Prestige and dominance-based hierarchies exist in naturally occurring human groups, but are unrelated to task-specific knowledge.

ABSTRACT: Prestige and dominance are thought to be two evolutionarily distinct routes to gaining status and influence in human social hierarchies. Prestige is attained by having specialist knowledge or skills that others wish to learn, whereas dominant individuals use threat or fear to gain influence over others. Previous studies with groups of unacquainted students have found prestige and dominance to be two independent avenues of gaining influence within groups. We tested whether this result extends to naturally occurring social groups. We ran an experiment with 30 groups of people from Cornwall, UK (n = 150). Participants answered general knowledge questions individually and as a group, and subsequently nominated a representative to answer bonus questions on behalf of the team. Participant

SUBMITTER: Brand CO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6549959 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature