Skip to main content

Evolutionary Models of Leadership

Tests and Synthesis

Human Nature volume 30, pages 23–58 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

This study tested four theoretical models of leadership with data from the ethnographic record. The first was a game-theoretical model of leadership in collective actions, in which followers prefer and reward a leader who monitors and sanctions free-riders as group size increases. The second was the dominance model, in which dominant leaders threaten followers with physical or social harm. The third, the prestige model, suggests leaders with valued skills and expertise are chosen by followers who strive to emulate them. The fourth proposes that in small-scale, kin-based societies, men with high neural capital are best able to achieve and maintain positions of social influence (e.g., as headmen) and thereby often become polygynous and have more offspring than other men, which positively selects for greater neural capital. Using multiple search strategies we identified more than 1000 texts relevant to leadership in the Probability Sample of 60 cultures from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF). We operationalized the model with variables and then coded all retrieved text records on the presence or absence of evidence for each of these 24 variables. We found mixed support for the collective action model, broad support for components of the prestige leadership style and the importance of neural capital and polygyny among leaders, but more limited support for the dominance leadership style. We found little evidence, however, of emulation of, or prestige-biased learning toward, leaders. We found that improving collective actions, having expertise, providing counsel, and being respected, having high neural capital, and being polygynous are common properties of leaders, which warrants a synthesis of the collective action, prestige, and neural capital and reproductive skew models. We sketch one such synthesis involving high-quality decision-making and other computational services.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Notes

  1. In various publications Neel uses the term “eugenic.” In her obituary of Neel, historian Susan Lindee (2001:504) writes: “Neel wanted to understand the forces driving human evolution, in order to assess how those forces had changed. This was in some ways a classic ‘eugenics’ question, as Neel recognized, justified by concerns that higher mutation rates and reduced selection pressure could lead to an overall decline in the fitness of the human gene pool. . . . He had a eugenic agenda, if eugenics is understood as the effort to promote policies and practices that preserve the health of the human gene pool. Yet most of his eugenic proposals, such as widespread access to prenatal testing and genetic counseling, would no longer be considered ‘eugenic’ primarily because they have been re-framed as benefiting individuals, rather than the state or the species.”

  2. eHRAF search query: ((Cultures = (Any Culture)) AND (((Subjects = (‘157’ OR ‘554’ OR ‘555’ OR ‘557’ OR ‘558’ OR ‘571’ OR ‘573’ OR ‘578’ OR ‘622’ OR ‘626’ OR ‘627’ OR ‘628’ OR ‘643’ OR ‘665’ OR ‘701’ OR ‘851’)) AND (Text = (leader* OR follower* OR headman OR headmen OR bigman OR bigmen OR chief))))))

References

  • Adriani, N., & Kruijt, A. C. (1950). The Bare’e-speaking Toradja of central Celebes (the East Toradja), vol. 1. [De Bare’e sprekende Toradjas van Midden-Celebes (de Oost-Toradjas), eerste deel, Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij]. (HRAF MS: 13, 714 [original: 12, 478]). http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=og11-002

  • Alexander, R. D. (1990). How did humans evolve? Reflections on the uniquely unique species. Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan Special Publication, 1. Ann Arbor.

    Google Scholar 

  • Apter, D. E. (1967). Political kingdom in Uganda: A study in bureaucratic nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arden, R., Gottfredson, L. S., & Miller, G. (2009). Does a fitness factor contribute to the association between intelligence and health outcomes? Evidence from medical abnormality counts among 3654 US veterans. Intelligence, 37(6), 581–591.

  • Arnold, J. E. (1996). Organizational transformations: Power and labor among complex hunter-gatherers and other intermediate societies. In J. E. Arnold (Ed.), Emergent complexity: The evolution of intermediate societies (pp. 59–73). Ann Arbor: International Monographs in Prehistory.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barclay, P. (2011). Competitive helping increases with the size of biological markets and invades defection. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 281(1), 47–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barkow, J. H. (1989). Darwin, sex, and status. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barkow, J. H., Akiwowo, A. A., Barua, T. K., Chance, M. R., Chapple, E. D., Chattopadhyay, G. P., et al. (1975). Prestige and culture: A biosocial interpretation. Current Anthropology, 16(4), 553–572.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bass, B. M., & Stogdill, R. M. (1990). Handbook of leadership: Theory, research & managerial applications (third ed.). New York: Free Press.

