An Integrative Interdisciplinary Perspective on Social Dominance Hierarchies

• Published in: Trends in cognitive sciences 2017-11, Vol.21 (11), p.893-908
• Main Authors: Qu, Chen, Ligneul, Romain, Van der Henst, Jean-Baptiste, Dreher, Jean-Claude
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Biological Evolution; Brain - drug effects; Brain - physiology; Cognitive science; dominance; Humans; medial prefrontal cortex; model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging; Neuroscience; Social Dominance; social ranks; social status; testosterone
• ISSN: 1364-6613; 1879-307X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2017.08.004

In the course of evolution, social dominance has been a strong force shaping the organization of social systems in many species. Individuals with a better ability to represent social dominance relationships and to adapt their behavior accordingly usually achieve better access to resources, hence providing benefits in terms of reproduction, health, and wellbeing. Understanding how and to what extent our brains are affected by social dominance requires interdisciplinary efforts. Here, we integrate findings from social neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology to highlight how social hierarchies are learned and represented in primates. We also review neuropharmacological findings showing how dopamine, serotonin, and testosterone influence social hierarchies and we emphasize their key clinical implications on vulnerabilities to neuropsychiatric disorders. The drive to occupy a specific social dominance status is deeply rooted in the biology and evolutionary history of our species. Dominance hierarchies emerge early in development, and children use a variety of cues to learn about social dominance relationships. Learning social hierarchy information engages the anterior mPFC, both when learning ranks by observation and when learning by direct dyadic competitive interactions. The neurocomputational mechanisms at play when learning social hierarchies have been identified using model-based fMRI. Dopamine, serotonin, and testosterone are central to the emergence of social hierarchies across species. Understanding the neural bases of social dominance hierarchies is key to explain interindividual differences in human cognition and has important clinical implications.