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There is significant and growing interest in better understanding hierarchy in the international system, especially in relation to intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Acknowledging the existence of hierarchy in a system implies that there are different social positions (higher/lower), but not why or how a specific differentiation came to be used, nor how it is structured, contested or resolved. This article is interested in contributing to these questions, particularly in the context of heterarchical settings (where more than one hierarchy is present), which is also not fully understood. It uses the first years of the International Labour Organization (ILO) as a springboard to reflect upon hierarchy within the so-called 'civilized' group of countries in the immediate aftermath of World War I. This IGO was the first to (1) introduce statistical data to rank countries, with criteria designed to 'objectively' gauge industrial power and (2) establish a geographic allocation of countries in its main decision-making body's structure. Non-European countries and non-great powers had critical roles in establishing these novel ways of dealing with hierarchies and their institutional design in IGOs. One hundred years later, these discussions still resonate with several ongoing cases of contestation in IGOs over 'fair' hierarchical structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feature selection is a critical component of machine learning and data mining to remove redundant and irrelevant features from a dataset. The Chimp Optimization Algorithm (CHoA) is widely applicable to various optimization problems due to its low number of parameters and fast convergence rate. However, CHoA has a weak exploration capability and tends to fall into local optimal solutions in solving the feature selection process, leading to ineffective removal of irrelevant and redundant features. To solve this problem, this paper proposes the Enhanced Chimp Hierarchy Optimization Algorithm for adaptive lens imaging (ALI-CHoASH) for searching the optimal classification problems for the optimal subset of features. Specifically, to enhance the exploration and exploitation capability of CHoA, we designed a chimp social hierarchy. We employed a novel social class factor to label the class situation of each chimp, enabling effective modelling and optimization of the relationships among chimp individuals. Then, to parse chimps' social and collaborative behaviours with different social classes, we introduce other attacking prey and autonomous search strategies to help chimp individuals approach the optimal solution faster. In addition, considering the poor diversity of chimp groups in the late iteration, we propose an adaptive lens imaging back-learning strategy to avoid the algorithm falling into a local optimum. Finally, we validate the improvement of ALI-CHoASH in exploration and exploitation capabilities using several high-dimensional datasets. We also compare ALI-CHoASH with eight state-of-the-art methods in classification accuracy, feature subset size, and computation time to demonstrate its superiority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate crisis presents an urgent problem for World Christianity. Since Lynn White, Jr., argued that 'Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen' (White 1967), theologians have debated to what extent Christianity is responsible for ecological crisis. In this article, I will focus on two related problems for Christian thought that Majority World theologians have highlighted – hierarchy and dualism – in order to postulate what a non-hierarchical Christian worldview might entail, drawing on the work of Sámi Norwegian Lutheran theologian Tore Johnsen, primarily his recently published book Sámi Nature-Centered Christianity in the European Arctic (2022). This article utilises a multidisciplinary, World Christianity approach to theology that draws upon Johnsen's work to examine the two themes of hierarchy and dualism, critically questioning these concepts and examining theological implications for the climate crisis. Johnsen's research amongst the Sámi demonstrates their expression of 'nature-centred' Christianity that exhibits a non-hierarchical cosmology. He contrasts this with Western Christian expressions, in particular that of the Church of Norway. Johnsen's decolonial approach questions aspects of the Western worldview critically and helpfully with reference to the climate crisis. This article therefore problematises two related concepts of hierarchy and dualism, notions which have become embedded within Christian tradition. In questioning these underlying concepts, it draws upon Johnsen's work to consider whether and to what extent a non-hierarchical expression of Christianity might serve as a viable alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction we approach egalitarianism as an upsetting force that in various ways has shaped much of modern, especially Western, human history. We outline philosophical trajectories from the Enlightenment onward; consider the historical realization of an agency of 'the people' for the articulation of state, society, and politics; and highlight some issues that arise when the claims to freedom and equality clash against established institutions and values. Stressing the dynamic intertwining of the egalitarian with the hierarchical, we