And I think the exceptions are often found to not really be exceptions. For instance chimps were once seen and framed, most famously by Jane Goodall, as peaceful animals who only engaged in violence when pushed to the extreme by some outside force. And in looking up info about bonobos I'm somewhat unsurprised to find that recent observations [1] are rather contrary to their reputation as the same sort of peaceful kumbaya type.
[1] - https://www.science.org/content/article/bonobos-hippie-chimp...
The argument is essentially: how come daring people to do something gross or embarrassing is so common? There's a weird social dynamic in being the one who goes through with it, and it frequently promotes group cohesion.
So maybe the point of it isn't the act or social dominance, but to get people to display normal emotional responses - safe people will be embarrassed, or hesitant or display social support queues or disgust if they have normal emotional processing. The psychopaths? They'll struggle - particularly at that age where the opportunity to learn to blend hasn't had time to develop.
Basically a group of guys egging each other on to do the riskier dive into the pool or something aren't trying to impress a mate, they're actually filtering for people who don't emotionally react correctly to whatever the dare is.