EVERY SPOKEN WORD
90 min read · 18,402 words- 0:00 – 0:31
Intro
- CRChris von Rueden
As members of groups, we're always on the lookout for leaders acting in ways that betray a sort of selfishness, or that's not regarding other group members as equal partners in a sort of a group project. We're so quick to want to jump on leaders that betray selfishness that maybe they're not displaying most of the time. I think that explains a lot of our fascination with, like, the affairs of politicians or when politicians say things that appear to contradict what they had said earlier. We're constantly on the lookout for leaders that might be potentially acting not in our interest. (wind blowing)
- CWChris Williamson
What
- 0:31 – 5:14
Evolutionary Importance of Leadership
- CWChris Williamson
would you say are the interesting evolutionary questions about human leadership?
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, well, first, um, you know, asking an evolutionary question, uh, about leadership perhaps presumes that, um, it was selected for, so that we've evolved some kind of motivation to adopt leadership or followership as members of groups. Um, and I think, you know, the- the research on that is still ongoing. Um, and so it would sort of require that over our evolutionary history in ancestral human societies, individuals that had such motivations to adopt leadership or followership, I mean, it takes two to tango there, um, they, their reproductive success was improved, or being, just being members of a group in which leadership and followership was, was happening enabled their groups to outperform other groups. Um, but, uh, taking an evolutionary perspective requires us to think about, um, over evolutionary time scales were, were, was leadership and followership adaptive? Particularly the s- the specific kinds and unique kinds of leadership and followership that, that humans engage in. Um, because leadership is fairly ubiquitous across social species, um, but there are some unique properties to human leadership.
- CWChris Williamson
How so? What like?
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, well, I think first, um, there's a lot of active leadership in humans, where, you know, leaders will talk directly to other group members to try and get individuals to coordinate, you know, s- use of rhetoric, various other communication strategies to directly influence the behavior of others in their group. Um, now as, you see instances of that in other species, but I think the majority of leadership, um, in, in other species, and perhaps the majority of leadership in humans too, might be more passive. So it's sort of one individual does some kind of action, and other members of the group observe that and decide it's in their interest to do the same. So it's not like that one, eh, that one leader has actively communicated with other individuals to get them to do something.
- CWChris Williamson
Like a, a lion decides that we're gonna try and go after this particular thing, and everybody else that's in that pride goes after it as well?
- CRChris von Rueden
Exactly. Yeah, that's a good example.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CRChris von Rueden
Um, I think humans do that too, but, I mean, s- I think when we use the word leadership, we're often thinking more of the, the active kind where I'm directing you, or giving you explicit instructions, or, uh, things like that.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, that, that is more rare, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's a function of the fact that we can communicate more deeply, I guess that we can hold different levels of hierarchy within our minds, that people can be statusful at scavenging or communicating or fighting or whatever, whereas I guess if you're a lion, it's are you big and powerful, yes, no.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. Oh, I think, I mean, maybe what you're, you're, you're bringing up is division of labor. Like, if you're in a group, there might be some people with some skills that are better than others, and, um, if solving some group goal or, or problem, uh, can benefit from a division of labor, certain people do some tasks and others do others, leadership can help coordinate all that. Um, and so that kind of division of labor with, coordinated by leadership, really rare. And I think that, but that is what makes humans and human groups so, uh, incredible at pr- at solving problems and innovating, and yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose that that's a reason that leadership would be more important. Like, if you have all of these different divisions working, you need somebody that is outside of the divisions to be able to bring them together to coordinate them toward a common goal.
- CRChris von Rueden
Exactly. And, and even that a- aspect of understanding that there's a common goal I think is not that common across species either. I think humans are really good at, "I can understand that you have the same goal that I have." Right? um, even if that requires you to do, engage in some slightly different behavior than me, we both have some abstract notion of what the end goal will be. Um, and so there's other things that, that I think, uh, it's not just about leadership, but about sort of other aspects of our psychology and our cooperativeness that come into play here.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, like-
- CRChris von Rueden
But certainly leadership is, it can be the, sort of the glue that brings it together.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. What other elements, uh, are coming into play?
- CRChris von Rueden
Just our, our propensity to cooperate with others who are, especially those we're not related to, um, and our ability to, to just n- understand what other people are thinking really well such that I can create some mental representation of a goal that I know you share as well, um, our ability to communicate through language, um, yeah, all these other things are important.
- 5:14 – 10:46
Human Coordination with Non-Family Members
- CRChris von Rueden
- CWChris Williamson
Why is it that humans have evolved to coordinate with people that aren't part of their genetic kin?