portray egalitarian life forms as modes of relationality that negate, subvert, or take advantage of open potentials in existing systems. Egalitarian life strives toward reconfiguring social orders through rupturing moments of effervescence and liminality while attempting to redefine central categories of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social hierarchies are ubiquitous features of virtually all animal groups. The varying social ranks of members within these groups have profound effects on both physical and emotional health, with lower‐ranked individuals typically being the most adversely affected by their respective ranks. Thus, reliable measures of social dominance in preclinical rodent models are necessary to better understand the effects of an individual's social rank on other behaviors and physiological processes. In this review, we outline the primary methodologies used to assess social dominance in various rodent species: those that are based on analyses of agonistic behaviors, and those that are based on resource competition. In synthesizing this review, we conclude that assays based on resource competition may be better suited to characterize social dominance in a wider variety of rodent species and strains, and in both males and females. Lastly, albeit expectedly, we demonstrate that similarly to many other areas of preclinical research, studies incorporating female subjects are lacking in comparison to those using males. These findings emphasize the need for an increased number of studies assessing social dominance in females to form a more comprehensive understanding of this behavioral phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how the means by which actors compete for position in the management of international society stratifies international order. Advancing scholarship on hierarchies, it applies a theory of social closure to examine two status groups, The Family of Civilised Nations and the G20, arguing that stratification is reproduced by a dynamic interplay of top-down collectivist exclusion on the part of superiorly positioned actors and bottom-up mimicry performed by those inferiorly positioned. As such, the same means of closure which used the Standard of Civilisation to exclude outsiders from the Family of Civilised Nations in the past stratifies non-state actors today, particularly international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) seeking to play a role in-the G20. This article offers amendments to closure theory in International Relations (IR), demonstrating its utility for analysing contemporary international politics, engaging in trans-historical analysis, and in incorporating non-state actors into enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominance captures behavioural patterns found in social hierarchies that arise from agonistic interactions in which some individuals coercively exploit their control over costs and benefits to extract deference from others, often through aggression, threats and/or intimidation. Accumulating evidence points to its importance in humans and its separation from prestige—an alternate avenue to high status in which status arises from information (e.g. knowledge, skill, etc.) or other non-rival goods. In this review, we provide an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of dominance as a concept within evolutionary biology, discuss the challenges of applying it to humans and consider alternative theoretical accounts which assert that dominance is relevant to understanding status in humans. We then review empirical evidence for its continued importance in human groups, including the effects of dominance—independently of prestige— on measurable outcomes such as social influence and reproductive fitness, evidence for specialized dominance psychology, and evidence for genderspecific effects. Finally, because human-specific factors such as norms and coalitions may place bounds on purely coercive status-attainment strategies, we end by considering key situations and contexts that increase the likelihood for dominance status to coexist alongside prestige status within the same individual, including how: (i) institutional power and authority tend to elicit dominance; (ii) dominance-enhancing traits can at times generate benefits for others (prestige); and (iii) certain dominance cues and ethology may lead to mis-attributions of prestige. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interpretive essay we consider aspects of the existence of social elites in the Nasrid emirate and we raise some of the great problems that still exist regarding them in the historiographic production that concerns the Kingdom of Granada, especially based on Castilian sources. The questions asked range from terminological aspects: What should we call these elites? To conceptual and interpretive questions: Why are they elites and how do they act as such? Is there mutual recognition within the Nasrid elites? How are these higher social groups perceived after the conquest? All this with the aim of building a point of debate for an updated understanding of the social hierarchies of the Nasrid emirate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following World War II, Turkey was keen on being a part of the emerging US-led order. By ceding foreign policy autonomy to Washington, Ankara became one of the United States’ most loyal allies until the mid-1960s. However, the first