Definition
Social groups often are organized hierarchically, such that higher-ranking group members have greater control over valued group resources than other group members. Higher-ranking individuals also enjoy relatively more freedom to act in accordance with their own goals and desires and have greater capacity to exert their will over lower-ranking group members. Ultimately, these proximate advantages yield fitness benefits for high-ranking individuals and their offspring and help lower-ranking group members by allowing them to benefit from the increased overall prosperity of the group.
Introduction
Across many group-living species, to include primates, social hierarchies exist in which high-ranking individuals control a disproportionate amount of resources and influence in the group (Maner and Case 2016). The ubiquity of hierarchy among social species is likely due to its evolutionary...
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Mercadante, E.J., Case, C.R. (2018). Social Hierarchies. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_156-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_156-1
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