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posted by takyon on Monday December 28 2015, @02:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the get-in-line dept.

The effect of the social environment on cooperation has received attention in studies of nonhuman animal behavior but has been largely overlooked in human research. Research with animals in the wild and under controlled conditions in captivity has consistently shown that social dynamics, and specifically the nature of the dominance hierarchy, has a large impact on cooperative outcomes. Although variable in form, every animal society has some form of dominance hierarchy. Hierarchy is defined as priority of access to resources and probability of winning competitive encounters, and reflects underlying assymetries in power. A hierarchy can be characterized in terms of linearity and steepness, with the former providing information about the degree of transitivity between individuals and the latter indicating the extent to which individuals differ from each other in winning encounters or accessing resources. Among nonhuman primates, it has been demonsrated repeatedly that the characteristics of dominance hierarchies impact cooperative outcomes, with steep and linear hierarchies being associated with decreased cooperation. For example, experiments have shown that cooperation is impeded among chimpanzees living in steep and linear hierarchies, whereas it emerges more easily among species with more relaxed hierarchies such as cottontop tamarins.

A great deal of research has focused on human cooperative behavior, but these experiments have primarily been conducted with anonymous participants, leaving the influence of social relationships on cooperation largely overlooked. Although the influence of hierarchy on cooperation has rarely been examined, researchers have considered hierarchy's influence on economic issues such as market entry, bargaining, and learning. Other work has investigated how disproportionate power in sanctioning influences cooperation, and both empirical and modeling investigations have been directed at how group status impacts cooperation and competition with other groups. In the current study, we hypothesize that social relationships, and specifically hierarchical relationships reflecting power assymetries between individuals, will have a negative impact on human cooperation as it does in our nonhuman primate relatives. In order to test the effect of social hierarchy on cooperation, we present participants with a task inspired by nonhuman primate research in which two individuals of known social rank are presented with the opportunity to invest in a cooperative task, and, if a threshold of investment is met and cooperation is achieved, the higher ranking of the two investors controls the distribution of the resource. To investigate how human cooperation is impacted by the presence of a social hierarchy, we compare cooperative success in the presence of a hierarchy (with both earned and arbitrarily assigned ranks) to success in a condition when hierarchy is absent.

It's an important topic at a time when many worldwide are remarking on how broken the current models of hierarchy and social organization are.

DOI: 10.1038/srep18634


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday December 28 2015, @11:55PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday December 28 2015, @11:55PM (#281904) Journal

    I read everything you said, and you are making a distinction without a difference.

    The difference exists only in your mind, and you seem to like to impose your definitions on the world at large. It would seem you actually do like Hierarchy after all.

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 29 2015, @01:04AM

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @01:04AM (#281924) Journal

    So you actually cannot understand the difference between just another guy performing his designated function and someone who gets higher pay, better perks, and expects to be addressed as sir simply because of his job title? I can't imagine what might have gone wrong there.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday December 29 2015, @04:17AM

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @04:17AM (#281968) Journal

      What went wrong is you expect someone who worked 20 years to get an engineering degree to work for the same pay as a day laborer, and in fact could be replaced by the day laborer on a whim, just because the ladies like the way said laborer combs his hair.

      You make not allowance for skill, intelligence, courage, or physical abilities in your silly world view and would send a teenager to design a cathedral simply because it was his turn.

      This has never worked, it will never work. Its a silly socialist dream. Time for you to grow up.

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      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 29 2015, @08:12AM

        by sjames (2882) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @08:12AM (#282001) Journal

        You're reading an awful lot into what I wrote that simply isn't there.

        Where do you see the suggestion that unqualified people should find themselves assigned to a role? Where do you see anything about not paying people based on valuable skills?

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday December 29 2015, @09:01AM

          by frojack (1554) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @09:01AM (#282013) Journal

          Where do I see is? Are you daft?

          you actually cannot understand the difference between just another guy performing his designated function and someone who gets higher pay,

          You wrote that did you not?

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          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 29 2015, @10:15AM

            by sjames (2882) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @10:15AM (#282019) Journal

            You read a LOT into that. Why, for example, should a fresh MBA make more money than the group of engineers who "spent 20 years on their education"? For that matter, why do highly skilled technical people almost inevitably reach the point where the on;y way to give them a raise is to boot them into management (the Peter principle)?

            Now kindly stop shoving words into my mouth and read what I ACTUALLY wrote.