CHAPTER 12: STATUS, PRESTIGE, AND SOCIAL DOMINANCE
Chapter Summary
This chapter explored the evolutionary psychology of status and social dominance, phenomena that are
observed widely throughout the animal world from crayfish to humans. A dominance hierarchy refers to
the fact that some individuals within a group reliably gain greater access to key resources—resources that
contribute to survival or reproduction. The existence of such hierarchies poses adaptive problems to
which animals have evolved solutions, including motivation to get ahead and strategies to cope with
subordination. Size is an important determinant of dominance in some species, but in primate species
such as chimpanzees and humans, competence knowledge, generous displays, and social skills at enlisting
allies become critical to attaining high status. High-ranking animals often, although not always, gain
preferential access to key resources needed for survival and reproduction.
The theory of prestige-for-service proposes that humans have adaptations both to lead and to follow based
on the principle of reciprocal exchange. Leaders provide key services to followers in the form of
organizational skills, wisdom, knowledge, intelligence, and sometime physical formidability. These
leadership qualities increase coordination within the group and lead to more beneficial outcomes for
followers, especially in competition with other groups. In return, followers cede prestige (“respect”) and
resources to leaders in exchange for the services they provide. Both leaders and followers benefit by this
reciprocal exchange.
Denise Cummins proposed dominance theory to explain the cognitive mechanisms that might have
evolved to negotiate dominance hierarchies. Dominance theory has two key propositions. First, humans
have evolved domain-specific strategies for reasoning about social norms involving dominance
hierarchies. These include understanding aspects such as permissions (e.g., who is allowed to mate with
whom), obligations (e.g., who must support whom in a social contest), and prohibitions (e.g., who cannot
join the ceremonial war dance). Second, these cognitive strategies are predicted to emerge prior to, and
separately from, other types of reasoning strategies. Empirical evidence supporting this theory includes:
(1) Children as young as age three appear to reason about dominance hierarchies, including the property
of transitivity; (2) people tend to remember the faces of cheaters more if the cheaters are lower in status
than if they are higher in status; and (3) people tend to look for violations of rules among lower-status
individuals when they are asked to assume the perspective of a higher-status individual.
Whereas dominance theory emphasizes the reasoning mechanisms that underlie dominance, SAHP theory
proposes emotional mechanisms designed to solve the adaptive problems posed by living in social
Several theorists have proposed that self-esteem functions in part as a status-tracking device. The esteem
in which we hold ourselves could function in at least three ways: (1) to motivate us to curry favor or
repair social relations when respect from others wanes, (2) to guide us to making appropriate decisions
about whom to challenge and to whom to submit, and (3) to track our desirability in the mating market.
Although most of this chapter focused on the high end of dominance, it is important not to neglect the low
end. Ancestral humans recurrently confronted situations in which they were subordinate, so it would be
surprising if selection had not favored adaptations designed to deal with the problems posed by
subordination. Two hypothesized submissive strategies are deceiving down (lowering one’s self-esteem to
avoid confrontation and to better carry out the subordinate role without incurring wrath from the
dominant) and derogating tall poppies. Cross-cultural research is needed to provide a firmer foundation
for a more complete evolutionary theory of status, prestige, and social dominance and submissive
strategies.
Suggested Readings
Anderson, C., & Kilduff, G. J. (2009). The pursuit of status in social groups. Current Directions in
Psychological Science, 18, 295–289.
de Waal, F. (1982). Chimpanzee politics. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Frank, R. H. (1985). Choosing the right pond. New York: Oxford University Press.
Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a
mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior,
22, 165–196.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Studies have documented that in interactions between 3 people, a clear hierarchy emerges within
(a) 10 minutes,;50 minutes
(b) 20 minutes; 40 minutes
(c) 1 minutes; 5 minutes
(d) none of the above
(a) avoid confrontations with other crickets; becomes less likely to initiate a fight
(b) become more aggressive in subsequent fights; becomes more submissive
(c) both (a) and (b)
(d) neither (a) nor (b)
(a) try to usurp neighboring territories from rivals
(b) seek sexual favors from female crickets
(c) seek additional food supplies
(d) none of the above
4. When Brazil beat Italy in the 1994 World Cup in Soccer Brazilian fans’ testosterone levels
(a) decreased; increased
(b) increased; remained the same
(c) increased; dropped
(d) remained the same; increased slightly
5. Fighting avoidance is beneficial to potential losers because _______________ and beneficial to
(a) they can gain sexual access to females; they avoid the risk of injuries
(b) they risk injury; they risk energetic costs of engaging in a fight
(c) they break social alliances to form new ones; they avoid having to form new alliances
