Problems of Group Living PDF

PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 340 Figure 12.1 The Efect of Charity Ofer on the Reputation of Altruists in Public and Anonymous Groups Source: Bereczkei, T., Birkas, B., & Kerekes, Z. (2007). Public charity ofer as a proximate factor of evolved reputation-building strategy: An experimental analysis of a...

PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 340 Figure 12.1 The Efect of Charity Ofer on the Reputation of Altruists in Public and Anonymous Groups Source: Bereczkei, T., Birkas, B., & Kerekes, Z. (2007). Public charity ofer as a proximate factor of evolved reputation-building strategy: An experimental analysis of a real-life situation. Evaluation and Human Behavior, 28, 277–284. Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. Reputation increases when donations are made publicly. Leadership and Followership: The Service-for-Prestige Theory Displays that beneft others in the group or that indicate deep knowledge that is benefcial to the group is one of the keys to the evolution of leadership (King, Johnson, & van Vugt, 2009; van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008). Leading and following can be viewed as evolved strategies for solving adaptive problems that involve group coordination such as coalitional hunting and coalitional defense, as well as for resolving conficts that arise within the group. Leaders usually emerge from consensus among group members about who possesses the qualities that are efective at solving these problems of coordination and confict—those who possess knowledge and competence relevant to the task are high in intelligence and signal high levels of generosity by making costly sacrifces for the group (van Vugt, 2006). This line of thinking has led to the service-for-prestige theory of leader–follower relations (Price & van Vugt, 2014). Leaders, according to this theory, provide key services to followers in the form of organizational skills, intelligence, wisdom, and knowledge in relevant domains. These leader-provided services beneft the followers. They produce better outcomes for followers, such as more success at hunting, better defense of the group against attack, more efective warfare on rival groups, or simply superior habitat selection for the group. In return for these services, followers provide leaders with social prestige. Social prestige, in turn, benefts leaders by gaining them better access to resources, including desirable mates. The service-for-prestige theory is fundamentally based on reciprocal altruism, a theory encountered in Chapter 9. Followers incur costs by bestowing leaders with prestige and status. The costs may seem trivial, such as paying greater attention to the leader, laughing at his or her jokes, referring to the leader with prestigious salutations such as Your Excellency, Your Highness, or, in academic contexts, Chairperson or Dean. Ancestrally, though, the costs involved ceding a larger share of key reproductively relevant resources to the leader. The freely conferred prestige on the leader occurs in exchange for the benefts the leader provides in coordinating the group and dispensing wisdom, as illustrated by the following anthropological quote: “Nobody ever tells an Eskimo what to do. But some people are smarter than others and can give good advice. They are the leaders” (Chance, 1966, p. 73). Qualities sought in freely chosen leaders often depend on the adaptive problems that require solution. Hunting and warfare, for example, require athletic ability, strength, skill in weapon use, and displays of courage. Consequently, people in many small-scale societies prefer leaders who are physically formidable, tall, healthy, and brave. These leadership qualities are especially important in a warfare leader. In contrast, intelligence, good social skills, oratory skills, and 12 STATUS, PRESTIGE, AND SOCIAL DOMINANCE ability to unify the group toward a common goal tend to be valuable leadership qualities across both wartime and peacetime contexts (Price & van Vugt, 2014). One quality often sought in leaders is fairness. Fairness, however, has diferent defnitions. One is equity—those who contribute more to the group’s success receive more rewards; those who contribute less receive less. Another defnition, though, is equality—all members of the group get the same rewards regardless of their relative contributions. The services-for-prestige theory predicts which followers will want leaders who adopt each defnition of fairness. Those who are above average in their contributions to the group will favor equity, since they stand to gain more if resources are distributed according to each person’s contribution. Those who are below average in their contributions will favor equality, since they receive the same share as the high contributors despite their below-par contributions. The key point of this theory is that followers have