crisis in Turkish-American relations began in 1964 and culminated in the closure of US bases and facilities in Turkey in 1975. Despite escalating tensions, Turkey remained as a member of the US-led system, limited its challenge to the US to a demand for more autonomy. In this context, this study aims to identify the causes of Turkey’s quest for autonomy within the US-led system from 1964 to 1975 by applying the concepts and arguments of the hierarchy theory, which is relatively new in the field of international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarship on hierarchy held the promise of exposing conditions of systemic inequality in world politics. However, a significant strand of it approached the international order from above, privileging the perspective of dominant actors. I make the case for a from-below approach to hierarchical orders, recognising and accounting for understudied experiences in world politics, but also developing a more accurate understanding of hierarchy. Through a relational-sociological approach, I conceptualise hierarchy as a socially differentiated system predicated on recognition. The experience of misrecognition by way of normative and material constraints constitutes actors as subordinates. I propose a framework for subordinate actors' navigation of hierarchy in quest of social recognition. I identify three strategies that subordinates employ, depending on the misrecognising constraints they counter (normative/material) and the recognition they seek (internal/external). Subordinates may engage in norm appropriation, alternative leveraging, and salvation from victimhood. I demonstrate the applicability of the framework by examining Egypt's quest for recognition in the aftermath of the 2013 military coup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winner and loser effects are widespread among animal taxa and are known to influence hierarchy formation, although it is unclear how rank influences such effects in species organized in social hierarchies. We investigated the existence of winner and loser effects and the effect of social rank on such effects in Neolamprologus pulcher , a cooperatively breeding cichlid fish. Social groups of these fish are organized in strict linear, size-based hierarchies. We successively assigned a dominant or subordinate rank to each of 18 focal individuals in balanced order, followed by an assigned winning or losing experience, respectively, resulting in a two-by-two factorial design. For each of the four treatment combinations, we recorded the performance of the focal fish in contests over a resource with similar-sized, naïve opponents. Assigned winners won subsequent contests more often than losers, were more likely to escalate the contest and showed more overt aggression during a contest. Moreover, individuals with assigned subordinate rank showed more restrained aggression. However, winner and loser effects were not modulated by rank. This study shows that winner–loser effects exist in a highly social fish with linear social hierarchy. Moreover, fighting experience and rank may play complementary roles in conflict resolution. • Whether social hierarchy position influences winner-loser effects is unknown. • In a fully crossed design, we manipulated current rank and winning experience. • Assigned winners showed more aggression and escalated contests more than losers. • Assigned subordinates showed more threat behaviour than dominants. • Rank and winning experience affect contests complementarily but not interactively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies translate social dominance theory to policing, testing the relationship between individual officers' endorsement of social hierarchies and their tendency to use force against residents. This article demonstrates a link between officer psychological factors and force. Because police are empowered to use force to maintain social order, and because White officers hold a dominant racial identity, we hypothesized social dominance orientation (SDO) would relate to force positively for White officers. For Black officers, we hypothesized a weak relationship between SDO and force, if any. To test these predictions, we examined the relationships between SDO and force using negative binomial regression models stratified by officer race. In an eastern city, SDO relates to force incidents positively for White officers and negatively for Black officers. In a southern city, SDO relates to force positively for White officers, and not significantly for Black officers. Stratified by race and rank, a second eastern city shows a marginally significant, positive SDO/force relationship for White patrol officers, and no significant SDO/force relationship for Black patrol officers. Finally, testing our hypotheses on a dataset pooled across these cities revealed a positive SDO/force relationship among White officers, and no significant SDO/force relationship among Black officers. These findings are consistent with our hypotheses and suggest a need to examine the role that maintaining social hierarchies plays in police behaviors. Future research must continue to investigate these relationships, especially with larger samples of non-White officers, and information about officers' patrol environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social hierarchies exist in democracies as well as in authoritarian societies. However, their nature is different. Democratic