Dominant vs prestigious leaders: Do children from more egalitarian and hierarchical societies differ in their preferences?

– by Maija-Eliina Sequeira, Narges Afshordi, & Anni Kajanus

Social hierarchies are an inherent part of human social life, and children learn to recognise and navigate them from infancy, suggesting a universal tendency to do so. But how does our environment shape our preferences for who to learn from, or who should lead? In our recent article, we asked: How and when do children learn to recognise different forms of high status? And (how) does this vary cross-culturally? We were particularly interested in how levels of societal inequality might shape how children think about social status, since inequality has been linked to dominant leaders appearing more appealing.

Prior research has distinguished between two bases of high social rank, prestige and dominance. While dominance-based hierarchies are found across many species, prestige seems to be more specific to humans and connected to the importance of cultural learning and cooperation. To efficiently acquire remarkably complex cultural knowledge and skills, humans must know, from an early age, who to learn from. We orient toward prestigious individuals; those who are admired and emulated by others and presumably have the skills to succeed in our particular environment. Unlike dominant individuals, those high in prestige tend to be amicable and to have influence, rather than coercive power, over others. While children recognize both dominance and prestige as forms of high status, preference for prestige seems to increase with age, as does aversion toward dominance.  Some US-based studies have also shown that prestigious leaders are preferred over dominant leaders.

But does this vary across cultures? We collected and analysed data from children aged 4-11 years in three very different socio-cultural contexts: Colombia, Finland and the US. Societal inequality is relatively low in Finland and relatively high in Colombia, compared to global averages, and we therefore supposed that children in Colombia might show more of a preference for dominance compared to children in Finland, with those in the US in between.

In the study, the children first watched two sets of cartoons where a subordinate character – called Dimo – interacted with both a dominant-type and a prestigious-type character. We then asked children a series of questions designed to identify:

1. Do children recognise dominance and prestige as signals of high status?
2. Do they distinguish between dominance and prestige?
3. Do they choose to learn from a dominant or a prestigious character?
4. Do they prefer to assign leadership to a dominant or a prestigious character?

Finally, we showed children a new image of two characters with subordinate and dominant body language and asked them which one they would be and why, to determine whether they self-identify more with a dominant or a subordinate character and their reasoning. Across the different sets of questions, we were interested in identifying shared tendencies and developmental changes across the three groups as well as any cross-cultural differences.

Recognising and distinguishing between dominance and prestige

Children in all three contexts recognised and differentiated between dominance and prestige.  As we expected, they got better at doing so with age; our youngest children (four-year-olds) could identify dominance and prestige as signals of high status but were not distinguishing between them. By five years of age, they were doing so in the direction we expected; saying that Dimo would prefer and sit next to the prestigious character, and fear the dominant character.

Interestingly, there were cross-cultural differences in two of the distinguishing questions. Children in Colombia were less likely to say that Dimo feared the dominant and would sit next to the prestigious character compared to children in both Finland and the USA.

Learning novel names for novel objects

We showed children a novel object and explained that the dominant character called it one invented name (e.g., ‘modi’) and the prestigious another (e.g., ‘kapi’). We then asked them what they thought it was called.  Overall, children were more likely to give the name provided by the prestigious character, and this increased with age. We found no evidence of cultural differences in who children chose to learn from.

Assigning leadership

Children in all three contexts also tended to choose the prestigious character as a leader across three leadership tasks, and the older ones did so more than the younger, again suggesting a shift towards prestige with age. In leadership questions, we also found cross-cultural differences in children’s answers; children in Finland were more likely than children in Colombia to choose the prestigious character as a leader across the three tasks.

Self-identification

Finally, children identified with the subordinate character more than the dominant character in the image. This self-identification with the subordinate increased with age and was stronger in Finland than in Colombia.

Interpreting the results

We used our familiarity with the field sites and findings from ethnographic fieldwork when designing the study and interpreting statistical analyses. Overall, we found a shared tendency across the three contexts to favour prestige, and an increase in this preference with age. There was therefore a shared developmental shift between 4 and 11 years towards choosing to learn from, and assigning leadership to, the prestigious character, lending support to evolutionary models of social learning.

We also found cross-cultural differences in children’s answers, in the expected direction; children in Finland showed a stronger preference for prestige than those in Colombia. Ethnographic data from Colombia and Finland highlighted differences between these contexts such as the relative normalisation of authoritarian parenting and dominant-type interactions in Colombia vs. their almost complete absence in children’s lives in Finland, where children were actively taught to avoid displays of dominance. We consider that while dominance is seen as inherently negative in Finland, this is not necessarily the case in Colombia, and so children do not develop such a strong aversion to -or fear of- dominance.

The results draw attention to both the importance of conducting developmental research with children in a diverse range of societies, and the value of interdisciplinary approaches that consider child development as a process that occurs within a cultural context.

Read the original article here: Sequeira, M.-E., Afshordi, N., Kajanus, A. (2024). Prestige and dominance in egalitarian and hierarchical societies: children in Finland favor prestige more than children in Colombia or the USA. Evolution & Human Behavior, 45(4), 106591.