The multiple dimensions of male
social status in an Amazonian society
Christopher von Ruedena, Michael
Gurvena, Hillard Kaplanb
Presented by: Maddie Rauzi and
Caitlane Gangstad
Introduction
• Classification by social status is universal in humans.
• Certain individuals consume more resources, get better
mates, and are central in group decision making.
• Women and men compete for social status (This study
only looks at men).
• Social Status = relative access to resources within a
social group
• “These individuals have a greater relative ability to
inflict costs (i.e., dominance) or confer benefits (i.e.,
prestige) on others.”
• What does this mean?
• Status hierarchies can be looked at as
“agreements”.
• Need not be static
Introduction
• Humans vs Nonhumans
• Nonhumans = status purely from physical
dominance, alliances made in order to support
this physical dominance.
• Humans = Cooperative sharing of food,
information, labor, etc. Deference given to
individuals that “share the love” – voluntarily
share commodities or skills.
• Why are there different avenues to acquiring
status? Is this seen in modern forager societies?
Culture and Economy
• Tsimane live in areas of lowland Bolivia
• Ton'tumsi-a more acculturated Tsimane village
– Some Trismane entrepreneurs buy things in San Borja
and resell them to villagers.
– Access to public education
• ~40% of Tsimane men survive to 60+
• The hunting kill rate peaks at 40 and declines
afterwards
• Lack intergroup warfare
Hypothesis
• Proxies for dominance/status:
– Success in dyadic physical confrontation
– Getting one's way in the context of a conflict
within a group
– Influence in the context of a community-wide
dispute
– Respect
• Respect-“other people's acknowledgment of an
individual's social status: his or her relative ability to
inflict costs or confer benefits on others.”
Hypothesis Continued
• What was measured:
– age, physical size food production (hunting ability),
level of acculturation (Spanish fluency), prosocial
personality traits, social support (number of allies)
• Predictions:
–
–
–
–
–
Physical sizewinning dyadic fights
Number of allieswinning group conflicts
Acculturationcommunity influence
Prosocial behaviorcommunity influence
Social status will increase until 40’s, then decline, with
each proxy declining at a different rate
Methods
• 57 adult men over 18 out of a 300 person
village
– 8/57 were unmarried
– None had more than one wife
• Raters did not overestimate the qualities of
family members
Methods
• Demographic data allowed for kinship analysis
• Measured bicep and chest circumference
• Men were asked to read a sentence in
Tsimane and questioned about fluency in
Spanish
Methods
• Photo ranked other men in the village
– Answered yes or no to photos of 16 men
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Hunting ability
Being a hard worker
Being funny
Keeping promises
Trustworthiness
Generosity in meat sharing
Generosity in lending money
Giving good advice
How often they visited
Methods
– Ranked photos of 8 men on:
•
•
•
•
•
Fighting ability
Whether the individual gets his way in a group dispute
Level of influence in the community
Whether the individual is well respected
Whether the individual is likely to have more allies in
the event of a conflict
Results
•Physical size and social support  winning dyadic physical
confrontations
•Social support (and physical size)  getting one’s way in a group
•Social support  community-wide influence *
•Acculturation  community-wide influence
•Social support  respect
•Food-production  respect
•Food production and acculturation covary
•Prosocial  all four
(when concerning food, then  respect)
•Note: larger physical size, acculturation, and
prosocial behavior associated with social
support. Mediating effect.
Results
•Age does not linearly predict
any of the four proxies.
Results
Discussion
• Social support independent than physical size when
predicting success in fighting
• because a fight could lead to both parties’ supporters
retaliating and fighting?
• Having more allies actually makes you seem more
formidable?
• Physical size and social support both important in
getting one’s way in a group
• an intermediate between dyadic fight and community
influence?
• Social support & community influence
• Probably because sharing decisions that lead to
reciprocal altruism lead to strong alliance formations.
Discussion
• Skills gained through education are becoming increasingly
important for influencing the community
• - provide exclusive access to knowledge germane to communitywide debates
• - increase opportunities to gain and flaunt material wealth.
• - gets lots of allies
• However, it is hunting that earns you the most respect. (Educated =
nouveau riche).
• Age does not lend a lot of social influence because of lack of
education, when it used to be that shamanism and hunting
knowledge was valuable.
• “The Tale of Two Leaders”
- there seem to be multiple ways for gaining status, and its best to
cover all bases.
Conclusions
Conclusions
• High status leads to fitness benefits
• - Among the Tsimane, male-status hierarchies are best viewed as
multidimensional.
• - Dyadic fighting ability is determined largely by physical size, but the
ability to get one's way in a group dispute, community influence, and
respect arise primarily from social support.
• - Even the ability to win a dyadic fight is viewed as indistinguishable from
the strength of one's alliances.
• - Among the Tsimane, the oldest adults do not wield the most social
status. Older men do not have either the physical size or market-related
skills, which has eclipsed traditional skills in generating community-wide
influence.
• - However, hunting ability produces respect whereas level of acculturation
does not.
• Inequalities in privately held wealth may eventually deemphasize statusleveling norms, leading to “polarization of social hierarchies” (social
classes).