cases, I don't think there's much love lost, like between the cat and its master, bullied and the bully so common in high schools.
However ideally, in all human dealings, the goal should still be to achieve mutual benefit or positive outcomes for all parties involved, through cooperations and teamwork, not winning of one side at the expense of others. An ideal because it doesn't seem natural in Nature.