Deck 12: Status, Prestige, and Social Dominance

Question 1

Male crickets that win intrasexual competitions are more likely to _______________.

A) try to usurp neighboring territories from rivals
B) seek sexual favors from female crickets
C) seek additional food supplies
D) none of the above

Answer 1

seek sexual favors from female crickets

Question 2

Elevated status can give men greater sexual access along which of the following paths?

A) preferential selection as mates by women
B) through increased copulatory rates
C) increased access to women through intersexual domination
D) all of the above

Answer 2

preferential selection as mates by women

Question 3

A dominance hierarchy refers to __________.

A) the hierarchy of males and females within a group
B) a pattern of status within a family
C) the fighting that dictates who is of higher status and who is of lower status
D) the fact that some individuals within a group reliably gain greater access than others to key resources

Answer 3

the fact that some individuals within a group reliably gain greater access than others to key resources

Question 4

Studies have documented that in interactions between 3 people, a clear hierarchy emerges within _________________in 50 percent and within ___________ among the other 50 percent.

A) 10 minutes,;50 minutes
B) 20 minutes; 40 minutes
C) 1 minutes; 5 minutes
D) none of the above

Question 5

Although the dominance hierarchy does not have a function, the ______________ do have a function.

A) group hierarchies
B) strategies of individuals
C) aggregates they produce
D) pecking orders

Question 6

In its simplest form, a dominance hierarchy is __________.

A) transitive
B) intransitive
C) determined without fighting
D) pronounced

Question 7

After a victory, a male crayfish will experience excitation by serotonin within a specific synapse while the loser experiences inhibition by serotonin at the same particular synapse. When the same two crayfish compete and the result of the fight is a reversal of the winner and loser, __________.

A) both the new loser and new winner experience excitation by serotonin at that synapse
B) both the new loser and the new winner experience inhibition by serotonin at that synapse
C) the new winner experiences excitation, and the new loser experiences inhibition by serotonin at that synapse
D) the new winner experiences inhibition, and the new loser experiences excitation by serotonin at that synapse

Question 8

Prestigious individuals are sought for ___________ and _____________.

A) the physical protection they can afford; the intimidation skills they can provide
B) the reproductively relevant rewards they can offer; the physical protection they can afford
C) the information they can provide; the reproductively relevant rewards they can offer
D) the intimidation skills; the information they can provide

Question 9

Mazur and Booth found that testosterone levels of the winners of tennis matches _____________ and the testosterone levels of losers of matches ______________.

A) decreased; increased
B) increased; remained the same
C) remained high; dropped dramatically
D) remained the same; increased slightly

Question 10

__________________ provides a powerful adaptive rationale for the evolution of dominance-striving mechanisms.

A) Sexual access to females
B) Sexual access to males
C) Production hierarchies
D) Testosterone increases

Question 11

Which of the following statements about modern men's status is NOT true?

A) Men with high status are less likely to be sexually polygynous.
B) The higher the male academic's position, the more children he has.
C) Men scoring high on social dominance report having the most affairs.
D) Men with high status and high income report having more frequent sex.

Question 12

Dominance hierarchies and production hierarchies differ in __________.

A) the degree of cooperation over resource acquisition
B) the role that the sex of the participants have
C) how long each will last
D) none of the above

Question 13

Prestige is defined as __________.

A) domain-general status
B) dominance
C) deference for fear of retaliation
D) freely conferred deference

Question 14

Failure to display a submissive greeting to a dominant male chimpanzee by ___________ will often provoke aggressive retaliation in the dominant chimpanzee.

A) males
B) females
C) both males and females
D) the dominant male's offspring

Question 15

In most social species, once dominance hierarchies form, they __________.

A) are not static
B) remain stable until a dominant male dies
C) rarely change
D) none of the above

Question 16

A dominant male chimpanzee in a colony typically secures at least ______ percent of all copulations.

A) 15
B) 35
C) 50
D) 90

Question 17

The best predictor of dominance status of a male chimpanzee is __________.