hierarchies are built bottom-up through election while autocratic hierarchies are built top-down through domination. Both, however, have power asymmetries between the weaker citizens and the stronger politicians, which are amplified the stronger the hierarchies are. This manuscript introduces a model that combines pro-/anti-social behavior with different degrees of hierarchies. It is argued that this model has the power to categorize countries according to these criteria and indicate when and how societies move between democracy and authoritarianism. Importantly, I illustrate that the balance between power asymmetries and principal-agent chains is key for understanding when and why democracies sometimes transcend into authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the analysis of one of the poems of the Portuguese troubadour Pero Meogo, we intend to study the differences between the conceptions of love in the cantigas de amor and amigo, in order to show that, in the latter, due to its popular origins, there is the expression, not of courteous love, but of instinctive love, primary and always connected with Nature. We also want to show that the hierarchy among lovers in love songs is a reflection of the hierarchy existing in the social strata of feudalism and Christianity, hierarchy of all absent in the cantigas de amigo, in which the social equality, carnal desire and the natural world are valued most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since Mary Astell was introduced as the "First English Feminist" in 1986, scholars have been perplexed by her dual commitments to natural equality and social, political, and ecclesiastical hierarchy. But any supposed "paradox" in her thought is the product of a modernist conceit that treats equality and hierarchy as antonyms, assuming the former must be prior, normative, and hostile to the latter. Seeing this, two other crucial features of Astell's thought emerge: her ethics of ascent and her psychology of superiority. These, in turn, illuminate her lifelong fascination with ambition as a feminine virtue, as well as her curious embrace of Machiavelli. Astell's politics and ethics are thus doubly worthy of recovery, both as the product of a singularly brilliant early modern mind and as a fascinating but forgotten vision of "equality before egalitarianism" that sheds light on the persistent complexities of equality and hierarchy to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the notion that peoples speaking Austronesian languages brought the ideology of social hierarchy based on hereditary leadership into the Pacific Islands. This social model contrasts with the strongly egalitarian leadership that likely characterised peoples already residing in New Guinea and nearby islands. While complex interactions between these two groups did occur, particularly in coastal areas, the latter populations rarely adopted hierarchical models of leadership. In contrast, the institution of hereditary leadership burgeoned into elaborate chiefdoms as Austronesian speakers expanded into Remote Oceania. Using linguistic and archaeological evidence, we argue that hereditary leadership, or the institutions to support it, may already have been in place in early Austronesian societies in Taiwan. We further evaluate this correlation by reviewing ethnographic reports of chiefs and reanalysing scholarly appraisals of big-man societies and chiefdoms. We conclude that the 'Melanesian big-man vs. Polynesian chief' contrast corresponds largely to the Austronesian and Non-Austronesian language divide; attention to which can clarify the development of hereditary leadership in the Pacific and illuminate historical relations among cultures in Near Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current collection of articles includes a discussion of Austronesian peoples living in modern nations situated in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Melanesia. It thus crosses many long-established boundaries in area studies which tend to develop their own theoretical dialects. While there are many valid reasons for these theoretical discussions, a shift in focus from geographically defined areas to what might be called 'Greater Austronesia' brings to light new sets of theoretical problems. Our central concern is the extent to which Austronesian societies value social hierarchy over egalitarianism, and the extent to which political leadership is determined through a rule of succession or other form of status ascription, through the competitive achievements of individuals, or actively resisted in the first place through various mechanisms such as the mandatory sharing of wealth, the denigration of ambition, or the dispersal of populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits the Hobbesian account of the state of nature and the formation of states, attending to Hobbes's account of the family. Drawing on feminist readings, we find in the Leviathan an account of the family as a natural political community. We contend specifically that a focus on conceptions of family life in the Leviathan , and in works by Hobbes's early modern peers, points to the role of the family as a site of socialisation in the prelude to early state formation and in the formation of political hierarchies more generally – including, we suggest, the formation of international hierarchies. These accounts have thus far been missing from International Relations