  • Birdsell, J. B. (1958). On population structure in generalized hunting and collecting populations. Evolution, 12(2), 189–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blader, S. L., & Chen, Y.-R. (2014). What’s in a name? Status, power, and other forms of social hierarchy. In J. T. Cheng, J. L. Tracy, & C. Anderson (Eds.), The psychology of social status (pp. 71–95). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (1993). Egalitarian behavior and reverse dominance hierarchy. Current Anthropology, 34(3), 227–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (1999). Hierarchy in the forest: The evolution of egalitarian behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, C. (2008). Purposive social selection and the evolution of human altruism. Cross-Cultural Research, 42(4), 319–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borgerhoff Mulder, M., Fazzio, I., Irons, W., McElreath, R. L., Bowles, S., Bell, A., Hertz, T., & Hazzah, L. (2010). Pastoralism and wealth inequality: Revisiting an old question. Current Anthropology, 51(1), 35–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bowser, B., & Patton, J. (2010). Women’s leadership: Political alliance, economic resources, and reproductive success in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In K. J. Vaughn, J. W. Eerkens, & J. Kantner (Eds.), The evolution of leadership: Transitions in decision making from small-scale to middle-range societies (pp. 51–71). Santa Fe: SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1992). Punishment allows the evolution of cooperation (or anything else) in sizable groups. Ethology and Sociobiology, 13(3), 171–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, D. E. (1991). Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, R., & Whiten, A. (1989). Machiavellian intelligence: Social expertise and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, L., Simpson, J. A., Stewart, M., & Manning, J. G. (2002). The formation of status hierarchies in leaderless groups. Human Nature, 13(3), 345–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chagnon, N. A. (1988). Life histories, blood revenge, and warfare in a tribal population. Science, 239(4843), 985–992.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chance, M. R. (1967). Attention structure as the basis of primate rank orders. Man, 2(4), 503–518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chapais, B. (2015). Competence and the evolutionary origins of status and power in humans. Human Nature, 26(2), 161–183.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chaudhary, N., Salali, G. D., Thompson, J., Dyble, M., Page, A., Smith, D., Mace, R., & Migliano, A. B. (2015). Polygyny without wealth: Popularity in gift games predicts polygyny in BaYaka pygmies. Royal Society Open Science, 2(5), 150054.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., & Henrich, J. (2010). Pride, personality, and the evolutionary foundations of human social status. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 334–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., Foulsham, T., Kingstone, A., & Henrich, J. (2013). Two ways to the top: Evidence that dominance and prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(1), 103–125.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., & Anderson, C. (Eds.). (2014). The psychology of social status. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, R., & Middleton, J. (Eds.). (1967). Comparative political systems: Studies in the politics of pre-industrial societies. Garden City: The Natural History Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cramb, R. A. (1986). Evolution of Iban land tenure. Working Papers. Clayton, Australia: Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oc06-023

  • Drews, C. (1993). The concept and definition of dominance in animal behaviour. Behaviour, 125(3), 283–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyble, M., Salali, G. D., Chaudhary, N., Page, A., Smith, D., Thompson, J., Vinicius, L., Mace, R., & Migliano, A. B. (2015). Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands. Science, 348(6236), 796–798.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dyer, J. R. G., Johansson, A., Helbing, D., Couzin, I. D., & Krause, J. (2009). Leadership, consensus decision making and collective behaviour in humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 364(1518), 781–789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Earle, T. K. (1997). How chiefs come to power: The political economy in prehistory. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

  • Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1928). Dance. Africa (Vol. 1, pp. 446–462). London: Oxford University Press http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fo07-006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90(4), 980–994.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flinn, M. V., Geary, D. C., & Ward, C. V. (2005). Ecological dominance, social competition, and coalitionary arms races. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(1), 10–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, J. (2003). Effect displays in R for generalised linear models. Journal of Statistical Software, 8(15), 1–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frank, S. A. (2003). Perspective: Repression of competition and the evolution of cooperation. Evolution, 57(4), 693–705.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, D. (1981). Some reflections on the nature of Iban society. Canberra, ACT: Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.

