ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2023
Mechanisms of equality and inequality in mammalian societies.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Women's mental health: current status and evolutionary perspectives.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Review
- Competitive social feedback amplifies the role of early life contingency in male mice.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- A Natural Disaster Exacerbates and Redistributes Disease Risk Among Free-Ranging Macaques by Altering Social Structure.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Vole hunting: novel predatory and carnivorous behavior by California ground squirrels.Journal of ethology · 2025Article
- Selective social tolerance drives differentiated relationships among wild female chimpanzees.Animal behaviour · 2024Article
- Sex-specific competitive social feedback amplifies the role of early life contingency in male mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Identifying key socioecological factors influencing the expression of egalitarianism and inequality among foragers.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Toward an evolutionary ecology of (in)equality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Mechanisms of equality and inequality in mammalian societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Playing the political game: the coevolution of institutions with group size and political inequality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Conceptual and analytical approaches for modelling the developmental origins of inequality.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
The extent of (in)equality is highly diverse across species of social mammals, but we have a poor understanding of the factors that produce or inhibit equitable social organizations. Here, we adopt a comparative evolutionary perspective to test whether the evolution of social dominance hierarchies, a measure of social inequality in animals, exhibits phylogenetic conservatism and whether interspecific variation in these traits can be explained by sex, age or captivity. We find that hierarchy steepness and directional consistency evolve rapidly without any apparent constraint from evolutionary history. Given this extraordinary variability, we next consider multiple factors that have evolved to mitigate social inequality. Social networks, coalitionary support and knowledge transfer advantage to privilege some individuals over others. Nutritional access and prenatal stressors can impact the development of offspring, generating health disparities with intergenerational consequences. Intergenerational transfer of material resources (e.g. stone tools, food stashes, territories) advantage those who receive. Nonetheless, many of the same social species that experience unequal access to food (survival) and mates (reproduction) engage in levelling mechanisms such as food sharing, adoption, revolutionary coalitions, forgiveness and inequity aversion. Taken together, mammals rely upon a suite of mechanisms of (in)equality to balance the costs and benefits of group living. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolutionary ecology of inequality'.
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