theory. Contra conventional IR theoretic readings of the Leviathan , the Hobbesian state of nature contains the seeds of both anarchy and hierarchy, as overlapping social configurations. While anarchy emerges clearly in the famous condition of 'war of all against all', hierarchy also exists in Hobbes's depiction of family life as a naturally occurring proto-state setting. On the basis of this contemporary feminist analysis of a classic text, we consider implications for the emerging 'new hierarchy studies' in IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the dynamics behind the generation of social pathologies in modern society also undermine the social-relational framework for recognition. It therefore claims that the theory of recognition is impotent in face of the kinds of normative power exerted by social hierarchies. The article begins by discussing the particular forms of social pathology and their relation to hierarchical forms of social structure that are based on domination, control and subordination and then shows how the internalization of the norms that shape and hold together hierarchical social formations causes pathologies within the self. As a result of these processes, the recognitive aspects of social action that the theory of recognition posits are unable to overcome and in fact reproduce and in many instances reinforce the pathologies themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the premise that hierarchical behavior is instinctual in many species, including the human, the author explores the biological roots of the social hierarchy, the contexts in which it has evolved, the reciprocal nature of dominant-subordinate relations, and the range of variation from despotic societies to more egalitarian societies. Turning to the human case, a brief summary of history traces a trajectory from early forager societies, who discouraged "upstartism," to the more stratified way of life that emerged with agriculture. As economies grew larger and more specialized, it became possible for a small minority, mostly men, to gain control over resources and governance of the majority of people, including women. Changes in the world in the past two centuries include discovery and use of fossil fuels as a main source of energy, the industrial revolution, accelerated population, and economic growth. This has brought social, economic, and political movement toward equality and human rights, along with strong resistance to such changes. Bowen theory offers a unique way of understanding hierarchical behavior. As part of the emotional system in the family and in society, this behavior is guided by a balance of instinct and reason. The concept of differentiation of self can be taken as a guide for maximizing the adaptive value of hierarchy by observing and managing one's own instincts and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes two contributions. First, I argue that contrary to what was often assumed in the recognition literature, social hierarchies (as in the Hegelian master–slave dynamic) are very stable. Though social hierarchies are relationships of misrecognition, they nevertheless allow for the simulation of recognition for 'the master', and also trap 'the slave' in that role through stigmatisation. Second, I make a historical argument about the state and its role in recognition struggles. The modern state is relatively unique (historically speaking) in being tasked with solving the recognition problems of its citizens. At the same time, the modern state has to derive its own sovereignty from the recognition of those same citizens. There is an inherent tension between these two facts, which forces the modern state to turn increasingly outward for its own recognition. This is why 'the master–slave dynamic' was increasingly projected onto the international stage from nineteenth century onwards (along with the diffusion of the modern state model). As a result, international recognition came to play an even larger role in state sovereignty than domestic recognition (in contrast to common historical practice). This also explains how and why social hierarchies came to dominate international politics around the same time as the norm of sovereign equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allogrooming is a behavioral adaptation present in many primate systems that serves to organize social hierarchies and promote social cohesion by placating future agonistic conspecifics. Lesser Spot-Nosed Guenons (Cercopithecus petaurista) are one species that exhibits allogrooming both in the wild and in captive populations. In a population of C. petaurista, dominant males perform proportionately less allogrooming than do females, possibly indicating dominant individuals are the recipients of higher rates of allogrooming than are subordinate ones. My case study catalogs the activity budgets of three captive Lesser Spot-Nosed monkeys and investigates the relationship between allogrooming, solicitation of allogrooming, and aggression. It also examines whether or not these activities can be quantified as metrics for measuring hierarchy. Consistent with the literature, I found no association between allogrooming and aggression. Instead my study supports a positive correlation between aggression and grooming solicitation as a metric of hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visual perception of individuals has received considerable attention (visual