  • Fried, M. H. (1967). The evolution of political society. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, J., Hastie, T., & Tibshirani, R. (2010). Regularization paths for generalized linear models via coordinate descent. Journal of Statistical Software, 33(1), 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garfield, Z. H., Garfield, M. J., & Hewlett, B. S. (2016). A cross-cultural analysis of hunter-gatherer social learning. In B. S. Hewlett & T. Hideaki (Eds.), Social learning and innovation in contemporary hunter-gatherers (pp. 19–34). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gavrilets, S., & Fortunato, L. (2014). A solution to the collective action problem in between-group conflict with within-group inequality. Nature Communications, 5, 3526.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gavrilets, S., Auerbach, J., & Van Vugt, M. (2016). Convergence to consensus in heterogeneous groups and the emergence of informal leadership. Scientific Reports, 6, 29704.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glowacki, L., & von Rueden, C. R. (2015). Leadership solves collective action problems in small-scale societies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1683), 20150010. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0010.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glowacki, L., & Wrangham, R. W. (2013). The role of rewards in motivating participation in simple warfare. Human Nature, 24(4), 444–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grammer, K. (1996). Symptoms of power: The function and evolution of social status. In P. Wiessner & W. Schiefenhövel (Eds.), Food and the status quest: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 68–85). Providence: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, J. P. (2003). World cultures. Journal of Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research, 14(1).

  • Guala, F. (2012). Reciprocity: Weak or strong? What punishment experiments do (and do not) demonstrate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(1), 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurven, M., & von Rueden, C. R. (2006). Hunting, social status and biological fitness. Biodemography and Social Biology, 53, 81–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gurven, M., Allen-Arave, W., Hill, K., & Hurtado, M. (2000). “It’s a wonderful life”: Signaling generosity among the ache of Paraguay. Evolution and Human Behavior, 21(4), 263–282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gusinde, M., & Schütze, F. (1937). Yahgan: The life and thought of the water nomads of Cape Horn. Die Feuerland-Indianer [The Fuegian Indians]. Mödling Bei Wein: Anthropos-Bibliothek. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=sh06-001

  • Gwet, K. L. (2014). Handbook of inter-rater reliability: The definitive guide to measuring the extent of agreement among raters. Gaithersburg: Advanced Analytics, LLC.

  • Hagen, E. H., Chater, N., Gallistel, C. R., Houston, A., Kacelnik, A., Kalenscher, T., et al. (2012). Decision making: What can evolution do for us? In P. Hammerstein & J. R. Stevens (Eds.), Evolution and the mechanisms of decision making: Toward a Darwinian decision theory (pp. 97–126). Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hames, R. (2015). Kin selection. In D. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 505–523). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamstra, M. R. (2014). Big men: Male leaders’ height positively relates to followers’ perception of charisma. Personality and Individual Differences, 56, 190–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F. J. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22(3), 165–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, N., & Henrich, J. (2007). Why humans cooperate: A cultural and evolutionary explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., & Henrich, N. (2010). The evolution of cultural adaptations: Fijian food taboos protect against dangerous marine toxins. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 277(1701), 3715–3724.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henrich, J., Chudek, M., & Boyd, R. (2015). The big man mechanism: How prestige fosters cooperation and creates prosocial leaders. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 370(1683), 20150013.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hess, N. H., & Hagen, E. H. (2006). Sex differences in indirect aggression: Psychological evidence from young adults. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27(3), 231–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hess, N. H., & Hagen, E. H. (2017). Gossip, reputation, and friendship in in-group competition: An evolutionary perspective. In F. Giardini & R. Wittek (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of gossip and reputation. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hewlett, B. S. (1991). Demography and childcare in preindustrial societies. Journal of Anthropological Research, 47, 1–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoebel, E. A. (1954). The law of primitive man: A study in comparative legal dynamics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollis, A. C., with an introduction by S. C. Eliot. (1905). Masai: Their language and folklore. Oxford: Clarendon Press. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fl12-001.