(d) none of the above
6. Although the dominance hierarchy does not have a function, the ______________ do have a function.
(b) strategies of individuals
(c) aggregates they produce
(d) pecking orders
(a) the hierarchy of males and females within a group
(b) a pattern of status within a family
(c) the fighting that dictates who is of higher status and who is of lower status
(d) the fact that some individuals within a group reliably gain greater access than others to key
resources
(a) transitive
(b) intransitive
(c) determined without fighting
(d) pronounced
9. After a victory, a male crayfish will experience excitation by serotonin within a specific synapse while
the loser experiences inhibition by serotonin at the same particular synapse. When the same two crayfish
(a) the winner easily makes the shift to dominant status, but the loser continues to be aggressive
and fight
(b) both the new loser and the new winner easily make the shift to the new status roles
(c) the new winner experiences excitation, and the new loser experiences inhibition by serotonin
at that synapse
(d) the new winner experiences inhibition, and the new loser experiences excitation by serotonin
at that synapse
(a) the number of submissive greetings he receives
(b) his mating success
(c) the number of offspring he has sired
(d) his size
11. Failure to display a submissive greeting to a dominant male chimpanzee by ___________ will often
(a) males
(b) females
(c) both males and females
(d) the dominant male’s offspring
12. A dominant male chimpanzee in a colony typically secures at least ______ percent of all copulations.
(b) 35
(c) 50
(d) 90
(a) are not static
(b) remain stable until a dominant male dies
(c) rarely change
(d) none of the above
14. __________________ provides a powerful adaptive rationale for the evolution of dominance-striving
(a) Sexual access to females
(b) Sexual access to males
(c) Production hierarchies
(d) Testosterone increases
(a) the degree of cooperation over resource acquisition
(b) the role that the sex of the participants have
(c) how long each will last
(d) none of the above
(a) domain-general status
(b) dominance
(c) deference for fear of retaliation
(d) freely conferred deference
(a) the physical protection they can afford; the intimidation skills they can provide
(b) the reproductively relevant rewards they can offer; the physical protection they can afford
(c) the information they can provide; the reproductively relevant rewards they can offer
(d) the intimidation skills; the information they can provide
(a) preferential selection as mates by women
(b) through increased copulatory rates
(c) increased access to women through intersexual domination
(d) all of the above
19. Betzig found that, among the first six civilizations, ____________men disproportionately had
(a) low-status; a greater number of injuries inflicted on them
(b) high-status; greater sexual access to women
(c) low-status; a lesser number of injuries inflicted on them
(d) high-status; lesser sexual access to women
(a) Men with high status are less likely to be sexually polygynous.
(b) The higher the male academic’s position, the more children he has.
(c) Men scoring high on social dominance report having the most affairs.
(d) Men with high status and high income report having more frequent sex.