person perception), but little social psychological work has examined the processes underlying the visual perception of groups of people (visual people perception). Ensemble-coding is a visual mechanism that automatically extracts summary statistics (e.g., average size) of lower-level sets of stimuli (e.g., geometric figures), and also extends to the visual perception of groups of faces. Here, we consider whether ensemble-coding supports people perception, allowing individuals to form rapid, accurate impressions about groups of people. Across nine studies, we demonstrate that people visually extract high-level properties (e.g., diversity, hierarchy) that are unique to social groups, as opposed to individual persons. Observers rapidly and accurately perceived group diversity and hierarchy, or variance across race, gender, and dominance (Studies 1-3). Further, results persist when observers are given very short display times, backward pattern masks, color- and contrast-controlled stimuli, and absolute versus relative response options (Studies 4a-7b), suggesting robust effects supported specifically by ensemble-coding mechanisms. Together, we show that humans can rapidly and accurately perceive not only individual persons, but also emergent social information unique to groups of people. These people perception findings demonstrate the importance of visual processes for enabling people to perceive social groups and behave effectively in group-based social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous research has demonstrated that generosity can lead to status gains, the converse effect of status on generosity has received less attention. This is a significant gap because groups and society at large rely on the beneficence of all members, especially those holding high-status positions. More broadly, research on the psychology of status remains largely unexplored, which is striking in light of the attention given to other forms of social hierarchy, such as power. The current work focuses on the psychology of status and explores the interactive effects of status and legitimacy on generosity. In particular, we hypothesize that status will decrease generosity when the status hierarchy is perceived as legitimate because status can inflate views of one’s value to the group and sense of deservingness. In contrast, we hypothesize that status increases generosity when the status hierarchy is perceived as illegitimate, due to efforts to restore equity through one’s generosity. Our results support these hypotheses across 6 studies (a field study and 5 experiments) and empirically demonstrate that the effects of status and legitimacy on generosity can be attributed to concerns about equity in status allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the communities in which anthropologists work are hierarchically organized, and the people who live in them often describe this arrangement in positive terms. Nevertheless, anthropologists rarely paint hierarchy in a favorable light. This special issue aims to question this tendency with ethnographic insights into social contexts where hierarchy is regarded as a desirable social good. By way of an introduction to the research articles, we explore those aspects of Western thought that make it difficult for anthropologists to take hierarchy seriously. In addition, we develop an interpretive approach that treats hierarchy both as a relational form and as a theoretical model-that is, as a framework for understanding value-drawing in part on our own ethnographic research in southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a thought exercise concerning the following observation: many societies define the good by means of the bad and often organize, wittingly or not, methods of destruction to instantiate the good. Such methods, sometimes dressed up as sacrifice, at other times as scapegoating, and still other times as the experience of necessity, always lead to a hierarchy. Whatever the means, destruction helps to organize social systems throughout the world. The article uses well-known models to develop an understanding of these processes. Beginning with the role of sacrifice in the Kula, the analysis touches on lynching in the United States and then, utilizing underplayed facts in Dumont's discussion of India, moves to defense spending in contemporary culture. So why is destruction a form of accumulation, the generator of sociality? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classical sociological literature on Amhara hierarchy describes a society based on open relations of domination and an obsession with top-down power. This article asks how these accounts can be reconciled with the strong ethics of love and care that ground daily life in Amhara. We argue that love and care, like power, are understood in broadly asymmetrical terms rather than as egalitarian forms of relationship. As such, they play into wider discourses of hierarchy, but also serve to blur the distinction between legitimate authority and illegitimate power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnography from Lio, Indonesia, I explore effects on values, categories, and practices that followed the introduction of Catholicism to the area. Hierarchy is treated both as a model of value, conveyed through asymmetrical relations, and as a system of social organization. Hierarchy is employed as a way to order elements of value, to include the