  • Hooper, P. L., Kaplan, H. S., & Boone, J. L. (2010). A theory of leadership in human cooperative groups. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 265(4), 633–646.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, A. W., & Earle, T. K. (1987). The evolution of human societies: From foraging group to agrarian state. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

  • Johnstone, R. A. (2000). Models of reproductive skew: A review and synthesis. Ethology, 106, 5–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Judge, T. A., Colbert, A. E., & Ilies, R. (2004). Intelligence and leadership: A quantitative review and test of theoretical propositions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 542–552. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kantner, J. (2010). Identifying the pathways to permanent leadership. In K. J. Vaughn, J. W. Eerkens, & J. Kantner (Eds.), The evolution of leadership: Transitions in decision making from small-scale to middle-range societies (pp. 249–281). Santa Fe: SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, H. S., Lancaster, J. B., Johnson, S. E., & Bock, J. A. (1995). Does observed fertility maximize fitness among New Mexican men? Human Nature, 6(4), 325–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, H., Hill, K., Lancaster, J., & Hurtado, A. M. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution: Diet intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9(4), 156–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, H. S., Mueller, T., Gangestad, S., & Lancaster, J. B. (2003a). Neural capital and life span evolution among primates and humans. In C. E. Finch, J. M. Robine, & Y. Christen (Eds.), Brain and longevity (pp. 69–97). New York: Springer.

  • Kaplan, H., Lancaster, J., & Robson, A. (2003b). Embodied capital and the evolutionary economics of the human life span. Population and Development Review, 29, 152–182.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, H. S., Hooper, P. L., & Gurven, M. (2009). The evolutionary and ecological roots of human social organization. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364, 3289–3299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keohane, N. O. (2010). Thinking about leadership. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • King, A. J., Johnson, D. D. P., & Van Vugt, M. (2009). The origins and evolution of leadership. Current Biology, 19(19), PR911–916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.07.027, R911.

  • Kiyonari, T., & Barclay, P. (2008). Cooperation in social dilemmas: Free riding may be thwarted by second-order reward rather than by punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(4), 826–842.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kohler, T. A., Cockburn, D., Hooper, P. L., Bocinsky, R. K., & Kobti, Z. (2012). The coelvoution of group size and leadership: An agent-based public goods model for prehispanic Pueblo societies. Advances in Complex Systems, 15(1, n. 2), 1150007.

  • Kracke, W. H. (1978). Force and persuasion. Leadership in an Amazonian society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurzban, R., Burton-Chellew, M. N., & West, S. A. (2015). The evolution of altruism in humans. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 575–599.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landauer, T. K., & Dumais, S. T. (1997). A solution to Plato’s problem: The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition, induction, and representation of knowledge. Psychological Review, 104(2), 211–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laustsen, L., & Petersen, M. B. (2017). Perceived conflict and leader dominance: Individual and contextual factors behind preferences for dominant leaders. Political Psychology, 38(6), 1083–1101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lebel, C., & Beaulieu, C. (2011). Longitudinal development of human brain wiring continues from childhood into adulthood. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(30), 10937–10947.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, H. S. (1974). Leaders and followers: Some anthropological perspectives. Boston: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindee, S. (2001). James Van Gundia Neel (1915–2000). American Anthropologist, 103(2), 502–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Linton, R. (1936). The study of man: An introduction. New York and London: Appleton-Century.

  • Low, B. S. (2003). Ecological and social complexities in human monogamy. In U. H. Reichard & C. Boesch (Eds.), Monogamy: Mating strategies and partnerships in birds, humans and other mammals (pp. 161–176). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Low, B. S. (2005). Women’s lives there, here, then, now: A review of women’s ecological and demographic constraints cross-culturally. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26, 64–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lukaszewski, A. W., Simmons, Z. L., Anderson, C., & Roney, J. R. (2016). The role of physical formidability in human social status allocation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(3), 385–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Macfarlan, S. J., Remiker, M., & Quinlan, R. (2012). Competitive altruism explains labor exchange variation in a Dominican community. Current Anthropology, 53, 118–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, L. (1960). Kung Bushman bands. Africa, 30(04), 325–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mattison, S. M., Smith, E. A., Shenk, M. K., & Cochrane, E. E. (2016). The evolution of inequality. Evolutionary Anthropology, 25, 184–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maynard Smith, J., & Parker, G. A. (1976). The logic of asymmetric contests. Animal Behaviour, 24(1), 159–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mead, M. (1935). Sex and temperament in three primitive societies. London: G. Routledge & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, G. (1999). Sexual selection for cultural displays. In R. Dunbar, C. Knight, & C. Power (Eds.), The evolution of culture: An interdisciplinary view (pp. 71–91). New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, G. (2000). The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moïse, R. (2014). “Do pygmies have a history?” revisited: The autochthonous tradition in the history of Equatorial Africa. In B. S. Hewlett (Ed.) Hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin: Cultures, histories and biology of African Pygmies (pp. 85–116). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