- CRChris von Rueden
That's, you know, a huge research program on that. Um, a lot of people will point to reciprocity where it pays to sort of help somebody if they'll help you back. Um, but that's, i- i- there's sort of trouble with reciprocity according to various models in, in scaling up to not just cooperating with non-kin, but in large groups with non-kin. Um, reputation is another mechanism that might be really important. So humans care a lot about reputation. Um, this relates to leadership and followership as well. Uh, and so, uh, we're motivated to cooperate with individuals we may not know well or, um, are related to because it has ramifications for how other people might treat us in the future.... um, or responding to punishment and reward, uh, also can be a factor. Um, so yeah. Uh, other, uh, you know, more controversially, perhaps others have argued group selection might play a role in human cooperativeness, meaning, um, ancestrally groups of humans that were more cooperative, uh, out-competed other groups and then their descendants were, as a result, more cooperative, uh, by inheriting whatever traits led to the cooperativeness in the first place.
- CWChris Williamson
Why would it be more rare in the animal kingdom and yet prevalent in humans? Does that suggest that humans have got more complex challenges that we need to face than other animals do?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. Uh, I think this is, you know, s- largely speculative still, uh, our understanding of how all this happened. Um, I th- I like to think that a key was a transition to a hunting, hunting and gathering kind of ecology where, uh, w- ancestral humans started going after food that was harder to get, um, that placed selection on greater intelligence, but also greater cooperativeness because getting aft- going after food that's harder to get, you have to dig up or hunt down or scavenge. Um, it sometimes requires cooperation just in the act of pursuing those foods. Or a- you know, you could pursue it individually but you might come home empty-handed, such that you're gonna wanna share with somebody who could help you and then a- another day, they might come home empty-handed and you could share with them. So, I think this transition to hunting and gathering was probably key to the shift to greater cooperativeness, greater communicative ability, greater intelligence, lots of things. Um, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What, uh, w- what ends up determining who becomes a leader? Are you able to predict this?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. So, um, you know, there's a lot of long-standing debate in psychology about the traits versus situations and, um, you know, are there p- in our groups, are there particular things like, uh, personality or intelligence or even things like body size, um, that are more likely to, uh, cause certain individuals to step forward as, as leaders. Um, there's an interesting recent paper that found one of the key things that predicts leadership is our willingness to make decisions that could ha- that have consequences for others, uh, even where we're not certain what those consequences y- might be. Those people that are sort of less anxious about making decisions that impact others where there's uncertainty are more likely to emerge as leaders. Um, so there are lots of traits, but also situations matter tremendously. So, uh, you know, uh, for example, um, group members tend to l- there's a lot of evidence group members in facing threats, external threats to the group, will tend to look to individuals to help coordinate who are, have some signs of being more, um, dominant in their personality. Um, and so that's been, you know, there are these interesting experiments that ask people to sort of choose a leader and they're shown an array of faces and they're given different situations and in situations where people, you know, are supposedly members of a group that are being, um, uh, confronted with some other group that's attacking them, people tend to prefer faces of leaders that look more dominant or have more sort of masculinized kind of faces. Um, interpreting that is, is tricky, um, but, uh, there's some suggestion that th- you know, to the extent ancestrally in, uh, smaller groups, individuals who had more dominant traits, uh, in face-to-face groups could more sort of maybe efficiently or rapidly coordinate others or were more able to implement, um, punishment as incentive to get people to contribute. Um, but that, you know, dominant kinds of individuals or, or traits that are related to dominance comes with risk that those kinds of leaders might exploit you. So, there's this sort of trade-off, right, um, that can be situation dependent. Um, when a group's facing existential threats, maybe you're less likely to worry about pursuing a more kind of dominant leader. Uh, other times, you might wanna avoid that. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. If you end up locking in a tyrant just because you had a brief period of conflict, that's gonna be-
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
bad long-term.
- 10:46 – 14:31
Similar Traits Between Humans & Animals
- CWChris Williamson
What are, what are some of the similarities that we have with other animals? Are there certain traits that do seem to be pretty, um, scalable, pretty similar across different animal groups and ourselves?
- CRChris von Rueden
So, related to this, the, the potential contribution of dominance-related traits, cues to body size or strength or our more aggressive kind of personality, um, in other animals, sometimes leadership is, um, tied to dominance hierarchy. So, who is at the, the top of the dominance hierarchy is more likely to lead groups to n- new, move new directions or, um, uh, to act as, uh, conflict mediators within groups. So you see that in, in other primates, that dominant individuals will sometimes break up fights. Um, so that, you know, and then also looking in humans, yeah, to the extent we, we have these preferences for individuals that have traits conducive to dominance, uh, preferences for them as leaders and that has some sort of, you know, homology with the way that dominance can contribute to leadership in other primates and other animals. But there's lots of leaders in other animals that, that are not, uh, high in the dominance hierarchy, all right? That, um, uh, individuals that might have cer- some specialized kind of knowledge or are first to move and i- and this is getting back to this sort of passive kind of leadership and rest of the group just sort of wants to do the same thing.So, um, you know, and, and so boldness, right? Kind of personality of sort of bold personalities i- irrespective of their location in the dominance hierarchy can lead to leadership in other animals. And so you see that in humans too. Um, it's not ... And especially in humans given that, um, we are much better able to, uh, keep dominance from exploiting us by acting collectively to keep down dominant individuals so that, you know, we might prefer individuals to have some kind of dominant-like traits in certain situations to help l- lead and coordinate, but we're also very suspicious of that and able to act collectively to, to take them down if needs be.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the difference between, uh, status hierarchies and leadership then? Does someone just in a human society rise up through the status hierarchy and then get popped out at the top as a leader, or is there a relationship between the two at all?