(a) assaults
(b) aggressive actions
(c) rough-and-tumble play
(d) all of the above
22. Maccoby described one of the two most robust sex differences in preschool years to be __________.
(b) rough-and-tumble play
(c) success at influencing friends
(d) none of the above
(a) lower in men than in women
(b) similar in men and women
(c) a preference for production hierarchies
(d) higher in men than in women
24. Men rated ______________ as more socially desirable than women did; women rated __________ as
(a) egoistic dominant acts; prosocial dominant acts
(b) prosocial dominant acts; egoistic dominant acts
(c) altruistic dominant acts; hierarchical dominant acts
(d) hierarchical dominant acts; altruistic dominant acts
25. Megargee found that ______________ of the high-dominant men and women became leaders in
(a) the minority
(b) all
(c) the majority
(d) none
26. Megargee found that, when low-dominance men were teamed with high-dominance women, the men
(a) appointment by the women
(b) women’s suppression of their own dominance
(c) men’s compulsion to assume the standard sex role of higher dominance
(d) none of the above
(a) rule reasoning and social reasoning
(b) diatonic reasoning and indicative reasoning
(c) deontic reasoning and indicative reasoning
(d) temporal reasoning and diatonic reasoning
28. For deontic rules, people seek out ______________; for indicative rules, people seek out
(a) dominance hierarchies; production hierarchies
(b) indicators of status; strategic rule violators
(c) rule violations; instances that conform to the rule
(d) instances that conform to the rule; rule violations
(a) honest individuals of high status were easiest to remember
(b) noncheaters were more easily remembered than cheaters
(c) it is easier to remember cheaters if they are high in status
(d) it is easier to remember cheaters if they are low in status
(a) an absolute value of physical dominance
(b) an evaluation of the organism’s relative strengths and weaknesses compared to peers
(c) the amount of money a person saves per year
(d) the quality and quantity of attention others pay to a particular person
(a) increase their helping behaviors
(b) decrease their helping behaviors
(c) greater envy
(d) are more likely to avoid competition
(a) dissuade rivals from perceiving you as a threat
(b) invoke kin in status disputes
(c) avoid status loss
(d) deceptively usurp the status of others without obvious signals that their status is being usurped
33. Women experience more envy over a rival’s ______________ while men experience more envy over
(a) physical attractiveness; sexual experience
(b) sexual experience; physical attractiveness
(c) status; resources
(d) resources; status
(a) more attractive
(b) less attractive
(c) shorter
(d) taller
35. Mueller and Mazur found that _________ predicted attainment of higher ranks in the military twenty
(a) dominance hierarchies
(b) facial symmetry
(c) facial dominance
(d) performance
36. Mismatch experiments which involve placing high-testosterone individuals into low-status situations
(a) both sets of participants experienced elevated stress levels
(b) only low-testosterone participants experienced elevated stress levels
(c) only high-testosterone participants experiences elevated stress levels
(d) neither set of participants experienced elevated stress levels
37. McGuire and Raleigh studied serotonin levels in association with dominance and found that
(a) alpha males possessed the lowest levels of serotonin
(b) social rank was not correlated with serotonin in their subjects
(c) as a lower-ranking individual gained status, his serotonin level increased
(d) as a lower-ranking individual gained status, his serotonin level decreased
(a) not adaptive
(b) a subjective indicator of other people’s evaluations of oneself
(c) not favored by natural selection, but instead is a byproduct of other psychological mechanisms
designed to deal with problems associated with status striving
(d) incapable of being investigated empirically
39. When exposed to _______________ women rated themselves as less desirable than their mates; when
(a) photos of physically attractive women; photos of highly dominant men
(b) photos of low-dominance men; photos of highly dominant men
(c) photos of physically attractive women; photos of physically unattractive women
(d) photos of highly dominant men; photos of low-dominance men
(a) Young people
(b) Older people
(c) Women
(d) Men
(a) preserve self-esteem
(b) attain higher status
(c) bolster one’s reputation as a cooperative and worthy ally
(d) avoid risks and costs imposed by dominant individuals by portraying oneself as subordinate
(a) the feeling one has when confronted by a highly dominant individual
(b) the experience of pleasure at another’s misfortune
(c) an attempt to feign interest in a lower-status individual
(d) a coup in which the alpha male is overthrown
43. Feather investigated how people react to the failure of another individual. Which of the following is
(a) If the individual was low-status, participants felt more pleasure.
(b) Subjects with low self-esteem reported more delight than subjects with high self-esteem.
(c) When the individual’s success was apparently not deserved, observing his failure was more
pleasing to subjects.
(d) If the individual who failed had high status, participants felt more pleasure.
(a) engaging in monogamous relationships
(b) making large anonymous donations
(c) displaying dominance in intrasexual competition
(d) costly signaling
(a) possession and demonstration of specialized knowledge
(b) obtaining the highest-quality mate in the group
(c) demonstrating the highest formidability in intrasexual competition
(d) making large anonymous donations
(a) simultaneously pursue aspects of fast and slow life history strategies
(b) exert control over both high-status and low-status individuals by behaving prosocially
(c) engage in prosocial and coercive strategies to obtain dominance and popularity
(d) all of the above
47. Contemporary Americans prefer their leaders to be _________, and such individuals also believe
(a) heavier
(b) tall
(c) altruistic
(d) coercive
(a) testosterone is associated with dominance but not prestige
(b) testosterone is associated with dominance in men, but prestige in women
(c) testosterone is associated with prestige in men, but dominance in women
(d) testosterone levels are correlated with intelligence
(a) Testosterone is highly linked to dominance only among men who are high in cortisol.
(b) Testosterone is highly linked to dominance only among men who are low in cortisol.
(c) High levels of cortisol predict dominance only among men who are low in testosterone.
(d) High levels of cortisol predict dominance only among men who are high in testosterone.
(a) among single women
(b) among mated women
(c) among single men
(d) among mated men