Children and Adults Use Physical Size and Numerical Alliances in Third-Party Judgments of Dominance

Frontiers in Psychology
Stella F LourencoBari L Schwartz

Abstract

Humans and other social animals interact regularly with conspecifics as part of affiliative groups. Many of these interactions are cooperative, but many others involve competition for resources. Competitive exchanges are often resolved on the basis of dominance relationships, with higher-ranking individuals receiving priority access to desired goods. Although no single cue can establish permanent dominance relationships, there are some cues that predict dominance fairly reliably across context. In the present study, we focused on two such cues relevant to competing groups: (i) the physical sizes of individual members, and (ii) their relative number. Using a social competition task, we examined whether, and how, preschool-aged children and adults used differences in physical size and numerical alliances to judge which of two groups should prevail in a competitive exchange for a desired object. These judgments were made when either physical size or number differed between groups (Experiment 1), and when both were available but pitted against each other (Experiments 1 and 2). Our findings revealed that by 3 years of age, humans use multiple perceptible cues in third-party judgments of dominance. Our findings also revealed that 3-y...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jun 14, 2019·American Journal of Human Biology : the Official Journal of the Human Biology Council·Slawomir KozielMichael Hermanussen

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