- CRChris von Rueden
I think, um, status hierarchy is like access to resources, so who gets more, who gets less. Um, but i- it can be tricky because leadership itself could be a, a contested resource. Like because if gaining access to leadership gets you access to resources or reputation that improves your mating opportunities or, or anything else like that, then leadership itself becomes, uh, sort of, um, much more tied to the s- the status hierarchy. Um, but leadership I would define as the differential influence in a group, and so having more influence over individuals' behavior in pursuit of, uh, some collective goal. Um, so it's distinct from your location in the status hierarchy, but leadership can be the kinds of things individuals compete over or how in- individuals act as leaders can influence subsequently their, their status. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Presumably the leaders would be some of the highest status people within a group as well.
- CRChris von Rueden
In humans, uh, often yes, but, um, not necessarily. So I think our political leaders are-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CRChris von Rueden
... in a large-scale societies, right? Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Very good example.
- CRChris von Rueden
(laughs) Often.
- CWChris Williamson
Very good example. Yeah.
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Um,
- 14:31 – 19:27
Does Gender Impact Leadership?
- CWChris Williamson
what about the differences in traits for leadership in men and women? How, how do they, uh, compete intrasexually differently for that?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. I mean, that's a, a minefield of an issue. And I think, um, I'm of the persuasion that, uh, uh, men and women can, you know, can be as effective, uh, as leaders, th- that gender per se doesn't really matter in terms of leadership effectiveness, but there might be some subtle things that, um, uh, influence how men and women lead, right? So that are related to, um, uh, our evolutionary history. So to the extent that men are more willing to compete, um, using say physical violence, right? Or to take outsized risks that can, that can negatively impact f- health and safety, um, then a- as a product of our, of, of sexual selection and, um, processes that our other animals like humans have experienced that can create, um, average differences in behavior across males and females, um, that would mean that on average then m- sort of male and female leadership in humans might have a certain, uh, slightly different tenor, um, and that, uh, uh, at the least would suggest we don't want, you know, we would want lots of women in leadership and not just men not just for the sake of equity, for its own sake, but that there might be slightly different approaches to leadership that would be, uh, any sort of organization or country or, you know, business would benefit from. Slightly different approaches to risk-taking on average, uh, approaches to coalition building. Um, and so yeah. I think leadership, uh, by, by men and women is largely the similar, but there can be all these average small differences that might matter on aggregate.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. What about the costs and the benefits of leadership and followship? Because I think, I don't know, w- when people watch movies that have got a really strong lead in it that they find themselves identifying with, you, you start to think, "Well, that, that would be me. I would be the, the guy that's at ... the Gladiator or the Spartacus or the whatever that's at the front of it." But it's not just all positives presumably, and also followship isn't just all negatives. So what are some of the costs and the benefits of both of those?
- CRChris von Rueden
Right. So, uh, uh, can't have too many cooks in the kitchen or else nothing gets made. Um, I'll, you know, say I think that's what you're alluding to is also you can't, you can't have everybody be a follower and then nothing else, nothing gets done either. So, um, there are costs and ... So that right there is some of the, the benefits of actually being a follower are that you're a member of a group that is actually accomplishing something. Um, you're able to achieve goals, uh, as a member of a group compared to other groups that have too many people vying for leadership or too few people vying for leadership. Um, benefits to followship also include less sort of ex- sort of reputational costs from not achieving group goals, um, where there's far more than one leader.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, you're not on the, you're not on the hook for the performance as much.
- CRChris von Rueden
Right. Um, and at the same time, you're maybe gaining experience f- to in the future become a leader. That's another potential benefit. Um, so yeah. Um, and I think we are all, you know, I don't see any people born leaders or followers. I rather think we have p- psychology that sort of weighs our individual attributes, the situations we're in, the other members of our group, how they compare to us, and we're constantly kind of adjusting who we're deferring to or our own sort of motivations to try and influence others in strategic ways that's, um-... sometimes consciously, sometimes not. So I don't think, you know, we're either leaders or followers, but, you know, these, these costs and benefits, um, play out very dynamically depending upon how we assess ourselves relative to others in our groups and relative to the situations we find ourselves in.
- CWChris Williamson
The situation part is really interesting, thinking about the fact that you might have someone who would be a great leader in one particular type of ecology or situation and then 50 years later, something completely different has happened and that would be the worst person to choose. Somebody that's super risk-taking at a time when you need to be sort of bold and decisive, someone that's super conservative when things are going badly and you actually need to make some changes.
