Vertical relationships I

Question 1

Social hierarchy application in animals

Answer 1

Hierarchy is one of those recipes for living that have been evolved, tested, and winnowed through hundreds of generations of human social history.’’
(Campbell, 1975, p. 1103)

Observes hierarchy relationships in fish, dolphins, elephants

Elephants are quite interesting because they are patriachal- so the older female elephant has a unique hierarchical role to play (eg. finding water)

Question 2

Definition of social hierarchy

Answer 2

Social hierarchy is an implicit or explicit rank order of individuals or groups with respect to a valued social dimension (Magee & Galinsky, 2008, p.354)

Question 3

What does the social psychology of hierarchy distinguish?

Answer 3

Power = asymmetric control over valued resources (resources can be inclusive eg how much money you make or how large your access to possible mates is. Additionally it can be access to information)- putting some people in higher power and others in lower power position

Status = admiration/respect in the eyes of others

Leadership = social influence to achieve shared goals (can be based both on power and on status)

Question 4

Example to differentiate power and status

Answer 4

Some business leaders have large amounts of money but are not necessarily respected or admired

Or

Individuals who inspire you (Mark mcghandi) but they chose to live in a condition of poverty (high status but no power)

Question 5

Functionality of social hierarchy
Group level
- overall benefit
- 3 positives

Answer 5

Better Coordination & Less Conflict

• Coordinates collective locomotion & decision-making
• Reduces role conflict and increases Team performance
• Without hierarchy, group performance suffers

Question 6

Functionality of social hierarchy
Individual level
- overall benefit
- 2 implications

Answer 6

Higher rank is desirable

• (increases) Access to mates, valued resources, respect and admiration
• Less Stress and better health outcomes (both physical and mental)

(most of the time, when theres an absence of hierarchy, our performance suffers → we do worse as a team)

Question 7

What does hierarchy improve?

Answer 7

Intra-group coordination
Intra-group conflict

Question 8

Hierarchy & Coordination
Basketball example- Halevy et al. (2012) METHOD

Answer 8

Basketball – the quintessential team sport
- Archival data of NBA teams from 11 seasons, primarily from the NBA’s official website.
- He operationalised hierarchical differences by computing the pay dispersion (some people would make a lot of money and others would only make a little bit of money)
- Aim was to see whether the team who had greater paid dispersion win more often/ do better

Measures
- Hierarchy: salary dispersion
- Intragroup coordination and cooperation:
assists, turnovers (reverse-scored), defensive rebounds, and field-goal percentage
- Team performance: winning percentage

Question 9

Hierarchy & Coordination
Basketball example- Halevy et al. (2012) RESULTS

Answer 9

Pay dispersion (difference in salary) positively predicts cooperation and coordination

The more there was a hierarchal difference in these NBA teams, the more they cooperated and coordinated (they had more assists, turnovers)

This in turn predicted the team performance → teams with higher pay dispersion performed better and won more games because they cooperated and coordinated more.

(pay dispersion → cooperation & coordination →team performance)

Question 10

Hierarchy reduces Intra-group Conflict:
Pecking orders and basketball example

Answer 10

Pecking orders
- Look into poultry colonies and you put together chickens who lay the most eggs into one cage, the cage wide production of eggs is reduced.
(Individually you chose the chickens that lay the most eggs but once you put them together in the same cage, the cage wide production of eggs goes down)

Basketball example:
- The three best basketball players at the time came together to play for the same team. They lost in first season
- Only in the second season when one was injured and it was clear that LeBron James was the leader, they started to win the NBA championship.

SO there seems to be something about having too many leaders in the same team/ in the same cage that produces reduced performance. This could be because theres too much inter group conflict

Question 11

Hierarchy & Conflict
Estimating prenatal testosterone by looking and second and fourth finger digit- what do different finger heights mean?

Answer 11

Looking at whether your index and ring finger correlates is associated with prenatal testosterone levels in your mothers womb.

If ring finger (4D) is larger than index finger (2D) → more testosterone available

Same height → assumption that hormone levels of oestrogen were higher.

Prenatal Testosterone:
2D:4D ratio

testosterone predicts desire for power

Question 12

Hierarchy & Conflict- Ronay et al. (2012)
Aim, participants, experimental conditions, procedure + prediction

Answer 12

Aim
He was interested in whether testosterone levels predict inter group conflict and as a result, performance of teams. (testosterone is linked to dominance)

Participants
- 109 psychology undergraduate students
- Measured difference between ring finger and index finger

Experimental conditions
SD of right-hand 2D:4D ratio:
groups of everyone high-testosterone (individuals who have longer ring finger) participants vs.
groups with mixed- testosterone (some fourth fingers longer than the second but not all in group) participants

Procedure
Pp’s then did a game where they had to form words and sentences from matrix of 16 letters
Questionnaire measure of Intra-group conflict
“there was conflict in my group”
(task requiring pp’s to collaborate)

Prediction→ in higher testosterone groups that cooperation breaks down.

