Problems of Group Living PDF

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psychology emotions human behavior social psychology

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This document discusses various problems of group living, focusing on the emotions of rage, envy, and depression, and how they relate to social status. It explores the hypothesized reactions and mechanisms of these emotions and their impacts in various social situations.

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350 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING Rage is another hypothesized reaction to the loss of status. Rage may function to motivate an individual to seek revenge on the person who caused the status loss. The ofen-quoted remark “no one makes me look stupid and gets away with it” might represent an example of t...

350 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING Rage is another hypothesized reaction to the loss of status. Rage may function to motivate an individual to seek revenge on the person who caused the status loss. The ofen-quoted remark “no one makes me look stupid and gets away with it” might represent an example of the rage and consequent revenge that follow the loss of status and might be used to justify retaliatory aggression (Gilbert, 1990). Envy is one of the least studied emotions in psychology but might be extraordinarily important, according to SAHP theory. Envy is linked with rank in that people experience envy when someone else has resources, houses, mates, or prestige that they want but fail to possess. Envy may function to motivate us to imitate those who have what we want. Hero worship and the idealization of others may refect positive manifestations of the emotion of envy (Hill & Buss, 2008b). On the negative side, envy may prompt actions designed to tear down those who have more than we do, such as derogating their achievements. An illustrative example comes from the rock singer Rod Stewart, describing why he has never won a particular music award: “It’s astounding I’ve never won one. They tend not to give it to the British unless you’re Sting [a rock musician who has won]. The sun shines out of his arse—a pure jazz musician, Mr. Serious who helps the Indians” (Newsweek, November 10, 2003, p. 23). Envy might prompt a husband to belittle his wife’s achievements to maintain his superior rank in the marriage (Horung, McCullough, & Sugimoto, 1981). Women tend to experience envy of rivals who are more physically attractive than they are, whereas men tend to experience more envy of rivals who have more sexual experience and more attractive mates (Hill & Buss, 2006). Envy can be extremely destructive in organizations, as when managers undermine the eforts of their own workers to prevent them from outshining them (Maner & Mead, 2010). Depression is the fnal hypothesized emotional reaction to the loss of status, although depression can arise from many other factors as well, including the loss of attachment bonds (Gilbert, 1990). Depression from the loss of rank can occur when a person loses his or her looks, gets fred from a job, perceives self to be a burden on others, or fails in some socially visible manner. Depression sometimes motivates submissive behavior designed to appease others and to prevent the onslaught or continuation of aggression from them (Forrest & Hokanson, 1975). People bounce back from depression when they fnd employment again or otherwise discover a way to bestow value on others and hence increase their SAHP (Andrews & Thomson, 2009). More recent work has focused on the emotion of pride. Pride appears to be an emotion that motivates people to perform actions that are highly valued by others, to advertise those actions publicly, and thereby increase a person’s status and respect in the eyes of others (Sznycer et al., 2017). The emotion of pride emerges early in life, is present in all known cultures, and is activated when a person’s accomplishments and achievements are publicly recognized. Pride can serve a motivational function in causing people to strive to achieve the socially visible accomplishments and also to advertise those accomplishments to others. Not coincidentally, displays of pride turn out to be attractive in the arena of mating. Empirical tests of the functional design of pride have been confrmed in a large-scale study of 16 diferent cultures located on four continents (Sznycer et al., 2017). Humans even appear to have a nonverbal expression of triumph when they have won a contest, particularly an athletic competition (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2012). Winners thrust both their arms in the air, forming a V, perhaps symbolic for victory. The nonverbal expression of triumph, symbolizing the attainment of status or dominance after winning a contest, appears to be recognized across cultures, at least among the American and South Korean cultures in which relevant studies have been conducted. In summary, SAHP theory proposes that many aspects of human emotional life, from elation to depression, from pride to shame, are evolved features of psychological mechanisms designed to deal with the many adaptive problems of status hierarchies. 