- CRChris von Rueden
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
All of these different elements. Yeah. That's, that's very interesting. That's something I hadn't considered.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. And real- and relates back to that discussion of, you know, this interesting preferences that individuals have for dominant kinds of traits when their groups face, you know, sort of existential kinds of issues. Um, those same individuals at other times would not be favored as leaders. Um ...
- CWChris Williamson
What
- 19:27 – 27:47
Regulating Leader/Follower Dynamics
- CWChris Williamson
are the dynamics that are important for regulating that leader-follower relationship? Because, you know, you often hear about the, uh, tumultuous and precarious leader that is oppressive, the tyrant that's keeping everybody down.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But what are the, um, important metrics that are mediating that?
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, I think key is the, the size of the leader's coalition. So if they have a big enough coalition that is benefiting from their leadership, that's, that can do the trick. Um, but, you know, the... I think the more democratic you get or the smaller the group size such that leaders really have to convince most group members of, of their benefits, I think key is leaders' ability to display, uh, what's called procedural fairness, that they're acting in the interest of group members. So even if outcomes, leaders' outcomes are the des- outcomes of their decisions, uh, are not sort of benefiting everybody equally, so long as people perceive the leaders are trying to treat everybody in the group fairly, then, um, that's key for leaders gaining legitimacy and keeping their positions. Um, and so I think as members of groups we're always on the lookout for leaders acting in ways that betray a sort of selfishness or, um, that's not re- sort of regarding others, other group members as, um, equal partners in a sort of a group project. You know, we're so quick to wanna jump on leaders that do things that, that betray, you know, um, yeah, a kind of selfishness that maybe they're not displaying most of the time. I think that explains a lot of our fascination with, like, in politics, um, sort of af- affairs of, of politicians or, um, when politicians say things that appear to contradict th- what they had said earlier. We're, we're constantly on the lookout for leaders that might be, um, potentially acting not in our interest.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that because the impact of a leader that wasn't acting in our interests would be so outsized that it's super important that our radar is hyperattuned to whether or not they are?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. We just don't want to be cheated, I think. Um, we don't want leaders to get more than they deserve, um, or for them to, like, lead the groups in directions that will primarily benefit them and not other, and not the rest of the group. Um, also, I think there's, there's, uh, been some discussion of the why... You know, the fact that we talk about these things, too, we communicate about our leaders as a means of us potentially, um, establishing the, uh, collective action against that leader should they, he or she, act in selfish ways. So we're not only just sort of trying to figure out as individuals are leaders benefiting us or acting selfishly, we're also communicating about this with others that can serve as a coordinative device. "Oh, did you see what that leader did the other day?" To help, you know... In, in, in the instance we need to act against that leader, we can do so by rallying around some kind of thing they did.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. Okay. So that's, the gossiping behind the leader's back or the discussing after the presidential debate, candidate debate-
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... or whatever.
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
That serves a number of functions. It probably stress-tests your interpretation of how that went. "I thought that he looked really-"
- CRChris von Rueden
Oh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... disingenuous. Did you think that he looked disingenuous?"
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
It probably starts to create early coalitions-
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... in case you need to do something to push back against someone that it also would create a coalition that says, "I really liked what he said there about the, the going to get the berries tomorrow or whatever. Like, let's, I, I feel like we should support him. I've been saying we should go and get the berries for, for ages."
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. That's really interesting to consider that the gossip, especially about the leader, serves a purpose that is like externalizing a stress test about whether or not they are playing that fairness and cheater detection game.
- CRChris von Rueden
And also maybe other members of the group, you know, disagree with you about whether the leader's acting selfish. So you'll hear him saying that stress test is, "Hmm. Can I gather people to, to potentially coordinate with me against the leader? Let's see." Right? Um, so, yeah. Uh...
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose as well that would suggest that leadership which is primarily done through, like, very heavy dominance is going to be a little bit more fragile.
- CRChris von Rueden
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
If you don't ever allow dissent in a relatively small group, then people are eventually going to find a way... You're gonna squeeze it so hard that it's gonna come out the sides and people are gonna find a way to have a discussion outside of earshot of you and your goons and then eventually those people are gonna rally together and then get rid of you.
