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This study investigates the structure of social hierarchies. We hypothesized that if social dominance relations serve to regulate conflicts over resources, then hierarchies should converge towards pyramidal shapes. Structural analyses and simulations confirmed this hypothesis, revealing a triadic-pyramidal motif across human and non-human hierarchies (114 species). Phylogenetic analyses showed that this pyramidal motif is widespread, with little influence of group size or phylogeny. Furthermore, nine experiments conducted in France found that human adults (N = 120) and infants (N = 120) draw inferences about dominance relations that are consistent with hierarchies' pyramidal motif. By contrast, human participants do not draw equivalent inferences based on a tree-shaped pattern with a similar complexity to pyramids. In short, social hierarchies exhibit a pyramidal motif across a wide range of species and environments. From infancy, humans exploit this regularity to draw systematic inferences about unobserved dominance relations, using processes akin to formal reasoning., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

In the course of evolution, social dominance has been a strong force shaping the organization of social systems in many species. Individuals with a better ability to represent social dominance relationships and to adapt their behavior accordingly usually achieve better access to resources, hence providing benefits in terms of reproduction, health, and wellbeing. Understanding how and to what extent our brains are affected by social dominance requires interdisciplinary efforts. Here, we integrate findings from social neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology to highlight how social hierarchies are learned and represented in primates. We also review neuropharmacological findings showing how dopamine, serotonin, and testosterone influence social hierarchies and we emphasize their key clinical implications on vulnerabilities to neuropsychiatric disorders., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Two experiments with preschoolers (36 to 78 months) and 8-year-old children (Experiment 1, N = 173; Experiment 2, N = 132) investigated the development of children's resource distribution in dominance contexts. On the basis of the distributive justice literature, 2 opposite predictions were tested. Children could match resource allocation with the unequal social setting they observe and thus favor a dominant individual over a subordinate 1. Alternatively, children could choose to compensate the subordinate if they consider that the dominance asymmetry should be counteracted. Two experiments using a giving task (Experiment 1) and a taking task (Experiment 2) led to the same results. In both experiments, children took dominance into account when allocating resources. Moreover, their distributive decisions were similarly affected by age: Although 3- and 4-year-old children favored the dominant individual, 5-year-old children showed no preference and 8-year-old children strongly favored the subordinate. Several mechanisms accounting for this developmental pattern are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

Recent research has shown that by the age of 4, preschool children tend to associate social power with the male gender. The present study examined this association with a group of children from a Maya community in Guatemala, where gender inequalities are high, and tested the prediction that a strong gender hierarchy reduces girls' perception of themselves as being dominant in dyadic power situations. However, contrary to our predictions, we did not find that children associated power with the male gender. In Experiment 1, we asked 4 to 7 years-old children (N = 70) to identify themselves with a dominant or subordinate character in same-gender and mixed-gender relationships. In contrast, to what was previously observed with French children, the results showed no significant difference between male and female participants, both of whom strongly identified with the dominant character. In Experiment 2, we asked 4 to 6 years-old participants (N = 70) to assign a gender to a dominant and subordinate character and found a strong own-gender effect, with all participants, males and females, assigning their own gender to the powerful character. Again, this contrasts with previous findings indicating that children from France, Norway and Lebanon did consistently associate power with the male gender. The absence of a male-power association in Maya children is discussed in terms of cultural differences regarding exposure to gender stereotypes, power values and representations of female-male comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In adults, seeing individual faces is sufficient to trigger dominance evaluations, even when conflict is absent. From early on, infants represent dyadic dominance relations and they can infer conflict outcomes based on a variety of cues. To date, it is unclear if toddlers also make automatic dominance trait evaluations of individual faces. Here we asked if toddlers are sensitive to dominance traits from faces, and whether their sensitivity depends on their face experience. We employed a visual preference paradigm to study 18- and 24-month-old toddlers' sensitivity to dominance traits from three types of faces: artificial, male, female. When presented with artificial faces (Experiment 1), 18- and 24-month-olds attended longer to the non-dominant faces, but only when they were in upright orientation. For real male faces (Experiment 2), toddlers showed equivalent looking durations to the dominant and non-dominant upright faces. However, when looking at female faces (Experiment 3), toddlers displayed a visual preference for the upright non-dominant faces at 24 months. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that toddlers already display sensitivity to facial cues of dominance from 18 months of age, at least for artificial face stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions between males and females often display a power imbalance. Men tend to adopt more dominant physical postures, lead conversations more, and are more likely to impose their will on women than vice versa. Furthermore, social representations typically associate males with a higher power than females. However, little is known about how those representations emerge in early childhood. The present study investigated whether preschool children from different countries assign more power to males than to females in the context of mixed-gender interactions. In Experiments 1a (n = 148) and 1b (n = 403), which implemented power through body postures, 4–6 year-old children from France, Lebanon, and Norway strongly associated power with a male character. Experiment 2 (n = 160) showed that although both French boys and girls identified themselves more with a dominant than with a subordinate posture, girls were less likely to do so in a mixed-gender context. In Experiment 3 (n = 213), which no longer used body postures, boys from Lebanon and France attributed more decision power and resource control to a male puppet than did girls. By investigating gender representations through interactions, the present study shows that children associate gender and power at an early age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developmental research suggests that young children tend to value dominant individuals over subordinates. This research, however, has nearly exclusively been carried out in Western cultures, and cross-cultural research among adults has revealed cultural differences in the valuing of dominance. In particular, it seems that Japanese culture, relative to many Western cultures, values dominance less. We conducted two experiments to test whether this difference would be observed in preschoolers. In Experiment 1, preschoolers in France and in Japan were asked to identify with either a dominant or a subordinate. French preschoolers identified with the dominant, but Japanese preschoolers were at chance. Experiment 2 revealed that Japanese preschoolers were more likely to believe a subordinate than a dominant individual, both compared to chance and compared to previous findings among French preschoolers. The convergent results from both experiments thus reveal an early emerging cross-cultural difference in the valuing of dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of four experiments investigated preschoolers’ abilities to make sense of dominance relations. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that as early as 3 years old, preschoolers are able to infer dominance not only from physical supremacy but also from decision power, age, and resources. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that preschoolers have expectations regarding the ways in which a dominant and a subordinate individual are likely to differ. In particular, they expect that an individual who imposes his choice on another will exhibit higher competence in games and will have more resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognition of social hierarchy is a key feature that helps us navigate through our complex social environment. Neuroimaging studies have identified brain structures involved in the processing of hierarchical stimuli but the precise temporal dynamics of brain activity associated with such processing remains largely unknown. Here, we used electroencephalography to examine the effect of social hierarchy on neural responses elicited by faces. In contrast to previous studies, the key manipulation was that a hierarchical context was constructed, not by varying facial expressions, but by presenting neutral-expression faces in a game setting. Once the performance-based hierarchy was established, participants were presented with high-rank, middle-rank and low-rank player faces and had to evaluate the rank of each face with respect to their own position. Both event-related potentials and task-related oscillatory activity were investigated. Three main findings emerge from the study. First, the experimental manipulation had no effect on the early N170 component, which may suggest that hierarchy did not modulate the structural encoding of neutral-expression faces. Second, hierarchy significantly modulated the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP) within a 400–700 ms time-window, with more a prominent LPP occurring when the participants processed the face of the highest-rank player. Third, high-rank faces were associated with the highest reduction of alpha power. Taken together these findings provide novel electrophysiological evidence for enhanced allocation of attentional resource in the presence of high-rank faces. At a broader level, this study brings new insights into the neural processing underlying social categorization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has shown that young children rely on social cues to evaluate testimony. For instance, they prefer to endorse testimony provided by a consensual group than by a single dissenter. Given that dominance is pervasive in children’s social environment, it can be hypothesized that children also use dominance relations in their selection of testimony. To test this hypothesis, a dominance asymmetry was induced between two characters either by having one repeatedly win in physical contests (physical power; Experiment 1) or by having one repeatedly impose her goals on the other (decisional power; Experiment 2). In two subsequent testimony tasks, 3- to 5-year-old children significantly tended to endorse the testimony of the dominant over that of the subordinate. These results suggest that preschoolers take dominance into account when evaluating testimony. In conclusion, we discuss two potential explanations for these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]