adaptations for granting prestige to some individuals as leaders, and leaders have adaptations for providing services to followers in exchange for the benefts of that prestige. Both leaders and followers beneft from this form of reciprocal exchange. To discover the tactics that people use to attain leadership positions and get ahead in status hierarchies, see Box 12.1. An Evolutionary Theory of Sex Diferences in Status Striving Men and women difer dramatically in the extent to which their reproductive outputs can vary. Because sperm are relatively abundant and males are not obligated to invest heavily in their ofspring, the ceiling for male reproduction is much higher than that for female reproduction. Stated diferently, male reproductive success is typically much more variable than female reproductive success. Nearly all fertile females historically succeeded in reproducing, regardless of their social status, but the same cannot be said of all fertile males. For each man who gains reproductive access to a disproportionate share of women, other men are consigned to matelessness. The more polygynous the mating system—that is, the more variance there is in male sexual access to women— the stronger the selection pressure on males to become one of the few who succeed in reproduction. Furthermore, selection will favor strategies not to be excluded from reproducing entirely. 12.1 Tactics of Hierarchy Negotiation Precisely which tactics do people use to get ahead in status hierarchies? Research has identifed three major tactics (Kyl-Heku & Buss, 1996; Lund et al., 2007): Deception/Manipulation: Derogate others; boast; exclude others; ingratiate self with superiors; use sex; use deceptive self-promotion (e.g., claim credit for the work of others). Social Display/Networking: Cultivate friendships; display positive social characteristics; participate in social events; enhance appearance. Industriousness/Knowledge: Display knowledge; work hard; obtain education or knowledge; organize and strategize; assume leadership; hold one’s own. Although both women and men use all three tactics to get ahead, men are more likely than women to use the deception/manipulation tactic. All three major tactics can be efective in certain contexts. Each of the tactics, however, is correlated with somewhat diferent life outcomes in the context of modern Western organizations. The Industriousness/Knowledge tactic is most highly correlated with educational attainment. Both Deception/Manipulation and Industriousness/Knowledge are positively correlated with actual salary. The use of the Deception/Manipulation tactic, however, appears to come at a cost—those who use this tactic are signifcantly lower in experiencing life satisfaction than those who use the other two tactics (Lund et al., 2007). 341 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 342 Elevated status and dominance can give males greater sexual access along two paths. First, high-status men are preferred as mates by women. High-status men can ofer women greater protection and increased access to resources that can be used to help support them and their children and perhaps even better health care (Buss, 2016b; Hill & Hurtado, 1996). Women in polygynous societies sometimes 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 share of resources held by a lower-ranking man (Betzig, 1986). So one potential beneft of being a high-ranking man is preferential selection by women as a mate. A second path through which dominant men gain increased access to women is through intrasexual domination (Puts, 2010). Dominant men might simply take the mates of subordinate men, leaving these low-ranking men helpless to retaliate. As Daly and Wilson noted, “Men are known by their fellows as ‘the sort who can be pushed around’ and ‘the sort who won’t take any shit,’ as people whose word means action or people who are full of hot air, as guys whose girlfriends you can chat up with impunity or guys you don’t want to mess with” (1988, p. 128). Napoleon Chagnon reported this example of an interaction between two Yanomamö brothers. The higher-status brother (Rerebawa) had an afair with the wife of his lower-status brother. When the cuckolded brother found out, he attacked Rerebawa but received a sound thrashing with the blunt side of an axe. When Rerebawa gave Chagnon a tour of the village, he made it a point to introduce him to his lower-status brother by grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him to the ground, announcing, “This is the brother whose wife I screwed when he wasn’t around!” (Chagnon, 1983, p. 29). This was a serious insult that might otherwise have provoked a bloody club fght if the two Yanomamö men were of equal status. However, the subordinate brother just slunk away in shame, relieved not to have to battle his brother. Status and Sexual Opportunity Is there evidence that elevated status in men actually leads to more sexual