- CRChris von Rueden
Right. But the hard part is when you s- you know, your goons, right, is key because I don't think there's any pure dominance. You know, lead- leaders can't act purely on the basis of dominance, meaning, like, trying to dominate everybody else. That won't work. Uh, you know, you need two or three people and then they can physically overwhelm an individual. So it's always the size of that dominant individual's coalition. Can they provide enough benefits to those coalition members that can then enable them to, to act more dominantly towards everybody else?... um, but once your, your coalition falls apart, then you're done. So, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. You know, isn't there, there's something similar to this to do with chimpanzees as well, right? That chimpanzees-
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... can band together and then it doesn't matter how big any one chimp is, any three other chimps can pretty much just rip them limb from limb.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah, similar politics, I think. But I think what makes humans different is that we are much better able to form lo- really large coalitions, often with non-kin, and can use them to overthrow the existing hierarchy. Rather than like a lot of those chimps or political coalitions are often just at the top of the hierarchy, they're sort of, you know, second, third, fourth-ranking males maybe coming together, trying to overthrow the top-ranking male, rather than, you know, the whole bottom 3/4 of the, the group coming together simultaneously, having this shared goal. Maybe there's even leadership amidst, you know, within that bottom 3/4 emerging to orchestrate, coordinate, to overthrow the top quarter. That's, I think, really uniquely human. Um ...
- CWChris Williamson
What, i- is there anything else that you see in modern politics that is a interesting reflection of a, an evolutionary adaptation that you think that we've got when it comes to our relationship to leaders and us scrutiny and skepticism of them?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. Um, so yeah. I think our outsize attention to leaders' personal lives as a means of trying to assess, oh, are they doing things that might be selfish. Um, I think there are other things that reflect maybe our, our evolutionary history of, of cooperating and leading in smaller groups that we see play out in our large-scale societies, um, like the way we organize our leader-follower relationships and often in these sort of tiered hierarchies. We create these bureaucracies that sort of have tiered structures that, in a sense, are sort of recreating smaller groups at each level with face-to-face leadership and followership, but those groups are embedded within larger groups embedded within larger groups. Um-
- 27:47 – 40:06
Leadership Patterns from Non-Mammals
- CWChris Williamson
anything for us to learn about leadership from non-mammal animals? I, I always think about, um, bees and ants and stuff, and you've got the queen-
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... within this.
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
But I never really hear any parallels drawn between insects and humans. Is that because their development is so different to ours that basically we're talking about an entirely different not only species, not only lineage, but it might as well be a, a different world?
- CRChris von Rueden
I, in some senses, I'd say yeah, that they have these l- kind of large colonies, um, that are with all kinds of incredible self-sacrifice that you don't see in humans, um, and, uh, you know, coordination among, you know, thousands of individuals that's happening really fluidly without any obvious, you know, bureaucracy, right? There might be a queen, but the queen's not, you know, actively directing things, you know. Um, at the same time then, there's also evidence of, like, leadership happening in terms of implementing punishments and rewards. So, there are some, I think, ant species where there's been shown where when workers sort of cheat by trying to reproduce, produce their own eggs, you'll see in some species, the queen will come and, uh, and sort of target those, you know, um, individuals for punishment, um, again, the actual mechanism-
- CWChris Williamson
Like a public execution.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah, I can't remember what it was. If it's, if it's not, if it's just, like, eating the eggs that they produced or doing something else, um, to the actual ants that did that. Um, there are other worker, worker ants that will take on that, um, punishment role. Um, so yeah. Um, they're not just sort of like, you know, the Borg, but can, can engage in these sort of smaller, inter-individual dynamics that involve punishment and reward. Um, so that-
- CWChris Williamson
I w-
- CRChris von Rueden
... might be some kind of, yeah ...
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, I learned from, uh, Joe Henrich about gerontocracies.
- CRChris von Rueden
Hm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I'd never heard about those before. Have you looked at these?
- CRChris von Rueden
In humans?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. So, there are smaller scale societies, hunter-gatherers, particularly in Australia, there's, there's several gerontocracies where it's the oldest of the old males who are highly polygynous and are sort of lead the sort of rituals of the group. Um, and what's really interesting about that is that these are hunter-gatherers, a lot of these gerontocracies, and so, um, m- often, hunter-gatherers, you tend to see less pronounced hierarchy, less polygyny, because there's not a lot of wealth for individuals to monopolize and, you know, and when m- when there's societies get wealthier, you often see males will monopolize that wealth, form coalitions to defend it and enhance their poli- opportunities for polygyny.... so that you see this in hunter-gatherers without a lot of wealth. It's really interesting, these gerontocracies. And so leadership there, yeah, it's concentrated in sort of older men. Um, I don't know. What context did you discuss-
- CWChris Williamson
It was ju- ... I wa- ... so I-
- CRChris von Rueden
... that with him?