  • Moore, M. (1975). Co-operative labour in peasant agriculture. Journal of Peasant Studies, 2(3), 270–291.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munoz, S. R., & Bangdiwala, S. I. (1997). Interpretation of Kappa and B statistics measures of agreement. Journal of Applied Statistics, 24(1), 105–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murdock, G. P. (1949). Social structure. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murdock, G. P., & Provost, C. (1973). Measurement of cultural complexity. Ethnology, 12(4), 379–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murdock, G. P., & White, D. R. (1969). Standard cross-cultural sample. Ethnology, 8(4), 329–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murdock, G. P., Ford, C. S., Hudson, A. E., Kennedy, R., Simmons, L. W., & Whiting, J. W. (2008). Outline of cultural materials (6th ed.). New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.

    Google Scholar 

  • Næss, M. W., Bårdsen, B.-J., Fauchald, P., & Tveraa, T. (2010). Cooperative pastoral production–the importance of kinship. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(4), 246–258.

  • Naroll, R. (1967). The proposed HRAF probability sample. Cross-Cultural Research, 2(2), 70–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neel, J. V. (1970). Lessons from a “primitive” people. Science, 170(960), 815–822.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neel, J. V. (1980). On being headman. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 23, 277–294.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neel, J. V., & Salzano, F. M. (1967). Further studies on the Xavante Indians, X: Some hypotheses-generalizations resulting from these studies. American Journal of Human Genetics, 19(4), 554–574.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neel, J. V., & Sang, J. H. (1994). Physician to the gene pool. Genetical Research, 64(2), 145–148.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neel, J. V., Salzano, F. M., Junqueira, P. C., Keiter, F., & Maybury-Lewis, D. (1964). Studies on the Xavante Indians of the Brazilian Mato Grosso. American Journal of Human Genetics, 16, 52–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science, 314(5805), 1560–1563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Gorman, R., Henrich, J., & Vugt, M. V. (2009). Constraining free riding in public goods games: Designated solitary punishers can sustain human cooperation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 276(1655), 323–329.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olson, M. (1956). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pasternak, B., Ember, C. R., & Ember, M. (1997). Sex, gender, and kinship: A cross-cultural perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, N. (1993). Demand sharing: Reciprocity and the pressure for generosity among foragers. American Anthropologist, 95(4), 860–874.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piantadosi, S. T., & Kidd, C. (2016). Extraordinary intelligence and the care of infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(25), 6874–6879.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pospisil, L. J. (1964). Law and societal structure among the Nunamiut Eskimo. In W. W. Goodenough (Ed.), Explorations in cultural anthropology: Essays in honor of George Peter Murdock (pp. 395–431). New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, T. D. (1995). Social inequality at the origins of agriculture. In T. D. Price & G. M. Feinman (Eds.), Foundations of social inequality (pp. 129–151). Boston: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Price, M. E. (2003). Pro-community altruism and social status in a Shuar village. Human Nature, 14(2), 191–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Price, T. D., & Feinman, G. M. (2010). Social inequality and the evolution of human social organization. In G. M. Feinman, T. D. Price, & G. M. Feinman (Eds.), Pathways to power (pp. 1–14). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Price, M. E., & Van Vugt, M. (2014). The evolution of leader-follower reciprocity: The theory of service-for-prestige. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 363. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00363.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Price, M. E., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2002). Punitive sentiment as an anti-free rider psychological device. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23(3), 203–231.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quinn, N. (1977). Anthropological studies on women’s status. Annual Review of Anthropology, 6, 181–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team. (2016). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1922). Andaman islanders: A study in social anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, A. I. (1940). “Political system of the Bemba tribe, north-eastern Rhodesia. In M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (Eds.) African political systems (pp. 83–120). Published for the International Institute of African Languages & Cultures. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford. http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fq05-007.

