The psychological foundations and socioecological variability of human social status

We summarize how evolved mechanisms for navigating status hierarchies—through dominance, prestige, and coalitionary support—interact with diverse ecological, demographic, and cultural contexts. The human evolutionary past was more politically diverse than often assumed, which suggests cross-cultural data from diverse societies are crucial for understanding the design, including context-sensitivity, of human status psychology. We describe how cross-cultural, anthropological research provides critical tests of core claims in evolutionary psychology, regarding motivations of status-seeking (both to acquire superlative status and to avoid the bottom of the status distribution), gendered pathways to status, and the circumstances that cause us to tolerate more pronounced status inequalities.