The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen

Author:Simon Baron-Cohen [SIMON BARON - COHEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2012-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

Power

Most primates are social. But what does this social interaction comprise? It turns out that a lot of socializing is about gaining, maintaining, and improving your social rank, and keeping track of everyone else’s social rank. And as a general rule of thumb, the higher your social rank, the higher your chances of survival. So if you are good at reading the group as a social hierarchy—a system—you could prosper.

It is not hard to see why your rank, and your skill at negotiating the ranks, determines your survival chances. For one reason, to be socially excluded is to lose the protection of the group. Equally, if you fail to recognize your place in the social system, you risk a conflict with someone higher up who also needs to protect his or her own social rank. Fine if you think you can win in a conflict with a “superior,” but if you can’t, the costs could be great. Among monkeys, for example, a shocking 50 percent of adolescent males are killed in conflicts over status. So the pressure is on to know your place, and monitor everyone else’s place.

Even though in this example we are talking about a social system, the same if-then (input–operation–output) conditionality rules are used. If I am number 5 in the pecking order (input), then I can threaten my “inferiors” (numbers 6, 7, and 8) (operation) relatively safely (output). If I threaten my “superiors” (numbers 4, 3, 2, or 1), I risk injury or death. If he is number 3 and challenges number 2 and wins, then he becomes number 2. Social systemizing.

Some actions will cost you rank, other actions will gain you rank, and the good systemizer will be tracking these outcomes. Call it politics. It might be at the level of individual relationships, such as competing in subtle ways so as to be recognized as better than your workmates, and thereby be offered the promotion (the opportunity to climb) when it arises. Or it might be at the level of systemizing whole groups of people, as in tribal or territorial expansion, or warfare over resources. Today’s equivalent of systemizing groups of people is seen in local or national politics. Here, a good systemizer can keep track of how big a swing of the votes their party managed, how many seats were won or lost, and so on. A good systemizer could also keep track of how many points a sports team won or lost, and how it affects their position in the rankings.

The other reason that people keep track of social rank is its connection with what Darwin called “sexual selection.” Females in many species, but especially among the primates, tend to be the choosy sex (in other words, they play a greater role in selection). This is understandable, because they typically invest more time and energy in producing the offspring. One sexual act may cost a man a few seconds or minutes, but it may cost a woman nine months of pregnancy, and the rest.

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