- CWChris Williamson
I, I found it interesting that, um, he, he mentioned young male syndrome is super prevalent in these particular types of groups, which is-
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you have all of these young guys who have got high testosterone and no family and no partner, so why don't they just run around and cause mischief and stuff like that? Uh, and he mentioned that they're inherently unstable. But then how, how would they ever stick about? You'd only ever see them for a couple of generations and then they'd change. So, there must be some degree of stability. It was in a mating context-
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to do with the fact that these older guys capture basically all of the women. And in order for the younger men to be able to mate, there's decades worth of ritual and process and rite of passage after rite of passage after something else that they've got to go through-
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and then eventually, finally, they get to earn the right to mate. I, I just, I figured that it must be super fragile and instable.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. I think the ways of mitigating that problem are when you create sort of men's organizations that are, create bonds between these older and younger men and sort of show the younger men, oh, there's a pipeline where you can, you know, with age and time and demonstrating your value to the community, you will get to be where I am. Um, and often, it, you know, it, those often emerge in more war-like societies, so warfare becomes that vehicle for the younger men to establish themselves. Um, but with these s- gerontocracies in Australia, it's, yeah, much more tenuous, I'd say, because you don't have these strong m- men's organizations. You don't have ... you know, there's war, there's some degree of warfare though. Um, and this, you know, one thing that maybe helps is, as you just said, a lot of ritualization. Um, so I don't know. It's a, it's an ongoing, uh, debate. But there is variation within these Australian, um, hunter-gatherers that was documented by anthropologists. And so you do see, there is some evidence that there are higher rates of polygyny, that gerontocracy is more pronounced in those Aborigines that were living closer to the coast with, with sort of denser resources, um, and, uh, more ... where resources could be more controlled. So, in a sense it is, there is some-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh. That's because if the resources were less available, you would need to have everybody on side. You would have to have everybody working together as opposed to going against you. Why, why is that the case? Why is it-
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. I- ... Uh, uh, one, it could, um, reduce the need for cooperation across individuals in terms of sharing resources. Secondly, where there's wealth, um, is more monopolizable. You can defend certain, say, fisheries or productive soils or, um, something, or, you know, p- parcels of land, uh, those that can do that well can enforce, say, polygyny, uh, enforce their, their leadership on others. And so, yeah. There's th- there is that variation within the, sort of these gerontocratic societies where the more defensible the resources, the more polygyny you see, the, the more intense the gerontocracy. So-
- CWChris Williamson
You've mentioned there about the relationship between local ecology and the way that hierarchy, group structure, leadership gets deployed. What, what is there to know there? Because I didn't realize until reading your work about just how much of this is influenced local resources, about just how much risk there is from outside groups, all of that stuff.
- CRChris von Rueden
I think key is gr- ... the biggest key, I think, is group size. So, how ecology shapes group size is, is huge. So, why leadership at all? It's to help solve coordination and collective action problems, you know, groups face trying to solve these problems. You know, they can break down just 'cause people aren't able to coordinate well or, you know, accomplishing group goals could break down because enough people are cheating or free-riding on the, on the whole, on the, on everybody else. So, those problems just get worse as groups get bigger. And so if you're in an ecology with lots of plentiful resources that enables populations to grow, um, you can get, uh, more conflicts, more coordination failure, more free-riding that might create demand for leaders to help resolve those issues. And you a- actually, a group member might even want to endow leaders with certain rights and, and responsibilities, formalized rights and responsibilities as groups get larger. So, group size is one huge thing that is also dependent upon the ecolo- the larger ecology. But then also this, what I was just referencing with the ... in Australia, the more that there are defensible resources, the more that certain lineages, coalitions, um, family units can control and defend resources and then impose a sort of hierarchy on others, um, by controlling access to valued resources.
- 40:06 – 46:37
The Secrecy of Modern Leadership
- CRChris von Rueden
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
What does that... or how do you relate that to the current way that we look at leadership in the modern world? Is there something to be said about, um, compartmentalized secretive information about us not feeling a degree of transparency between what we know that our leaders are doing and our awareness of it and stuff like that? Is there any, it feels like there might be some sort of a crossover there.
- CRChris von Rueden
It's a s- it's, it's strange in our society where, you know, I think most people f- hugely underestimate levels of wealth inequality. Um, and, you know, whether that wealth inequality is justified or not, I think we tend to not, w- we tend to see what's around us so that we compare ourselves to our neighbors or our coworkers and, um, I think that tends to be our unit of analysis, is the people we're encountering face-to-face. Um, I think where we're truly concerned about, you know, um, you know, the c- our country as a whole, uh, and the distribution of wealth, um, you know, i- it might be better served by a clear understanding of just how wealth is distributed and, and I think most people are not aware of just the, the level of inequality, um.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that that's the same both ways around? Do you think-
- CRChris von Rueden
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that people that are incredibly poor are as unaware as the people that are incredibly wealthy?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah, um, but these, you know, on the, on the, probably, but to the extent that, you know, we see urban environments really concentrate extreme poverty and extreme wealth, maybe that (laughs) people in urban environments have the better sense of things-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CRChris von Rueden
... uh, in terms of the gap.
- CWChris Williamson
Actually because you're driving past or watching people drive past-
- CRChris von Rueden
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... as you are so on. Oh, yeah, that's interesting.
- CRChris von Rueden
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So, what do you think... in your opinion, do you think that leaders are altruistic or selfish? Are they motivated by the desire to help or the desire for power?
