From disorganized equality to efficient hierarchy: how group size drives the evolution of hierarchy in human societies

Perret, Cedric; Hart, Emma; Powers, Simon T.

Abstract

A manifest trend is that larger and more productive human groups shift from distributed to centralized decision-making. Voluntary theories propose that human groups shift to hierarchy to limit scalar stress, i.e. the increase in cost of organization as a group grows. Yet, this hypothesis lacks a mechanistic model to investigate the organizational advantage of hierarchy and its role on its evolution. To fill this gap, we describe social organization by the distribution of individuals’ capacity to influence others. We then integrate this formalization into models of social dynamics and evolutionary dynamics. First, our results demonstrate that hierarchy strongly reduces scalar stress, and that this benefit can emerge solely because leaders and followers differ in their capacity to influence others. Second, the model demonstrates that this benefit can be sufficient to drive the evolution of leader and follower behaviours and ultimately, the transition from small egalitarian to large hierarchical groups.

Citation

Perret, C., Hart, E., & Powers, S. T. (2020). From disorganized equality to efficient hierarchy: how group size drives the evolution of hierarchy in human societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287(1928), Article 20200693. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0693

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 4, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jun 3, 2020
• Publication Date: Jun 10, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jun 18, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 19, 2020
• Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
• Print ISSN: 0962-8452
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-2954
• Publisher: Royal Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 287
• Issue: 1928
• Article Number: 20200693
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0693
• Keywords: hierarchy, leadership, evolution, consensus decision-making
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2666925