12 STATUS, PRESTIGE, AND SOCIAL DOMINANCE Indicators of Dominance A variety of verbal and nonverbal characteristics indicate high dominance and status. These range from time spent talking to testosterone (T). This section summarizes the most important correlates of dominance and status. In many cases, causation cannot be inferred from the correlational data. If T is correlated with dominance, for example, does it mean that high T leads to high dominance, or does high dominance lead to high T, or both? If high-status people tend to stand taller than low-status people, does standing tall lead to status, or does status lead to standing tall, or both? We cannot answer these causal questions in most cases. Nonetheless, the correlates of dominance and status provide a fascinating portrait of what goes along with relative rank. Verbal and Nonverbal Indicators of Dominance In summarizing this literature, Argyle (1994) concluded that dominant individuals tend to stand at full height, ofen facing the group, with hands on hips and an expanded chest; they gaze a lot, looking at others while talking; they do not smile much; they touch others; they speak in a loud and low-pitched voice; and they gesture by pointing to others. Not only do people infer physical and social dominance when they hear a man with a low-pitched voice (Wolf & Puts, 2010), men also lower their voices when they believe that they are addressing another man who is lower than they are in dominance (Puts, Gaulin, & Verdolini, 2006). Chief executive ofcers (CEOs) of large companies tend to have deeper-than-average voices (Mayew, Parsons, & Venkatachalam, 2013), as do the presidential candidates who actually win elections (Banai, Banai, & Bovan, 2017). In laboratory experiments, people show selective attention—visual fxations measured through an eye-tracking device—to socially dominant men but not to socially dominant women (Maner, DeWall, & Gailliot, 2008). The behaviors of low-ranking or submissive individuals are typically the opposite: Their body posture is ofen bent rather than straight; they smile a lot (Ketelaar et al., 2012); they speak sofly, listen while the other is speaking, and give many deferential head nods; they speak less than those who are higher in status; they don’t interrupt others who are speaking; and they address the high-status persons in the group rather than the group as a whole. What about walking tall? Walking fast? Schmitt and Atzwanger (1995) predicted that a link between pace and status would occur for men but not for women. Their reasoning: Males over the course of human evolutionary history have competed for females by impressing them with signs of their hunting skills, including locomotory speed and perseverance. In a busy location in Vienna, Austria, one observer measured the pace of pedestrians. Later, a second observer interviewed each individual about his or her age, body height, and socioeconomic status. Walking speed is linked with socioeconomic status for men. For women, in contrast, there were no signifcant positive correlations. The results support the author’s hypothesis that walking speed is a sex-linked status display. During adolescence, socially dominant males and females tend to use both prosocial strategies (e.g., “I infuence others by doing something for them in return”) and coercive strategies (e.g., I often bully or push others to do what I want to do”) (Hawley, Little, & Card, 2008). These are what evolutionary psychologist Patricia Hawley terms “bi-strategic controllers.” Although some favor one strategy over another, the bi-strategic controllers retain their dominant status and popularity, despite the fact that they sometimes use coercive and aggressive strategies to get what they want. Socially dominant male adolescents also have greater handgrip strength, which enables them to more efectively pursue a coercive strategy (Gallup et al., 2007). 351 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 352 Formidability and Dominance: Does Size Matter? Given the complexity of human status hierarchies and the many paths to gaining attention from others, it is a bit surprising that sheer size still counts. Indeed, the term “big man” has a dual meaning in most cultures, referring to both a man of large physical stature and a man of importance, infuence, power, and authority (Brown & Chia-Yun, n.d.). In some cultures, the word for “leader” literally means “big man.” Many status metaphors refer to physical stature, such as “being on top” and “being under someone’s control,” “walking tall,” and “being crestfallen.” In reviewing the ethnographic evidence from various cultures, Brown and Chia-Yun conclude that “‘big man’ is a refection or recognition in culture of a pervasive feature of nature: the tendency among humans (and other animals) for rank or social stature to correlate with physical stature” (Brown & Chia-Yun, n.d., p. 10). The preference that people express for leaders who are tall is found among cultures as diverse as the Aka Pygmies in Africa and the Mehinaku in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil. In contemporary America, people prefer their leaders to be tall; and men who are tall believe themselves to be more qualifed to be leaders and demonstrate a greater interest in pursuing leadership positions than do shorter men (Murray & Schmitz, 2011). Experiments have explored the link between physical and social stature (Wilson, 1968). In one study, the same man was introduced to diferent audiences but was identifed to each audience as having a diferent rank—professor, graduate student, and so on. The audiences were subsequently asked to estimate the height of the man. Audiences to whom the man was described as being high in status recalled him as being