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, I think you can answer that in a more proximate level and a more ultimate level. So approximately, um, do leaders take on leadership roles because they really feel like they're being altruistic and helping the group, uh, or they're doing it p- for selfish motivations and, like, they have designs to actually enrich themselves and, and then at an ultimate level, you know, you could explain even that s- pr- supposedly, you know, consciously altruistic motivation on the part of leaders, uh, in terms of, you know, having that kind of motivation over evolutionary timescales, you know, might have been profitable, adaptive, um, because it, uh, enhanced their reproductive success. So, um, that's something I've shown that, you know, some of my research even in small scale relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherers, individuals that have higher status including have taken on leadership positions or, um-... have, have greater influence in community decision-making tend to experience greater reproductive success. Um, and so, you know, uh, at an ultimate level, perhaps that more, that pro-social motivation of leaders can be explained by the sort of ways that that actually, you know, tended to generate positive reputations, uh, increase your status, um, that kind of thing. So, yeah. Uh, now, you know, so even in case where leaders, say, take a huge pay cut or, you know, or do things like that, to what extent are they still benefiting otherwise, in terms of reputation or, you know, in other ways?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and I think-
- CRChris von Rueden
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
... especially in, in the modern world, and presumably this would have been reflected ancestrally as well, if you go through a period of being the leader, as long as you don't leave disgraced, you have generated a ton of goodwill and like, uh, how would you say, vestigial renown that you can-
- CRChris von Rueden
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... carry with you until the rest of time. So yeah, even though right now, for the next eight years, Mr. President, you will be paid this small amount of money, you know, you are given an unbelievable amount of opportunities on the other side of that. I mean, Nick Clegg, who was the former Pr- co-Prime Minister of the UK, only within the last 10 years, is now the global communications director or something for Facebook. And he's-
- CRChris von Rueden
Ah.
- CWChris Williamson
... involved in all manner of, of other bits and pieces.
- CRChris von Rueden
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So, yeah, I think, uh, that makes a lot of sense. One of the interesting, uh, insights that you talked about there is this relationship between, uh, status and mating success. What did you, what did you learn there, other than more status is probably good for mating success?
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, I think because in a lot of the smaller-scale hunter-gatherer societies are often, they're often framed as being egalitarian, and they a- a lot of them very are fiercely egalitarian, where people who brag or try and coerce others are rapidly put down. Um, group members will act against them. Um, at the same time, having a kind of, displaying a kind of humble leadership, um, and, and providing, being generous, um, can lead to you getting these kind of, especially among men, uh, mating benefits. And so, um, yeah, it just suggests that, uh, you know, there are motivations for, for gaining influence in any human society, right? In any, in any society, no matter how egalitarian, there, there is hierarchy, however subtle, however camouflaged, um, that produces, can produce these rep- reprod- uh, reproductive variation. Maybe not in, uh, a lot of modern-scale societies, um, with, you know, contraception, um, with, uh, socially imposed monogamy, um, uh, smaller family sizes in general. But, uh, at least the evidence that I've, I've gathered suggests that, you know, ancestrally, even in relatively egalitarian societies, it was likely the case that, um, influence, leadership had reproductive benefits on aggregate.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah, so you might end up with, uh, better mating success in the modern world, but not necessarily translate that into reproductive success with some of the boundaries that we've placed in between the-
- CRChris von Rueden
Right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
... the act and the outcome.
- CRChris von Rueden
Or even maybe ma- mai- maybe not even mating success either. But, uh, what you do have is that reputation that maybe ancestrally would have translated more readily into mating success and reproductive success. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
So people still choose to seek it regar-
- 46:37 – 54:11
Link Between Female Status & Reproductive Success
- CWChris Williamson
if it was a female leader or a female that had a lot of dominance, did you ever look at the relationship between female status and reproductive success?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah, there's not as much good evidence there. Um, i- in part because a lot of m- sort of male influence in politicking is just s- much more, um, obvious than, uh, and overt than, uh, than women's sort of politicking and, and coalition formation and that kind of thing. Um, also your pronounced gender divisions of labor, in, especially in sm- these smaller-scale societies like I work with. Um, and so, uh, yeah, w- what evidence I do have of women's status in terms of popularity or, um, influence, there is some evidence that it's more l- women translate that status more into, um, child survival and h- and sort of family welfare on average relative to males. Um, not that males don't do that, but that women are more likely to. Where in comparison men are more likely to translate their status into mating opportunity relative to women. Not that women don't do that, but, you know, there are these slight d- average differences. And so, what evidence I have seen including some I've done with the, the group I work with in the, the Amazon is that, um, moti- suggests motivations for acquiring status and s- and specifically for acquiring leadership might differ on average across the, the sexes. Um, but there are lots of motivations for acquiring f- leadership. But this, this fundamental sort of mating motive, uh, might differ on average.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, does... Is there a difference in mating success when status is taken from dominance compared with when status is taken from prestige?
