Problems of Group Living Ch 12 PDF

338 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING Increased sexual access by dominant male chimps seems to be especially pronounced when the females enter estrus (Ellis, 1995). Three of the four studies that examined this li...

338 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING Increased sexual access by dominant male chimps seems to be especially pronounced when the females enter estrus (Ellis, 1995). Three of the four studies that examined this link found that dominant males experienced greater sexual access when females entered estrus and were thus most likely to conceive. Subordinates’ sexual access occurs when the females are less likely to conceive. One study using DNA fingerprinting supported this conclusion, finding that high-ranking males had indeed sired a disproportionate number of offspring. Similar results on the links between dominance, sexual access, and reproductive outcomes occur with orangutans, baboons, and macaques (Ellis, 1995; Rodriguez-Llanes, Verbeke, & Finlayson, 2009). Two other key features of primate dominance hierarchies have been noted (Cummins, 1998, 2005). First, hierarchies are not static. Individuals continually compete for elevated position and sometimes usurp a dominant male. Ousted males sometimes regain a measure of their former dominance. Deaths and injuries of a dominant animal can result in a period of instability in which others rush to fill the void at the top of the hierarchy. Individuals continuously jockey for position in the hierarchy, rendering it an ever-changing rather than static form of social organization. Second, the physical size of a primate is not the primary determinant of rank. Dominance in primate hierarchies depends heavily on social skills, notably the ability to enlist allies on whom one can rely for support in contests with other individuals. In one documented case, a subordinate male ended his alliance with an alpha male because the alpha had refused to support him in contests with another male over sexual access to a particular female (de Waal, 1982). Increased sexual opportunities with females provide a powerful adaptive rationale for the evolution of dominance-striving mechanisms. It also suggests an evolutionary basis for the sex difference in the dominance-striving motive. Evolutionary Theories of Dominance, Prestige, and Status An evolutionary theory of status must specify the adaptive problems that are solved by ascending status hierarchies, as well as explain why individuals accept subordinate positions within hierarchies. Ideally, a good theory should be able to predict which tactics people will use to negotiate hierarchies. Academics, for example, jockey for position, but in different ways than might occur in an inner-city neighborhood: “Brandishing a switchblade at a scholarly conference would somehow strike the wrong note, but there is always the stinging question, the devastating riposte, the moralistic outrage, the withering invective, the indignant rebuttal, and the means of enforcement in manuscript reviews and grant panels” (Pinker, 1997, p. 498). A good theory would also have to account for why status striving appears to be so much more prevalent among males than among females. Ideally, such a theory would also account for the behavior of those consigned to subordinate status. For example, there is compelling evidence from traditional societies that people use ridicule, ostracism, and even homicide to deter individuals whose ambitions lead them to strive for dominance over others in the group (Boehm, 1999). An ultimate theory should explain why people often strive for equality among members of the group (Boehm, 1999; Knauft, 1991). A good theory would also differentiate between dominance hierarchies, which determine the allocation of resources, and production hierarchies, which involve coordination and division of labor for the purpose of achieving a group goal (Rubin, 2000). Finally, a good theory should identify the different paths to elevated rank or status. Several authors make a critical distinction between dominance and prestige as two distinct routes to status (elevated rank) (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Maner, 2017). Dominance involves force or 12 STATUS, PRESTIGE, AND SOCIAL DOMINANCE 339 the threat of force. Thus, a schoolyard bully or a Mafia “made man” may attain status through an ability to inflict physical punishment on others. Individuals may defer to these dominants and relinquish resources to them in order to avoid incurring the costs of violence or the threat of force. Prestige, in contrast, is regarded as “freely conferred deference.” Individuals may attain high prestige because they have special skills, knowledge, or social connections. Prestige hierarchies tend to be domain specific. One person may defer to another who has superior hunting skills; another might defer to the healer who has superior medicinal skills. Among the Tsimane of Bolivia, for example, skill in food production is an excellent indicator of “respect,” whereas physical size best predicts dyadic ranking of fighting ability (von Rueden, Gurven, & Kaplan, 2008). Whereas dominant individuals might instill fear in subordinates, prestigious individuals evoke admiration. Prestigious individuals may be sought for the information they can provide (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001) or for the reproductively relevant benefits they can bestow (Buss, 1995b). Thus, lower-ranking individuals seek to approach and imitate prestigious individuals, who possess valuable information that can