taller than audiences to whom the man was described as being lower in status. Even with people we know personally, our mental image of their height is exaggerated if we know them to be high in social status (Dannenmaier & Thumin, 1964). High-status people, in short, are conceptualized as being large in size—they “loom large” in our eyes (Holbrook, Fessler, & Navarrete, 2016). In studies in the United States, tall men have an advantage in being hired, promoted, and elected (Gillis, 1982). Tall men earn higher salaries. In presidential elections in the 20th century, the taller of the two candidates won 83 percent of the time. Even among referees of professional European football (“soccer”), taller referees have more status and authority (Stulp, Buunk, Verhulst, & Pollet, 2012). Although humans might have the most complex and elaborate prestige hierarchies, and the modern worlds of ofces and computers are very diferent from those of ancestral environments, size and strength appear to remain important. Studies show that physically strong individuals are seen as more likely to attain positions of status within an organization, even though physical formidability is not immediately relevant to any of the business tasks (Lukaszewski, Simmons, Anderson, & Roney, 2016). People apparently believe that physically formidable individuals are better at policing withingroup confict and representing the organization’s interests to other groups. Testosterone and Dominance T is an androgen, perhaps the most important class of hormones that contributes to developing and maintaining “masculine” features in a variety of animals (Mazur, 2005). Castrated male roosters, for example, typically fail to develop the red comb and wattles that signal the rooster’s reproductive competence, fail to crow and court hens, and avoid confrontations with other roosters. Among humans, sex diferences in T are large. Men average one hundred-thousandth of a gram of T per liter of blood, seven times the average for women (Mazur & Booth, 1998). Although T is produced in the adrenal cortex, as well as in the ovaries in women, the Leydig cells of men’s testes produce a much larger amount, accounting for the large sex diference. 12 STATUS, PRESTIGE, AND SOCIAL DOMINANCE At puberty, the male testes dramatically increase their production of T, resulting in a tenfold increase over prepubescent levels. This surge in T brings about the changes we associate with puberty: deepening of the voice, increased muscle mass, facial and bodily hair, penis growth, and an increased interest in sex (see Box 12.2 for a brief look at the efects of facial dominance on status and sexuality). 12.2 Facial Dominance A dominant-looking face may be another signal of status. Facial dominance is indicated by qualities such as a prominent chin, heavy brow ridges, and a muscular face; low dominance is indicated by the opposite qualities: a weak chin, slight brow ridges, and a feshy face. Evolutionary psychologists Ulrich Mueller and Allan Mazur (1996) rated the facial dominance of 434 West Point cadets and then followed them through their military careers. They discovered that those with dominant-looking faces obtained higher ranks at the military academy. Facial dominance was also positively linked with their ranks at midcareer, as well as with promotions in late career, more than 20 years afer the initial photographs were taken. In another study, the facial dominance of 58 high school boys was rated along with physical attractiveness and pubertal development (Mazur, Halpern, & Udry, 1994). Subsequently, these boys completed questionnaires that requested information about their sexual experiences. All three predictors—facial dominance, physical attractiveness, and pubertal development—were positively correlated with having experienced sexual intercourse and with the total number of sex partners. Afer statistically controlling for attractiveness and pubertal development, however, facial dominance still signifcantly predicted sexual experience. The authors concluded that a dominant facial appearance leads to increased sexual access among males. Scientists have long suspected that T is closely connected with dominance and status in many species. In one study, for example, low-ranking cows were treated with T (Bouissou, 1978). Subsequently, the treated cows rose in rank among the other cows. When T was withdrawn, they sank to their previous low ranks. A similar efect was documented for low-ranking roosters who were injected with T: Their comb sizes increased, and they rose in the status hierarchy, sometimes to the top position (Allee, Collias, & Lutherman, 1939). The causal efects of T on rise in status among humans are more difcult to document, in part because ethical issues make it more difcult to experimentally manipulate T levels in humans. Higher T levels have been correlated with a variety of dominating behaviors among both prisoners and nonprisoners. High T levels are also correlated with a diverse array of rebellious and antisocial acts, especially among young males (Mazur, 2005). Higher T levels in MBA students are linked with willingness to take risks in a new business venture (White, Thornhill, & Hampson, 2006). The “mismatch hypothesis” posits that placing high-T individuals in low-status conditions or low-T individuals in high-status conditions will create stress and impair cognitive performance (Josephs et al., 2006). The experimenters rigged a laboratory competition that