  • Richerson, P., & Henrich, J. (2012). Tribal social instincts and the cultural evolution of institutions to solve collective action problems. Cliodynamics, 3(1). 38–80.

  • Richerson, P., Baldini, R., Bell, A. V., Demps, K., Frost, K., Hillis, V., Mathew, S., Newton, E. K., Naar, N., Newson, L., Ross, C., Smaldino, P. E., Waring, T. M., & Zefferman, M. (2016). Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation: A sketch of the evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodseth, L., Wrangham, R. W., Harrigan, A. M., & Smuts, B. B. (1991). The human community as a primate society. Current Anthropology, 32(3), 221–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rogers, E. S., & Taylor, J. G. (1981). Northern Ojibwa. In J. Helm (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6: Subarctic (pp. 231–243). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosaldo, M. Z., Lamphere, L., & Bamberger, J. (Eds.). (1974). Woman, culture, and society. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

  • Roscoe, P. (2007). Intelligence, coalitional killing, and the antecedents of war. American Anthropologist, 109(3), 485–495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roscoe, P. (2009). Social signaling and the organization of small-scale society: The case of contact-era New Guinea. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 16(2), 69–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahlins, M. D. (1963). Poor man, rich man, big-man, chief: Political types in Melanesia and Polynesia. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5(3), 285–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science, 308, 648–652.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Service, E. R. (1964). Primitive social organization. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, E. A. (2004). Why do good hunters have higher reproductive success? Human Nature, 15(4), 343–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, J. E., Gavrilets, S., Mulder, M. B., Hooper, P. L., Mouden, C. E., Nettle, D., Hauert, C., Hill, K., Perry, S., Pusey, A. E., van Vugt, M., & Smith, E. A. (2016). Leadership in mammalian societies: Emergence, distribution, power, and payoff. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 31(1), 54–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spencer, R. F. (1959). The North Alaskan Eskimo: A study in ecology and society. Bulletin of American Ethnology 171. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

  • Spisak, B. R., Dekker, P. H., Krüger, M., & Van Vugt, M. (2012). Warriors and peacekeepers: Testing a biosocial implicit leadership hypothesis of intergroup relations using masculine and feminine faces. PLoS One, 7(1), e30399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stanish, C. (2004). The evolution of chiefdoms: An economic anthropological model. In G. M. Feinman (Ed.), Archaeological perspectives on political economies (pp. 7–24). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sugiyama, L. S. (2004). Illness, injury, and disability among Shiwiar forager-horticulturalists: Implications of health-risk buffering for the evolution of human life history. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 123(4), 371–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suzuki, R., & Shimodaira, H. (2006). Pvclust: An R package for assessing the uncertainty in hierarchical clustering. Bioinformatics, 22(12), 1540–1542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suzuki, R., & Shimodaira, H. (2015). Pvclust: Hierarchical clustering with p-values via multiscale bootstrap resampling. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=pvclust

  • Tibshirani, R. (1996). Regression shrinkage and selection via the lasso. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B: Methodological, 58(1), 267–288.

  • Tiger, L. (1970). Dominance in human societies. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1(1), 287–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tiger, L., & Fox, R. (1971). The imperial animal. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

  • Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1996). Friendship and the banker’s paradox: Other pathways to the evolution of adaptations for altruism. In W. G. Runciman, J. M. Smith, & R. I. M. Dunbar (Eds.), Evolution of social behaviour patterns in primates and man (pp. 119–143). Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 88. New York: Oxford University Press

  • Tooby, J., Cosmides, L., & Price, M. E. (2006). Cognitive adaptations for n-person exchange: The evolutionary roots of organizational behavior. Managerial and Decision Economics, 27(2–3), 103–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turney, P. D., & Pantel, P. (2010). From frequency to meaning: Vector space models of semantics. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 37, 141–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Lange, P. A., Balliet, D. P., Parks, C. D., & Van Vugt, M. (2014). Social dilemmas: Understanding human cooperation. USA: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Vugt, M. (2006). Evolutionary origins of leadership and followership. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 354–371.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Vugt, M., & Kurzban, R. K. (2007). Cognitive and social adaptations for leadership and followership: Evolutionary game theory and group dynamics. In J. Forgas, W. von Hippel, & M. Haselton (Eds.) The evolution of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and social cognition (pp. 229–244). Sydney Symposium of Social Psychology, Vol. 9. London: Psychology Press.