opportunities with women? Kings, emperors, and despots throughout recorded history have routinely collected women in harems, choosing the young, the fertile, and the attractive. The Moroccan emperor Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty, for example, had a harem of 500 women with whom he sired 888 children. Evolutionary anthropologist Laura Betzig assembled systematic data from the frst six civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Aztec Mexico, Incan Peru, imperial India, and imperial China (Betzig, 1993). These civilizations spanned four continents and roughly 4,000 years, beginning in about 4,000 b.c. All six civilizations show a remarkably consistent pattern. In India, Bhupinder Singh, Maharaja of Patiala in the early 19th century, housed 332 women in his harem. These included 10 high-ranking Maharanis, 50 middle-ranking Ranis, and other assorted mistresses and servants without rank: “All of them were at the beck and call of the Maharaja. He could satisfy his lust with any of them at any time of day or night” (Dass, 1970, p. 78). This extravagant sexual access to women was restricted to those high in status and power. Many men could aford only a single wife, and some were so poor that they could not aford even one. The rich nobles, on the other hand, could aford harems, and until very recently, in India, many did (Betzig, 1993). In imperial China, a similar story unfolded. In the Chou dynasty in 771 b.c., kings kept “one queen (hou), three consorts (fu-jen), nine wives of the second rank (pin), twenty-seven wives of the third rank (shih-fu), and eighty-one concubines (yu-chi)” (van Gulik, 1974, p. 17). Palace agents were required to scour the land for young, beautiful, and accomplished women, who were then transported back to the palace. The least attractive were given menial work at the palace, while the most attractive were chosen for the imperial harem. The number of women 12 STATUS, PRESTIGE, AND SOCIAL DOMINANCE corresponded closely to the status of the man. The emperor Huang-ti was said to have had intercourse with 1,200 women. The deposed emperor Fei-ti kept six palaces stocked with more than 10,000 women. Great princes were restricted to hundreds of women, great generals had 30 or more, upper-class men housed 6 to 12, and middle-class men kept only 3 or 4 (Betzig, 1993). Across the globe, in Incan Peru, there were “houses of virgins” with 1,500 women, although no upper limit was set on the number. The women waited in these houses until receiving a summons from the king, at which point they were brought to wherever the king happened to be. As in China, the number of women kept depended on the status and rank of the man. The emperors kept the most women, numbering in the thousands. Inca lords kept a minimum of 700 “for the service of his house and on whom to take his pleasure” (Cieza de Leon, 1959, p. 41). Status and rank, it appears, aforded men great sexual access to women in each of the six frst recorded human civilizations. Genetic analyses have confrmed the efects of status, power, and position on reproductive outcomes. Blood samples from 16 populations from around the former Mongolian empire revealed that 8 percent of the men bore a chromosomal “signature” characteristic of the Mongol rulers (Zerjal et al., 2003). The most prominent ruler, Genghis Khan, established large territories for his sons who had many wives and large harems. An astonishing 16 million men in that region are likely descendants of the ruler Genghis Khan, warranting the label “Genghis Khan efect.” Similar genetic results have been discovered in Ireland, where roughly one out of every fve males in northwestern Ireland is likely to be a descendant of a single ruler (Moore, McEvoy, Cape, Simms, & Bradley, 2006). A meta-analysis of 33 non-industrial populations—ranging from the Ache of Paraguay to the Nyangatom of Ethiopia—found that men’s status was positively correlated with several reproductively relevant outcomes. In both polygamous and monogamous cultures, higher-status men had more wives, higher fertility rates, and more surviving ofspring. In polygamous societies but in not monogamous societies, status was also positively correlated with lower ofspring mortality. In monogamous but not polygamous societies, status was linked with marrying younger, hence more reproductively valuable, wives. These efects generally held regardless of whether the cultural subsistence patterns were based on agriculture, foraging, horticulture, or pastoralism. This linkage between status and mating success appears to hold in modern cultures as well, although in dramatically reduced form. Legally enforced monogamy in modern Western cultures restricts the number of women a man can marry. The elimination of harems coincided with the end of the prevalence of despots and kings. Nonetheless, men who are high in status indeed gain greater sexual access to a larger number