Dominance Hierarchies

Dominance hierarchies reliably form in face-to-face groupings of all primate species, including humans. Their defining feature is that higher ranked individuals have more influence, power, and valued prerogatives than those of lower rank.

To avoid an overly simple picture, several qualifications are needed: Rank may be persistently relevant among primates in permanent groups or only occasionally relevant for animals that forage alone; rankings are usually but not necessarily transitive; the relative status of two individuals may depend, in part, on the proximity of allies; sometimes, the highest ranking position is shared by a coalition of two or three individuals; and it is often easier to identify a male ranking than a female ranking.

Often social psychologists speak about small-group status hierarchies in specifically human terms, ignoring their essential similarity to the status hierarchies of apes and monkeys. Human hierarchies do have unique characteristics, most obviously their dependence on language and complex cultural knowledge, but these are evolved variations on a basic primate theme.

Some social scientists make the dubious claim that all human status structures reflect an evolved (primitive) tendency toward hierarchy. To avoid this fallacy, one can distinguish three kinds of hierarchies: (1) face-to-face hierarchies; (2) formal organization hierarchies, such as those drawn on corporate organization charts; and (3) macrolevel socioeconomic systems (or social classes) of large societies. The last two kinds did not exist prior to the development of agrarian societies 10,000 years ago, and they do not occur among nonhuman primates. While such “modern” structures are permeated by face-to-face hierarchies, they are not themselves face-to-face hierarchies, and they are not based on the same biosocial mechanisms that affect status ranking within primary groups. This encyclopedia entry is concerned solely with face-to-face status hierarchies.

Among higher primates, dominance hierarchies have emergent features beyond simple rank ordering. Members of the group prefer to interact with near peers. The highest ranked members (the leaders) perform service and control functions for other members and for the group as a whole, directing relations with other groups and defense against threats to the membership. Social control within the group, including the allocation of status, is achieved partly by high-ranked members' manipulating the stress of low-ranked members.