9. status, dominance, prestige and leadership Flashcards
emergence of dominance hierarchies
-> logic
dominance hierarchy
- individuals in group reliably gain greater access than
others to key resources contributing to survival or
reproduction
- transitive
logic
- all-out fighting is a foolish strategy
- high potential costs to losing and winning
- selection favours assessment abilities to decide
probable outcome of confrontation and avoid costly
conflict
definitions
-> status / dominance / prestige / leadership
status
- relative standing in group determines access to scarce
resources
- derive through different means
dominance / submission -> physical fighting
prestige / admiration -> prosocial
dominance
- status position achieved through threatening /
intimidating / punishing
prestige
- status achieved through rewards for others
leadership
- disproportionate influence on group decision-making
- often yields status benefits
evolutionary theory of status must …
- specify the adaptive problems that are solved by
ascending status hierarchies - predict which tactics men and women will use to
negotiate hierarchies - explain why individuals accept subordinate positions
within hierarchies
evolved status psychology
-> psychological adaptions for..
- Assessment of your social status
- Knowledge of how to obtain status in the groups you
value
Dominance vs. prestige tactics - Improvement of your relative status vis-a-vis others
- Management of status losses
- Conversion of status into mating opportunities
tactics of hierarchy negotiation
-> deception / manipulation
- derogate others / boast / exclude others
- ingratiate self with superiors / use sex / deceptive self-
promotion
men are more likely
(+) associated with actual salary
lower experiences in life satisfaction
tactics of hierarchy negotiation
-> social display / networking
- cultivate friendships
display (+) social characteristics - participate in social events
enhance the appearance
tactics of hierarchy negotiation
-> industriousness / knowledge
- display knowledge
work hard / obtain education or knowledge - organize and strategize
assume leadership / hold one’s own
highly correlated with educational attainment
(+) correlated with actual salary
evolutionary theory of status
-> elevated dominance and status can give males greater sexual access along two paths
-> status and mating opportunities
- might be preferred as mates by women inter-sexual competition
greater protection and increased access to resources used to help support them - gain increased access to women through intra-sexual domination
take mates of subordinate men -> can’t retaliate
women in polygynous societies often prefer to share
with other co-wives a bounty of resources that a high-
ranking man can provide
-> Rather than have all of the smaller shares of
resources held by a lower-ranking man
Status and mating opportunities
- Empirical evidence supports the evolutionary rationale
For predicting a sex difference in the strength of the
motivation to achieve high status
- Evidence suggests that high status in men leads directly
to increased sexual access to a larger number of women
evolutionary theory of status
-> selection will favour the evolution of subordinate strategies to subvert the access of the dominant individual to key resources
- deception / false subordination / sexual favours
- friendship and manipulation to gain access to resources
needed for survival and reproduction
evolutionary theory of status
-> four status cues
verbal and non-verbal indicators of dominance
- facial domininance / height for men
- stand at full height / facing group
- do not smile much / touch others
- loud + low-pitched voice / walk faster
favoured by selection
evolutionary theory of status
-> self-esteem as a status-tracking mechanism
sociometer theory
- self-esteem (SE) functions as subjective indicator of other people’s evaluations
increased SE signals increased degree to thick one is
socially included and accepted by others
loss of SE follows from a downward shift in the degree to
which one is included and accepted by others
evolutionary theory of status
-> mismatch theory
when internal and external cues are in conflict
four cues of submissiveness
- stand bent / smile a lot / avoid eye gaze
- speak less
- don’t interrupt
- address high-status person rather than whole group
emotions as status-adaption
going up in rank produces different consequences
- elation / pride / increase in helping
plummeting in status consequences
- onset of anxiety
- shame / rage / envy / depression
evolutionary leadership theory
- adaptive mechanism for coordinating group activities
- common across social species
- human universal
- adaptive followership psychology
consisting of decision rules to make fast, automatic,
judgements on who to select as leaders
