A theory of leadership in human cooperative groups

Hooper, Paul L.; Kaplan, Hillard; Boone, James L.

doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2010.05.034

Cited by 168 publications

(221 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…If hierarchical command is an efficient mode to solve economic problems as group size increases [25], then the voluntary creation of hierarchy and leadership is exactly what we expect to see in the long-run under the institutional-path hypothesis. The political game form can then subsequently change into one of dominance, where the new leaders take advantage of the costs of resisting or dispersing to create institutional rules that benefit themselves at the expense of others [65,66], paving the way to extractive institutions. However, coercive hierarchy seems to be inherently unstable [8] and costly to maintain, given the possibility for subordinates to form coalitions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despotic leaders that commanded surpluses of resources would then be able to influence institutions for their own good at the expense of other group members, in a way that they could not have done previously in an egalitarian structure. For example, leaders could dominate the political game form and skew the economic rules in their favour by enforcing (with coalitional support) what proportion of surplus resources from irrigation farming they could keep for themselves rather than share with the rest of the group [65,66]. Consequently, the shift to intensive food production heralded a transition to coercive and non-egalitarian institutions, or so-called extractive institutions [67].…”

Section: From Primate Autarky To Human Catallaxy (A) the Hunter -Gathmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

Powers

Schaik

Lehmann

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 18 to a theme issue 'The evolution of cooperation based on direct fitness benefits'. What drove the transition from small-scale human societies centred on kinship and personal exchange, to large-scale societies comprising cooperation and division of labour among untold numbers of unrelated individuals? We propose that the unique human capacity to negotiate institutional rules that coordinate social actions was a key driver of this transition. By creating institutions, humans have been able to move from the default 'Hobbesian' rules of the 'game of life', determined by physical/environmental constraints, into self-created rules of social organization where cooperation can be individually advantageous even in large groups of unrelated individuals. Examples include rules of food sharing in hunter-gatherers, rules for the usage of irrigation systems in agriculturalists, property rights and systems for sharing reputation between mediaeval traders. Successful institutions create rules of interaction that are self-enforcing, providing direct benefits both to individuals that follow them, and to individuals that sanction rule breakers. Forming institutions requires shared intentionality, language and other cognitive abilities largely absent in other primates. We explain how cooperative breeding likely selected for these abilities early in the Homo lineage. This allowed anatomically modern humans to create institutions that transformed the selfreliance of our primate ancestors into the division of labour of large-scale human social organization.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: From Primate Autarky To Human Catallaxy (A) the Hunter -Gathmentioning

confidence: 99%

How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

Powers

Schaik

Lehmann

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Hooper et al [15] showed that hierarchy can evolve if leaders help to secure cooperation in the production of large-scale public goods, using a model with complete dispersal between groups every generation. Their static analysis implied that despotism should rise as the cost for followers of switching to a different leader increases.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, 'functional' (or 'integrative') theories have addressed the benefits that leaders provide to other group members. In particular, as human group size increased during the Neolithic [7,8], the resulting scalar stress [9] would have necessitated increased hierarchy in order to solve various coordination and collective action problems [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Leadership could have been favoured to solve problems, including the coordinated harvesting of marine resources [17 -19], the construction of irrigation systems [20 -23] and defensive warfare [24,25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An evolutionary model explaining the Neolithic transition from egalitarianism to leadership and despotism

Powers

Lehmann

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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The Neolithic was marked by a transition from small and relatively egalitarian groups to much larger groups with increased stratification. But, the dynamics of this remain poorly understood. It is hard to see how despotism can arise without coercion, yet coercion could not easily have occurred in an egalitarian setting. Using a quantitative model of evolution in a patchstructured population, we demonstrate that the interaction between demographic and ecological factors can overcome this conundrum. We model the coevolution of individual preferences for hierarchy alongside the degree of despotism of leaders, and the dispersal preferences of followers. We show that voluntary leadership without coercion can evolve in small groups, when leaders help to solve coordination problems related to resource production. An example is coordinating construction of an irrigation system. Our model predicts that the transition to larger despotic groups will then occur when: (i) surplus resources lead to demographic expansion of groups, removing the viability of an acephalous niche in the same area and so locking individuals into hierarchy; (ii) high dispersal costs limit followers' ability to escape a despot. Empirical evidence suggests that these conditions were probably met, for the first time, during the subsistence intensification of the Neolithic.

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The evolution of inequality

Mattison¹,

Smith²,

Shenk

et al. 2016

Evolutionary Anthropology

160

147

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Understanding how systems of political and economic inequality evolved from relatively egalitarian origins has long been a focus of anthropological inquiry. Many hypotheses have been suggested to link socio‐ecological features with the rise and spread of inequality, and empirical tests of these hypotheses in prehistoric and extant societies are increasing. In this review, we synthesize several streams of theory relevant to understanding the evolutionary origins, spread, and adaptive significance of inequality. We argue that while inequality may be produced by a variety of localized processes, its evolution is fundamentally dependent on the economic defensibility and transmissibility of wealth. Furthermore, these properties of wealth could become persistent drivers of inequality only following a shift to a more stable climate in the Holocene. We conclude by noting several key areas for future empirical research, emphasizing the need for more analyses of contemporary shifts toward institutionalized inequality as well as prehistoric cases.

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A theory of leadership in human cooperative groups

Cited by 168 publications

References 29 publications

How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

An evolutionary model explaining the Neolithic transition from egalitarianism to leadership and despotism

The evolution of inequality

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