- CRChris von Rueden
Uh, good question. Um, so I, I did find some evidence in the, in the, in the group I work with in the Amazon that status, um, based more on dominance, uh, related to fighting ability, um, impacts reproductive success, just like status related to sort of like, uh, um, freely accorded influence that people give to somebody who they, they, they perceive as prestigious. That in both cases, um, this was a study of men, uh, men had greater mating success, uh...... um, and more extramarital affairs as well. Um, but for, uh, I think there was a difference though in terms of, um, age at marriage. So the, the route you get to that mating success differs, where I think it was, uh, and I could be confusing this, but, uh, the more prestigious individuals were more likely to get married at younger ages. Um, and so there was some slight variation there, um, but nothing I would hang my hat on.
- CWChris Williamson
Got you. And what about the sex ratio?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
How does the sex ratio within a, a group change routes to power, um, dominance versus prestige as being the tools that are being used, and are there any other interesting things about the sex ratio?
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah. Um, so that's a, you know, a good question, something I, I want to think more about. I think the, what's known about sex ratio effects on our behavior, uh, suggests that many, where there's many more men, um, you can get greater competition among men, um, because they are, you know, more, there's more competition for mating opportunity. Um, at the same time, there's also evidence that when you have a lot more men, when men do form partnerships, uh, with women, they're much more likely to be respectful and, uh, less domestic violence. And because they're sort of, you know, the fact, if you lose that partner, you're then out in the sort of mating game again, so it's really risky to... Um, I think where men are in the minority, you get, um, uh, men are more willing to, to sort of pursue shorter term mating goals. They can drive that, uh, the mating market 'cause they're, they're sort of in, um, have greater influence given their smaller numbers. So I think yeah, to the extent when, when the mi- the sex ratio is skewed more towards women and there are few men and men's mating goals can predominate in the sort of mating m- market, um, men might be more likely to pursue leadership and status for those aims particularly, to just enhance their mating opportunity perhaps even more explicitly.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CRChris von Rueden
That might be the prediction I'd make.
- CWChris Williamson
That's interesting. What would be a reason ancestrally about why there would be a skew in the sex ratio at all? Like, men and women ish are born at around about 50/50.
- CRChris von Rueden
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What would be some of the things that would have caused there to be a significant skew in that, could you think?
- CRChris von Rueden
Um, high rates of homicide breed that, especially given that, you know, homicide is more likely to involve males than females. Um, so there are, there were skewed sex ratios, for example, in, um, Inuit populations where male, adult males were more likely to die, um, violent death. And, and then there's also infanticide that, um, uh, also affects things. So because veils were, were
- NANarrator
(techno music)
- CRChris von Rueden
... more likely to die of violent death, um, there were also, there was also a lot of female infanticide because males were sort of valued sort of producers and were more rare. And so you could get this then skewed sex ratio where there are many more men, um, that could then exacerbate the sort of male-male conflicts later in life and sort of perpetuate that kind of, um...
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, so women would have after birth disposed of a female baby?
- CRChris von Rueden
Right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- CRChris von Rueden
So those are two main mechanisms, I think, is adult mortality and then infanticide early in life, where it's selective by gender. Um...
- CWChris Williamson
Would intergroup conflict play a role here? Would there be a potential of, um, I guess a proliferation of women might be if your tribe went and killed all of the men in another tribe and then took all of those women? I don't know how common that would be.
- CRChris von Rueden
I mean, I think... The, the frequency of warfare in hunter-gatherers, and especially in ancestral human hunter-gatherers is debated. Um, certainly homicides are frequent. Um, but, uh, yeah, I think, I think my view is that warfare has played a selection pressure in human psychology for, you know, a long time. Um, and yeah, to the extent that can create skewed local sex ratios, you know. Because our psychology does respond to differences in sex ratio, this suggests that ancestrally, we experienced variation in sex ratios.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, that is so interesting.
- CRChris von Rueden
You know, so-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CRChris von Rueden
... it would have to come from somewhere.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- CRChris von Rueden
Um...
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I love that. I love that ins- I love the fact that the only reason that we're able to respond to this is because previously, we would have been exposed to it.
- CRChris von Rueden
I mean, you could argue some kind of like, well, you could reason your, you know, you find yourself in some sex ratio and you could sort of use some kind of logic or reason to s- "Oh, may- I should adapt my mating psychology now."
- 54:11 – 54:46
Where to Find Chris
- CWChris Williamson
Look, Chris von Ruden, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do, where should they go on the internet?
- CRChris von Rueden
Google Chris von Ruden, look for my Google Sites website. I got some papers and talks and pub- sort of popular articles and stuff up there, so look for me there.
- CWChris Williamson
Chris, I appreciate you. Thank you. What's happening people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks, and don't forget to subscribe. Peace. (techno music)
Episode duration: 54:46
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