of women (Perusse, 1993). Because this access occurs in the context of legally enforced monogamy, the increased sexual access of high-status men comes from short-term sex partners, friends with benefts, extramarital afairs, serial girlfriends, and serial marriages. Men scoring high on social dominance, for example, admit having more afairs (Egan & Angus, 2004). Socially dominant adolescent males are more sexually active than their low-status peers (de Bruyn, Cillessen, & Weisfeld, 2012). And modern men who have high incomes and are high in status tend to have more frequent sex and a larger number of children (Hopcroft, 2006; Weeden, Abrams, Green, & Sabini, 2006). A study conducted in Austria revealed that even within universities, male academics in high-status positions had more children than other employees (Fieder et al., 2005). Men in supervisory positions within modern business organizations have more children than their subordinates, an efect not true for women (Fieder & Huber, 2012). Men who are high in status marry women who are more physically attractive than men lower in status (Elder, 1969; Taylor & Glenn, 1976; Udry & Eckland, 1984). High-status men also seek out women who are younger and hence more fertile (Grammer, 1992). Although the structure of modern civilization has changed dramatically from that of the earliest civilizations, the link between a man’s status and sexual access to young, attractive women continues to hold, albeit much less strongly than in the days of kings and despots. 343 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING 344 In sum, empirical evidence supports the evolutionary rationale for predicting a sex diference in the strength of the motivation to achieve high status. All available evidence suggests that high status in men leads directly to increased sexual access to a larger number of women. Elevated status in women, of course, also confers many reproductive advantages such as more resources for them and Alex Joseph, surrounded by his multiple wives, living in a small town in Arizona. their children. But the Historically and cross-culturally, high-status men ofen become efectively polygynous, direct increase in sexual gaining sexual access to multiple women in the form of wives, mistresses, or concubines. access aforded men high in status suggests a more powerful selective pressure for a status-striving motive in men. Are Men Higher in Status Striving? Is there any direct evidence that men are higher than women in dominance or status striving? Surprisingly, few studies have been devoted to this question, but there are some hints. In one six-culture study, Whiting and Edwards (1988) discovered that boys were more likely than girls to engage in rough-and-tumble play, assaults and other aggressive actions, displays of “egoistic” dominance, and acts of seeking attention. Boys in all six cultures were more likely than girls to issue dominance challenges to same-age peers. Girls, in contrast, tended to display nurturance and pleasing sociability more than boys. Psychologist Elenor Maccoby (1990) reviewed the evidence for sex diferences in children across thousands of studies. She described two of the most robust sex diferences in the preschool years: The frst is the rough-and-tumble play style characteristic of boys and their orientation toward the issues of competition and dominance. . . . A second factor of importance is that girls fnd it diffcult to infuence boys. . . . Among boys, speech serves largely egoistic functions and is used to establish and protect an individual’s turf. Among girls, conversation is a more socially binding process. (Maccoby, 1990, p. 516) A sex diference in dominance motivation appears to emerge at an early age. Browne (1998, 2002) argues that temperamental sex diferences, including men’s higher aggressiveness, competitive striving, desire for status, and greater inclination to take risks are linked with sex diferences in status and income in the workplace as adults. Another source of evidence about sex diferences comes from research on social dominance orientation (SDO) (Pratto, Sidanius, & Stallworth, 1993). Those who are high on this orientation endorse an ideology involving the legitimacy of one group’s domination over another, the deservingness of discrimination and subordination of one group by another, and the allocation of more perks to one group than another. Some of the items on the SDO scale are “To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on others”; “Rich people have their money because they are simply better people”; “Some people are just inferior to others”; “Some groups are simply not the equals of others”; “Only the best people [for example, the smartest, richest, most educated, and so on] should get ahead in this world”; “Winning is more important than how the game is played”; “[It is OK to get] ahead in life by almost any means necessary” (Pratto, 1996, p. 187).