A) the number of submissive greetings he receives
B) his mating success
C) the number of offspring he has sired
D) his size

Question 18

Betzig found that, among the first six civilizations, ____________men disproportionately had _____________.

A) low-status; a greater number of injuries inflicted on them
B) high-status; greater sexual access to women
C) low-status; a lesser number of injuries inflicted on them
D) high-status; lesser sexual access to women

Question 19

Whiting and Edwards found that girls were less likely than boys to engage in __________.

A) assaults
B) aggressive actions
C) rough-and-tumble play
D) all of the above

Question 20

Fighting avoidance is beneficial to potential losers because _______________ and beneficial to potential winners because ______________.

A) they can gain sexual access to females; they avoid the risk of injuries
B) they risk injury; they risk energetic costs of engaging in a fight
C) they break social alliances to form new ones; they avoid having to form new alliances
D) none of the above

Question 21

Megargee found that ______________ of the high-dominant men and women became leaders in interactions with same-sex, low-dominant peers.

A) the minority
B) all
C) the majority
D) none

Question 22

_______ are far more likely to use appeasement strategies when dealing with a high-status man.

A) Young people
B) Older people
C) Women
D) Men

Question 23

For deontic rules, people seek out ______________; for indicative rules, people seek out ______________.

A) dominance hierarchies; production hierarchies
B) indicators of status; strategic rule violators
C) rule violations; instances that conform to the rule
D) instances that conform to the rule; rule violations

Question 24

Self-esteem, from the perspective of sociometer theory, is __________.

A) not adaptive
B) a subjective indicator of other people's evaluations of oneself
C) not favored by natural selection, but instead is a byproduct of other psychological mechanisms designed to deal with problems associated with status striving
D) incapable of being investigated empirically

Question 25

McGuire and Raleigh studied serotonin levels in association with dominance and found that __________.

A) alpha males possessed the lowest levels of serotonin
B) social rank was not correlated with serotonin in their subjects
C) as a lower-ranking individual gained status, his serotonin level increased
D) as a lower-ranking individual gained status, his serotonin level decreased

Question 26

Social anxiety may be an adaptive response designed to __________.

A) dissuade rivals from perceiving you as a threat
B) invoke kin in status disputes
C) avoid status loss
D) deceptively usurp the status of others without obvious signals that their status is being usurped

Question 27

Winners of a competition experience elevated mood and __________________.

A) increase their helping behaviors
B) decrease their helping behaviors
C) greater envy
D) are more likely to avoid competition

Question 28

When exposed to _______________ women rated themselves as less desirable than their mates; when exposed to ________________ men rated themselves as less desirable than their mates.

A) photos of physically attractive women; photos of highly dominant men
B) photos of low-dominance men; photos of highly dominant men
C) photos of physically attractive women; photos of physically unattractive women
D) photos of highly dominant men; photos of low-dominance men

Question 29

Women experience more envy over a rival's ______________ while men experience more envy over a rival's _________________.

A) physical attractiveness; sexual experience
B) sexual experience; physical attractiveness
C) status; resources
D) resources; status

Question 30

Cummins' dominance theory makes the distinction between __________.

A) rule reasoning and social reasoning
B) diatonic reasoning and indicative reasoning
C) deontic reasoning and indicative reasoning
D) temporal reasoning and diatonic reasoning

Question 31

Mismatch experiments which involve placing high-testosterone individuals into low-status situations and low-testosterone individuals into high-status situations revealed that __________.

A) both sets of participants experienced elevated stress levels
B) only low-testosterone participants experienced elevated stress levels
C) only high-testosterone participants experiences elevated stress levels
D) neither set of participants experienced elevated stress levels

Question 32

When told that a given man is of high status, participants tend to rate him as ________________.

A) more attractive
B) less attractive
C) shorter
D) taller

Question 33

Men rated ______________ as more socially desirable than women did; women rated __________ as more socially desirable than men did.