  • Van Vugt, M., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. B. (2008). Leadership, followership, and evolution: Some lessons from the past. American Psychologist, 63(3), 182–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vecsey, C. (1983). Traditional Ojibwa religion and its historical changes. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 152. Philadelphia.

  • Vehrencamp, S. L. (1983). A model for the evolution of despotic versus egalitarian societies. Animal Behaviour, 31(3), 667–682.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Rueden, C. R., & Jaeggi, A. V. (2016). Men’s status and reproductive success in 33 nonindustrial societies: Effects of subsistence, marriage system, and reproductive strategy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201606800.

  • von Rueden, C. R., & Van Vugt, M. (2015). Leadership in small-scale societies: Some implications for theory, research, and practice. Leadership Quarterly, 26, 978–990.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Rueden, C. R., Gurven, M., & Kaplan, H. (2008). The multiple dimensions of male social status in an Amazonian society. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(6), 402–415.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Rueden, C. R., Gurven, M., & Kaplan, H. (2010). Why do men seek status? Fitness payoffs to dominance and prestige. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 278(1715), 2223–2232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Rueden, C. R., Gurven, M., Kaplan, H., & Stieglitz, J. (2014). Leadership in an egalitarian society. Human Nature, 25, 538–566.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Rueden, C. R., Alami, S., Kaplan, H., & Gurven, M. (2018). Sex differences in political leadership in an egalitarian society. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39, 402–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.03.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, R. S., Hill, K. R., Flinn, M. V., & Ellsworth, R. M. (2011). Evolutionary history of hunter-gatherer marriage practices. PLoS One, 6(4), e19066.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (Vol. 1). Berkeley: University of California Press.

  • Wiessner, P. (2002). Hunting, healing, and Hxaro exchange: A long-term perspective on !Kung (Ju/'hoansi) large-game hunting. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23(6), 407–436.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wiessner, P. (2010). The power of one? Big men revisited. In K. J. Vaughn, J. W. Eerkens, & J. Kantner (Eds.), The evolution of leadership: Transitions in decision making from small-scale to middle-range societies (pp. 195–222). Santa Fe: SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. S., Near, D., & Miller, R. R. (1996). Machiavellianism: A synthesis of the evolutionary and psychological literatures. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 285–299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. S., Timmel, J. J., & Miller, R. R. (2004). Cognitive cooperation. Human Nature, 15(3), 225–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zaleznik, A. (1977). Managers and leaders: Are they different? Harvard Business Review, 55(3), 67–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zou, H., & Hastie, T. (2005). Regularization and variable selection via the elastic net. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B: Methodological, 67(2), 301–320.

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Barry Hewlett, Raymond Hames, and Leslie New for helpful comments during the preparation of this manuscript. Additionally, this manuscript was greatly improved thanks to thorough review by Mark Van Vugt, Chris von Rueden, and an anonymous reviewer. This research was funded by National Science Foundation Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences award 1628509. Original submission: August 16, 2017; Acceptance: May 17, 2018

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Avenue, Vancouver, WA, 98686-9600, USA

    Zachary H. Garfield, Robert L. Hubbard & Edward H. Hagen

Authors
  1. Zachary H. Garfield
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Robert L. Hubbard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Edward H. Hagen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Edward H. Hagen.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 38.1 kb)

ESM 2

(XLS 106 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Garfield, Z.H., Hubbard, R.L. & Hagen, E.H. Evolutionary Models of Leadership. Hum Nat 30, 23–58 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-019-09338-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-019-09338-4

Keywords

  • Leadership
  • Prestige
  • Dominance
  • Collective action
  • Neural capital
  • Cross-cultural