Question 13

Hierarchy & Conflict- Ronay et al. (2012)
RESULTS

Answer 13

Productivity in high testosterone groups was lower than in mixed testosterone groups because they encountered more intra group conflict.

Question 14

What is social power?

Answer 14

Asymmetric control over valued resources in social relationships

Question 15

What are the five bases of social power and are they linked to social power or social status?

Answer 15

Coercive Power: ability to administer punishment (Social Power)
Reward Power: ability to administer rewards (Social Power)
Expert Power: Special knowledge and skills (Social Status)
Referent Power: Desirable resources/ traits (Social Status)
Legitimate Power: Legitimacy to prescribe behaviour (Social Power and Status)

Question 16

Power and Agency
What is the approach-inhibition theory of power?
What is the reason for it?

Answer 16

The approach-inhibition theory of power (Keltner et al., 2003) holds that whilst low-power individuals are oriented towards understanding the needs of the powerful, high-power individuals are oriented towards what they want and how to obtain it.

This is because having power or lacking power differentially activates the neurobiological system of approach (BAS) versus inhibition (BIS).

Question 17

So… what does power do?

Answer 17

liberates, leading to action as well as abstract, independent thinking:
- Greater assertiveness
- More optimism & greater risk-taking
- Greater goal-consistent behaviour
- Better executive functioning

Question 18

Power example

Answer 18

Researchers wanted to see whether students who came into the laboratory which switch their phone off or at least turn it around.

Before they were let into the laboratory they were asked to think about a personal event where they had control over another person (high power) or another person had control over them (low power).

They observed that pp’s who were just made to think autobiographical events when they had power over another person were more likely to turn the friend away. They were more likely to go into action, approach and change their environment compared to low power holders.

So… power increases agency and approach behaviour

Question 19

Power & Self-focus
What does the Social Distance Theory of Power say?

Answer 19

The Social Distance Theory of Power (Magee & Smith) holds that having power makes people experience less dependency on others and thus feel distant from others.

Question 20

So… what is power?

Answer 20

Thus, power is self-focused, leading to overly positive self-aggrandising self views:
- More positive self-views (Fast et al., 2009)
- Less perspective taking (Galinsky et al., 2006)
- Less empathetic concern (Van Kleef et al., 2008)
- Less likely to consider advice (Tost et al., 2012)
- More likely to cheat (Dubois et al., 2013)

Question 21

Power and self-focus study: Galinsky, et al (2015)
Participants, experimental conditions, procedure

Answer 21

Participants
57 psychology undergraduate students

Experimental conditions
High Power: recall and write about a personal incident in which they had power over another individual
Low Power: recall and write about a personal incident in which someone else had power over them.

Procedure
With your dominant hand, as quickly as you can, draw a capital letter E on your forehead with the marker provided.
We can carry this out in two ways:
- self focused- write it so I can read
- audience perspective- mirror how you would write capital E on forehead

Question 22

Power and self-focus study: Galinsky, et al (2015)
RESULTS

Answer 22

Participants took the perception of the person in front of them less when experiencing high compared to low power

In the high power condition, pp’s more likely to use self-focused E rather than Other oriented E

Question 23

Power and culture study: Torelli & Shavitt (2010)
Aim, Participants and Experimental conditions

Answer 23

Aim
He wondered whether being European, Asian or Hispanic American would change how people would think about power and do pp’s differ in how vividly they think about that event?

Participants
European and Hispanic Americans participants

Experimental conditions
1- Write about personalised power: remember a situation in which they “had power over others, impressed, influenced, acquired status, or were praised by others”
(how people can use power themselves- had benefits to you)

2- Write about socialised power: remember a situation in which they “had the power to help others, gave unsolicited help, assistance, advice, or support to some other person.”
(power to help others, assistance, advice, support)

Question 24

Power and culture study: Torelli & Shavitt (2010)
RESULTS

Answer 24

Hispanic Americans compared to European and Asian Americans recalled having personalised power less vividly but socialised power more vividly

• So the results from this study suggest that our up bringing/ socialisation/ cultural background can have important implications for how we experience social power.