placed high- and low-T individuals in either a high- or low-status condition. They found that low-T individuals thrust into the high-status condition experienced stress, as indicated by elevated heart rate, more focused attention on their personal status, and poor performance on a cognitive test. Similar results were found for high-T individuals placed in low-status conditions. To the extent that T refects a stable individual diference indexing status, individuals may develop successful strategies based on their preferred level in the status hierarchy; putting them into an unaccustomed status level actually interferes with the strategies that they have developed—a speculation that awaits future research. Changes in status often result in changes in T (Mazur, 2005). The T levels of athletes rise just prior to their matches, perhaps making individuals more willing to take risks. Winners of athletic contests show a rise in T for up to 2 hours after the match, whereas the losers show a decline in T. Mood changes accompany T changes, as the high-T winners display an elevated mood relative 353 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 354 to the low-T losers. These efects are most pronounced when the athletes regard the match as important. Similar efects have been documented away from the athletic arena in competitions involving games of chess (Mazur, Booth, & Dabbs, 1992), reaction-time contests in the laboratory (Gladue, Boechler, & McCaul, 1989), and symbolic challenges via verbal insults (Nisbett, 1993). Winners show elevated T levels; losers show depressed T levels. The efects of winning and losing extend even to sports fans who do not participate in the competition. When Brazil beat Italy in the 1994 World Cup in soccer, the Brazilian fans who watched the match on TV showed a rise in T, whereas the Italian fans who watched the match showed a decline (Fielden, Lutter, & Dabbs, 1994). The evolutionary function of these changes in T is not known, but one speculation is that winners are soon likely to face other challengers, so the elevated levels of T may prepare them for further contests. The decrease in T among losers may function to prevent injury by discouraging them from further confrontations until a more opportune time (Mazur & Booth, 1998). Alternatively, the elevated T levels of winners may function to elevate self-confdence, fostering the assumption of a higher-status role, perhaps even motivating sexual encounters. A more indirect link between T and dominance implicates the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of men. WHR is a secondary sexual characteristic that appears to be dependent on T (Campbell, Simpson, Stewart, & Manning, 2002). Men with a higher WHR, in addition to having higher T levels, are generally healthier and have fewer health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and certain types of cancer (Singh, 2000). In two separate experiments, men with higher WHRs rated themselves as more assertive and were judged as more leader-like and dominant (Campbell et al., 2002). One study explored the links between T and the two components of status described earlier—dominance (e.g., “I demand respect from members of my group”) and prestige (e.g., “Others recognize me from my contributions to my social group”) (Johnson, Burk, & Kirkpatrick, 2007). Interestingly, T was positively correlated with dominance but not with prestige, providing further evidence that these two components of status should be examined separately. Another study examined dominance as a function of two hormones—T and cortisol (often called “the stress hormone”) (Mehta & Josephs, 2010). T was most strongly linked with dominance among men who also had low cortisol levels. And T predicts status attainment among real-world executives but only those with low levels of cortisol (Sherman, Lerner, Josephs, Renshon, & Gross, 2016). In short, high levels of the stress hormone may block the efects of T on dominance. Much less research has been conducted on the links between T and dominance and status among women. The scant research there is, however, has failed to uncover the same links found among men. A few studies report a positive correlation between T in women and levels of unprovoked violence in prisoners, but other studies have failed to confrm this link (Mazur & Booth, 1998). One researcher found that status, as assessed through peer judgments, was lower among the women with high T levels, suggesting the opposite efect from that observed with men (Cashdan, 1995). Interestingly, women with high T levels tended to overestimate their own status. Thus, high T levels in these women were linked with high self-assessments of status but with low peer assessments of status. Further research is needed to clarify the links between T and status in women (Grant, 2005). The overall conclusion from this research must be confned to men, and it points to a reciprocal model of causation (Dabbs & Ruback, 1988; Mazur, 2005). High T levels in men might lead to dominating behaviors that lead to high status in some subcultures, but reciprocally, elevations in status appear to lead to elevations in T levels (Bernhardt, 1997). Serotonin and Dominance The neurotransmitter serotonin also has been explored in relation to dominance (Cowley & Underwood, 1997). Prozac, a drug that is commonly used in fghting depression and anxiety, works by increasing serotonin in the brain.

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