social-political sphere of stratification, and as a conceptual tool to analyze the relationship between adat (cosmology) and the Catholic Church. In adat, hierarchical relations constitute a means of social and ritual organization and practice in which the whole is considered superior to the individual, while Catholicism is based on an ideology of egalitarianism. Unlike adat, which pervades every aspect of life, the Catholic religion in Lioland occupies only a delineated niche of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social hierarchies among animal species are established on the dominance-aggressiveness level of the animal aligned with the subordination of their mates. This study aimed to evaluate the association among social rank hierarchy, scrotal circumference (SC), semen quality (SQ), and sexual drive (SD). Adult Dorper rams (n=24) with similar live weight (LW), body condition score (BCS), and age (AG) were subjected to a behavioral test to define the success index (SI) based on male-to-male interactions, determining three social ranks: low hierarchy rams (LHR; SI = 0-0.33; n=9), medium hierarchy rams (MHR; SI=0.34-0.66; n=10) and high hierarchy rams (HHR; SI= 0.67-1; n=5). Afterward, the SC, SQ, and SD were evaluated. The GLM procedure of SAS (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) was used to analyze LW, AG, BCS, SC and SQ variables such as ejaculate volume, and sperm concentration. Microscopic characteristics of sperm cells were subjected to an ANOVA using the MIXED procedure of SAS. The GENMOD procedure was used to assess the effect of social rank (three levels) on the SD variables. Differences were considered as significant at P < 0.05. SC was greatest (P< 0.05) for HHR rams (40.0±3.5) and least for rams with medium social rank (MHR; 29.3±1.20). SQ was greatest (P< 0.05) for HHR rams (3,848±187) and least for LHR (2,660±463). The rejection percentage to mount an estrous ewe or SD was 77.7 for LHR and 20% for HHR and MHR rams (P < 0.05). To conclude, the HHR rams presented the highest successful copulation, the greatest scrotal circumference, and the greatest sperm cell concentration compared with rams with lesser social rank scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant developments in road safety regulation have taken place in Peru during recent years, reflecting international efforts to reduce worldwide fatalities and injuries. A series of measures has sought to bring about transformations in governmentality among passengers on public transport. Seen ethnographically, these have had uneven success on the ground. In rural provinces of Cusco, situated histories and sociologies of mobility have sometimes led to ambivalence, unobtrusive resistance or reinforcement of discriminatory attitudes. This article explores how reception of the regulations has been refracted through class, ethnic and geographical divisions within Peruvian society, and argues for both the applied and theoretical utility of anthropological study of road safety governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of subordination and racialization that legitimate social hierarchies are produced in everyday face-to-face interactions. In the southern Peruvian Andes, interactions among individuals whose linguistic backgrounds are Quechua, Spanish or both are permeated by evaluation of racial status. This article looks at the interactions between both Quechua-speaking villagers and Spanish-speaking city dwellers who board a combi (minivan) to travel and share the same space for over 180 days a year. In their everyday interactions they build up subtle shifting boundaries through the debasement of interlocutors. In this process, boundaries that organize interaction are not constituted through categorical labels (e.g. Indian, cholo and mestizo) or self-ascription, as Barth (1969) posited long ago; rather, boundaries are constituted through the ascription of racialized attributes to subordinate interlocutors and claim a superior position. Such a process shows how relations of social oppression are produced and are part of the interactional order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose that the psychological states individuals bring into newly formed groups can produce meaningful differences in status attainment. Three experiments explored whether experimentally created approach-oriented mindsets affected Status attainment in groups, both immediately and over time. We predicted that approach-oriented states would lead to greater status attainment by increasing proactive behavior. Furthermore, we hypothesized that these status gains would persist longitudinally, days after the original mindsets had dissipated, due to the self-reinforcing behavioral cycles the approach-oriented States initiated. In Experiment 1, individuals primed with a promotion focus achieved higher status in their newly formed groups, and this was mediated by proactive behavior as rated by themselves and their teammates. Experiment 2 was a longitudinal experiment and revealed that individuals primed with power achieved higher status, both immediately following the prime and when the groups were reassembled 2 days later to work on new tasks. These effects were mediated by independent coders' ratings of proactive behavior during the first few minutes of group interaction. Experiment 3 was another longitudinal experiment and revealed that priming happiness led to greater status as well