A) egoistic dominant acts; prosocial dominant acts
B) prosocial dominant acts; egoistic dominant acts
C) altruistic dominant acts; hierarchical dominant acts
D) hierarchical dominant acts; altruistic dominant acts

Question 34

Resource-holding potential refers to __________.

A) an absolute value of physical dominance
B) an evaluation of the organism's relative strengths and weaknesses compared to peers
C) the amount of money a person saves per year
D) the quality and quantity of attention others pay to a particular person

Question 35

Social dominance orientation is __________.

A) lower in men than in women
B) similar in men and women
C) a preference for production hierarchies
D) higher in men than in women

Question 36

Hartung proposed that deceiving down may be an adaptive solution designed to __________.

A) preserve self-esteem
B) attain higher status
C) bolster one's reputation as a cooperative and worthy ally
D) avoid risks and costs imposed by dominant individuals by portraying oneself as subordinate

Question 37

Maccoby described one of the two most robust sex differences in preschool years to be __________.

A) toy choice
B) rough-and-tumble play
C) success at influencing friends
D) none of the above

Question 38

Mueller and Mazur found that _________ predicted attainment of higher ranks in the military twenty years later.

A) dominance hierarchies
B) facial symmetry
C) facial dominance
D) performance

Question 39

Megargee found that, when low-dominance men were teamed with high-dominance women, the men became leaders through ____________.

A) appointment by the women
B) women's suppression of their own dominance
C) men's compulsion to assume the standard sex role of higher dominance
D) none of the above

Question 40

When people are angered or frustrated, their blood pressure rises. If given the opportunity to aggress against the person who caused their anger, their blood pressure _________-but only if ___________________.

A) increases; the target was a woman
B) increases; the target was a man
C) returns to normal; the target was higher in status
D) returns to normal; the target was lower in status

Question 41

Feather investigated how people react to the failure of another individual. Which of the following is NOT a finding from his studies?

A) If the individual was low-status, participants felt more pleasure.
B) Subjects with low self-esteem reported more delight than subjects with high self-esteem.
C) When the individual's success was apparently not deserved, observing his failure was more pleasing to subjects.
D) If the individual who failed had high status, participants felt more pleasure.

Question 42

Bi-strategic controllers __________.

A) simultaneously pursue aspects of fast and slow life history strategies
B) exert control over both high-status and low-status individuals by behaving prosocially
C) engage in prosocial and coercive strategies to obtain dominance and popularity
D) all of the above

Question 43

Which of the following is a key route to higher prestige?

A) engaging in monogamous relationships
B) making large anonymous donations
C) displaying dominance in intrasexual competition
D) costly signaling

Question 44

Self-esteem seems to be correlated to self-perceived mate value, particularly __________.

A) among single women
B) among mated women
C) among single men
D) among mated men

Question 45

Contemporary Americans prefer their leaders to be _________, and such individuals also believe themselves to be more capable of leading and more willing to do so.

A) heavier
B) tall
C) altruistic
D) coercive

Question 46

Studies looking at the effects of testosterone imply that __________.

A) testosterone is associated with dominance but not prestige
B) testosterone is associated with dominance in men, but prestige in women
C) testosterone is associated with prestige in men, but dominance in women
D) testosterone levels are correlated with intelligence

Question 47

Which of the following correctly depicts the testosterone-cortisol interaction effect in men?

A) Testosterone is highly linked to dominance only among men who are high in cortisol.
B) Testosterone is highly linked to dominance only among men who are low in cortisol.
C) High levels of cortisol predict dominance only among men who are low in testosterone.
D) High levels of cortisol predict dominance only among men who are high in testosterone.

Question 48

Which of the following is most likely to result in attaining a leadership role?

A) possession and demonstration of specialized knowledge
B) obtaining the highest-quality mate in the group
C) demonstrating the highest formidability in intrasexual competition
D) making large anonymous donations

Question 49

Schadenfreude is a term referring to __________.

A) the feeling one has when confronted by a highly dominant individual
B) the experience of pleasure at another's misfortune
C) an attempt to feign interest in a lower-status individual
D) a coup in which the alpha male is overthrown