What makes a man "high value?"
Thread on the Dual Evolutionary Model of Social Hierarchy 🧵
Thread on the Dual Evolutionary Model of Social Hierarchy 🧵
This model was first published in 2001 by Henrich & Gil-White. The general idea is this:
Dominance and prestige provide two pathways to ascend the social dominance hierarchy.
An evolutionary model, this boils down to enhancing reproductive fitness.
psycnet.apa.org
Dominance and prestige provide two pathways to ascend the social dominance hierarchy.
An evolutionary model, this boils down to enhancing reproductive fitness.
psycnet.apa.org
These are not mutually exclusive, they may interact, but the pathways are also very different in many ways. I'll refer to this paper from Cheng et al (2010) for examples. Coauthored here with Henrich from the original model.
psycnet.apa.org
psycnet.apa.org
I'll refer to "status" here as the outcome. Basically, dominance and/or prestige = status.
And status enhances reproductive fitness. By making high status mates more attractive, granting access to more mates, and a couple of other mechanisms.
And status enhances reproductive fitness. By making high status mates more attractive, granting access to more mates, and a couple of other mechanisms.
Enter pride. Pride is a status signal and a motivator of status-seeking. Psychologists have distinguished "authentic" pride from "hubristic" pride.
Important - because we will see how these correlate with both dominance/prestige, as well as prosocial/antisocial behavior.
Important - because we will see how these correlate with both dominance/prestige, as well as prosocial/antisocial behavior.
Dominance in this model is largely antisocial. We often talk colloquially about a positive, masculine dominance (confidence, etc.). Dominance here is more antisocial aggression.
Prestige refers to ability, mastery of skills, knowledge, and contribution to the group.
Prestige refers to ability, mastery of skills, knowledge, and contribution to the group.
The dominance/prestige model seems robust imo. It works well with cultural differences and is consistent with culture-specific ways that these strategies may play out. It helps explain why, perhaps more importantly how, both good and evil men can rise in status.
Dominance and prestige are not equal; context determines the most viable strategy. Prestige may be less valuable in a prison. Dominance may be less valuable on a university campus.
Macro-level contexts across society may favor one more and consistently.
Macro-level contexts across society may favor one more and consistently.
At the moment, Western society incentivizes prestige much more imo. Dominance strategies, which often boil down to coercion and violence, are usually swiftly punished.
Prestige strategies are rewarded.
Prestige strategies are rewarded.
Moving on to some results from this paper:
Hubristic pride is associated positively with dominance, but negatively with prestige.
Hubristic pride is associated positively with dominance, but negatively with prestige.
The personality profiles of dominance and prestige are also different.
Dominance strategists are lower in self esteem, social acceptance and agreeableness. They have lower GPAs.
Prestige strategists score higher in the facets we tend to associate with mate attractiveness.
Dominance strategists are lower in self esteem, social acceptance and agreeableness. They have lower GPAs.
Prestige strategists score higher in the facets we tend to associate with mate attractiveness.
Both dominance and prestige are associated with assertiveness, but dominance is lacking in some other prosocial sub-facets as well.
This was based on self-ratings. Study 2 in this paper compared this with peer ratings. Good ecological validity in this study imo, as they sampled people from natural peer groups.
Peer ratings were basically the same as the self ratings above:
Peer ratings were basically the same as the self ratings above:
Here is a table of results. Notable ones not already mentioned:
Prestige is associated with higher leadership, morality, helpfulness, altruism, athletic ability, intellectual ability and advice-giving ability.
Prestige is associated with higher leadership, morality, helpfulness, altruism, athletic ability, intellectual ability and advice-giving ability.
High prestige behavior in meme format:
A more recent paper by Henrich (2015): the "Big Men" of cultural groups across the world tend to be more pro-social, more generous and more cooperative.
In this an evolutionary model for prestige is outlined where dominance strategies were supplanted by prestige strategies as society became more cohesive, or advanced.
Three steps:
The evolution of selecting good behavioral models, deference to prestige and cultural learning as a method to gain prestige and ascend the hierarchy.
The evolution of selecting good behavioral models, deference to prestige and cultural learning as a method to gain prestige and ascend the hierarchy.
Basically:"Learners use cues of success, skill and prestige—among others—to figure out who to learn from."
Back to Henrich & Gil-White's 2001 paper, the section on prestige and "honest signals" in the next Tweet.
Back to Henrich & Gil-White's 2001 paper, the section on prestige and "honest signals" in the next Tweet.
"Honest signals" refer to traits (signals, behaviors, etc.) that are difficult to fake. It is difficult to fake being a good hunter. You can't fake killing a buffalo and generously distributing the meat to the entire group.
Many prosocial behaviors are honest signals.
Many prosocial behaviors are honest signals.
Honest signals are important in evolution (as well as the propagation of optimal cultural behaviors). If a trait is both desirable and obvious it has a higher chance of being passed on.
To summarize the big picture here: high status is closely associated with prosocial behavior, the "prestige over dominance" strategy.
High status men are prosocial providers. They are skilled, intelligent, competent. Helpful and uplifting.
High status men are prosocial providers. They are skilled, intelligent, competent. Helpful and uplifting.
All of these traits associated with prestige directly predict mate attractiveness as well. I didn't go into that a lot here, but here is a thread with a literature review on that specifically:
And a final note on the "beta provider" meme of the manosphere. This should make you rethink that.
The highest value men are providers. Not only for the family unit, nor exclusively material providers. They are providers of material, social and cultural goods for the group.
The highest value men are providers. Not only for the family unit, nor exclusively material providers. They are providers of material, social and cultural goods for the group.
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