as greater acquisition of material resources. Importantly, these immediate and longitudinal effects were independent of the effects of a number of stable dispositional traits. Our results establish that approach-oriented psychological states affect status attainment, over and above the more stable characteristics emphasized in prior research, and provide the most direct test yet of the self-reinforcing nature of status hierarchies. These findings depict a dynamic view of status organization in which the same group may organize itself differently depending on members' incoming psychological states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have suggested that viewing social inequity as dominant-group privilege (rather than subordinate-group disadvantage) enhances dominant-group members' support for social policies aimed at lessening such inequity. However, because viewing inequity as dominant-group privilege can be damaging to dominant-group members' self-images, this perspective is frequently resisted. In the research reported here, we explored the circumstances that enhance the likelihood of dominant-group members' viewing inequity as privilege. Because social hierarchies have multiple vertical dimensions, individuals may have high status on one dimension but low status on another. We predicted that occupying a subordinate position on one dimension of social hierarchy could enhance perceptions of one's own privilege on a different dimension of hierarchy, but that this tendency would be diminished among individuals who felt they had achieved a particularly high level of success. Results from three studies that considered gender-based and race-based hierarchies in organizational settings supported our hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates the potential found within two approaches that recognize the complexity of social hierarchy in different ways. First, it looks at the revival of class analysis within culturally inflected approaches to class. These have incorporated a number of societal relations, broadly referred to as the symbolic, the social and the cultural, into the analysis. Second, the article assesses attempts to theorize the intersections of gender, ethnicity and class through the intersectionality framework. It considers the potential for developing more integrated analytical frameworks for understanding social hierarchy through cross-referencing these debates. It proposes an intersectional framing which centres on social location and translocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both ethnographic and archaeological studies have been used to critique Wittfogel's hydraulic theory. These, however, often present data that are contradictory and in need of reformulation. In particular, while ethnographic studies emphasize the management of irrigation in the absence of both socio-political hierarchies and marked social stratification, archaeologists continue to see irrigation agriculture as a key influence on the development of personal accumulation and increased social stratification. Through two East African ethnographic case studies, this paper addresses the mechanisms through which irrigation agriculture might contribute to increased social stratification and cautions against the making of simplistic assumptions. I argue that both ethnographic and archaeological lines of critique have resulted in a hasty rejection of the role played by irrigation management in the formation of loci of authority in early complex societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the social hierarchy in zebrafish and assessed differences in neurotransmitters and behavior in the F1 generation offspring of dominant and subordinate zebrafish (Danio rerio). We used behavioral assays to study locomotion, ability to complete cognitive tasks, social interaction and aggression. To study the neurochemical changes, we applied quantitative polymerase chain reaction, high pressure liquid chromatography and immunohistochemistry. Social hierarchies were formed both by males and females when animals were kept in same sex pairs in the dyadic dominant-subordinate hierarchy test. The offspring of dominant animals were the leaders in social interactions, however aggression in the mirror-test was not altered in any group. Serotonin and noradrenaline levels were lower in the F1 generation subordinate animals when compared with dominant animals, but not compared with animals that were naïve to social hierarchy. The mRNA level of the rate-limiting enzyme in histamine synthesis, histidine decarboxylase , was significantly lower in dominant and subordinate larval zebrafish when compared with control animals. In the dominant adult zebrafish tyrosine hydroxylase 1 mRNA level was lower compared with control animals, whereas tyrosine hydroxylase 2 mRNA was not different. The result was verified with immunohistochemistry. There were gender specific differences between the dominant and subordinate animals, where the dominant females performed better in cognitive tasks such as the T-maze than subordinate females. This was not observed in males, as the behavior of the dominant and subordinate males did not differ. These results add to the understanding of the plastic nature of the central nervous system and show that neurochemical features in aminergic neurotransmitter systems are associated with social leadership and dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]