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When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance

Biological predictors of human dominance are hotly contested, with far-reaching implications for psychological sex differences and the placement of men and women in the social hierarchy. Most investigations have focused on dominance in men and testosterone, with diminished attention paid to dominanc...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Blake, Khandis R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9674267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36343265
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205451119
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author_facet Blake, Khandis R.
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description Biological predictors of human dominance are hotly contested, with far-reaching implications for psychological sex differences and the placement of men and women in the social hierarchy. Most investigations have focused on dominance in men and testosterone, with diminished attention paid to dominance in women and other biological mechanisms. Investigating biological influences on other routes to status attainment popular among women—such as via prestige in addition to dominance—have also been neglected. Here, I examined whether status seeking via prestige and via dominance covaried with fertility probability in a citizen science project spanning 14 countries and 4 world regions. Across 4,179 observations, participants tracked their menstrual cycle characteristics, motivation for prestige and dominance, dominance contest outcomes, and three domains of self-esteem. Self-esteem is predicted by status within a group and helps individuals navigate social hierarchies. Bayesian mixed models controlling for menstruation indicated that the motivation to obtain status via prestige but not dominance peaked when conception was most likely, as did dominance contest losses and two self-esteem domains. Fertility appears to reorient female psychology toward prestige-based strategies to success, enhancing women’s desire for social capital through influence and admiration but not through fear, coercion, or intimidation. These insights fundamentally advance the understanding of the biological correlates of status seeking among women. They further suggest that fertility motivates not only mating competition but gaining rank and positive regard in social hierarchies.
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spelling pubmed-96742672023-05-07 When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance Blake, Khandis R. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences Biological predictors of human dominance are hotly contested, with far-reaching implications for psychological sex differences and the placement of men and women in the social hierarchy. Most investigations have focused on dominance in men and testosterone, with diminished attention paid to dominance in women and other biological mechanisms. Investigating biological influences on other routes to status attainment popular among women—such as via prestige in addition to dominance—have also been neglected. Here, I examined whether status seeking via prestige and via dominance covaried with fertility probability in a citizen science project spanning 14 countries and 4 world regions. Across 4,179 observations, participants tracked their menstrual cycle characteristics, motivation for prestige and dominance, dominance contest outcomes, and three domains of self-esteem. Self-esteem is predicted by status within a group and helps individuals navigate social hierarchies. Bayesian mixed models controlling for menstruation indicated that the motivation to obtain status via prestige but not dominance peaked when conception was most likely, as did dominance contest losses and two self-esteem domains. Fertility appears to reorient female psychology toward prestige-based strategies to success, enhancing women’s desire for social capital through influence and admiration but not through fear, coercion, or intimidation. These insights fundamentally advance the understanding of the biological correlates of status seeking among women. They further suggest that fertility motivates not only mating competition but gaining rank and positive regard in social hierarchies. National Academy of Sciences 2022-11-07 2022-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9674267/ /pubmed/36343265 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205451119 Text en Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Blake, Khandis R.
When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
title When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
title_full When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
title_fullStr When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
title_full_unstemmed When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
title_short When fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
title_sort when fertile, women seek status via prestige but not dominance
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9674267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36343265
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205451119
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