be acquired. A more recent framework proposes that the key to status is competence (Chapais, 2015). The forms of competence include fighting ability, skill at making and handling weapons, ability to recruit allies, leadership skills, ability to inflict costs on others, and so on. This unitary model of status breaks down the sharp distinction between dominance and prestige described above because both require competence. You can’t use force without the competence to successfully deploy it. You can’t acquire prestige as a hunter or as a medical healer without actual competence at hunting or medical healing. In short, although there are several paths to status, competence in the relevant domains may be the key underlying all those paths. Prestige Signaling, Altruism, and Reputation In Chapter 9, we explored the role of costly signaling in the evolution of cooperation and altruism. Costly signaling also plays a key role in the acquisition of prestige (Bliege Bird & Smith, 2005; Boone, 1998; Plourde, 2008). In traditional hunter-gatherer societies, signaling comes in forms such as throwing lavish feasts for the group, providing meat from difficult-to-capture prey animals, or displaying knowledge that is valuable to the group. In modern social groups, individuals acquire prestige by displaying high levels of competence on tasks that groups value, displaying generosity by giving more than taking, and making personal sacrifices that signal commitment to the group (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009). In the path to prestige, it is better to give than to receive. One of the keys to prestige signaling is that others have to be aware of the individual’s signals in order to accord prestige. In one experiment, participants were given an opportunity to contribute to a charity to help needy people either anonymously or in the presence of others in their group (Bereczkei, Birkas, & Kerekes, 2007). Subsequently, changes in social reputation (e.g., how much others respected the individual) were examined as a function of whether the individual offered or did not offer charity and whether the behavior was observed by others or anonymous (see Figure 12.1). Those who chose to contribute to the charity experienced a dramatic boost in prestige in the eyes of others, but only if the contributions were made publicly. Reputation is so important that people are willing to suffer huge costs in order to avoid a bad reputation. One interesting study gave people different choices in which they had to select between damage to social reputation and incurring a different form of large cost (Vonasch, Reynolds, Winegard, & Baumeister, 2017). One dilemma pitted having a reputation as a criminal and spending no time in jail versus spending a year in jail but no longer being considered a criminal by one’s community. Forty percent chose to spend a year in jail. Another dilemma asked people to choose between living to the ripe old age of 90, but after your death, people would remember you (falsely) as a pedophile who sexually abused children versus dying right now and being fondly remembered by your community. Fifty-three percent chose to die right now. As the authors state, some people choose “death before dishonor.” These findings point to the prime importance of status and reputation in the human mind.  340 PROBLEMS OF GROUP LIVING Figure 12.1 The Effect of Charity Offer on the Reputation of Altruists in Public and Anonymous Groups Source: Bereczkei, T., Birkas, B., & Kerekes, Z. (2007). Public charity offer 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 benefit others in the group or that indicate deep knowledge that is beneficial 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 conflicts that arise within the group. Leaders usually emerge from consensus among group members about who possesses the qualities that are effective at solving these problems of coordination and conflict—those who possess knowledge and competence relevant to the task are high in intelligence and signal high levels of generosity by making costly sacrifices 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 benefit the followers. They produce better outcomes for followers, such as more success at hunting, better defense of the group against attack, more effective 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, benefits 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 benefits 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 341 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 different definitions. One is equity—those who contribute more to the group’s success receive more rewards; those who contribute less receive less. Another definition, 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 definition 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 benefits of that prestige. Both leaders and followers benefit 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 Differences in Status Striving Men and women differ 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 offspring, the ceiling for male reproduction is much higher than that for female reproduction. Stated differently, 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 identified 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 effective in certain contexts. Each of the tactics, however, is correlated with somewhat different life outcomes in the context of modern Western organizations. The Industri- ousness/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 significantly lower in experiencing life satisfaction than those who use the other two tactics (Lund et al., 2007).