by Hayley Cheok
“An organisation is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different limbs at different levels. Some monkeys are climbing up, some down. The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but butts.”
– Unknown
From school to work, food pyramids to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs… we are constantly navigating hierarchies in our lives. In particular, social hierarchies are pervasive in our society and lucky for us – because we are fantastic at forming and navigating them. Social hierarchies simplify the complex world for us – they help us figure out how we should interact and treat each other. We can quickly assess our roles and change our behaviours according to the different expectations of the context.
While this can be as innocent as helping us avoid awkward instances, it can also be as crucial as figuring out how much social and material resources one can access or perhaps how discriminated someone is in the context [1].
We all vary in capabilities and can appreciate each other’s differences (or at least claim to), but there is common ground in what we generally agree is valued in society.
Money, fame, intelligence, appearance… the list can go on, and may vary depending on where you are from. But, beyond that, our positions within these hierarchies can have a profound impact on our behaviours, thoughts and feelings.
This is known as the Expectation States Theory. The theory proposes that social status has a strong relationship with emotional valence. It states that we consider evaluations from those of higher status more seriously, compared to those of lower status. This applies not only to actual behaviour but also neural responses – the regions associated with attention (occipital/parietal cortex, ventral striatum, parahippocampal cortex) were more activated when interacting with those of higher status, suggesting that more attentional resources are used [2].
Think back to primary school when you were scared to give your report card to your mom. Compare that to when you told your friends how badly you did on your test, and how hard you all laughed when you realised ALL of you did badly – in fact, maybe one or two of them did worse than you. If you have never experienced this, that’s fine. If it has, then maybe you understand where I am going with this blog post.
Additionally, we tend to favour individuals with lower positions than ourselves, and empathise more with their pain [3]. It was found that regions related to processing social hierarchies (anterior insula and anterior medial cingulate cortex) were high when individuals with lower positions were exposed to stimuli related to pain, but significantly reduced when it was higher status individuals exposed to it.
This may explain why we may lack empathy for “successful” billionaires losing their wealth overnight, or when a celebrity gets into a controversy that sends their career downwards. We may even think “they deserve it!”.
Anyway, let us delve into the study that aims to find more neural evidence for the Expectation States Theory –
The study from Guo et al. (2024)
Bilingual (Mandarin Chinese and English speaking) participants were put into an artificial social hierarchical context with three “levels” – low, middle, and high. All participants were put into the “middle” status and given an investment scenario to read. Participants were then presented with the success probabilities of the investment, before receiving advice from “high” or “low” social position individuals. This advice was either positive or negative (eg. good, fantastic vs bad, awful). Participants then decided to “invest” or “don’t invest” based on the probability information and the advice. This is repeated several times, in both English and Mandarin Chinese.
Findings
No significant difference was found between English and Mandarin Chinese – receiving positive and negative advice from individuals of a higher status affects your choices more than those of lower status despite the language. There were also differences in neural activity between the two statuses’ advice.
There was higher activation in a brain region known as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), when advice was received from higher status individuals, compared to those of lower status. The IFG is a region associated with emotional and mental hierarchy processing. Additionally, the IFG activated when hearing positive advice (but not negative!) from lower status individuals, but did not impact decision-making, unlike the higher status advice.
In conclusion, these findings suggest we pay more attention to those of higher status than lower status because their opinions elicit stronger emotions, supporting the Expectation States Theory discussed earlier. We feel uncomfortable comparing ourselves to higher status individuals because we feel inferior or envious or like our self-images are being threatened [2]. We feel awful receiving criticism from higher status individuals and extremely proud of ourselves when complimented – because their status makes their opinions more “valuable” than our own.
On the other hand, we largely feel unaffected when comparing ourselves or receiving criticisms from someone we are “better than”. While we do feel a kick receiving compliments from them, they may feel more motivating and reinforcing, rather than imperative.
So, what?
While we should probably give more weight to our bosses’ opinions over random people on the internet, the reality is we may risk falling prey to biases or blindly conforming to something we may not necessarily agree with. If we put too much emphasis on the judgments of those of higher status, we might miss out on mistakes or intentionally have to ignore our own better judgment.
In history, we have seen many examples of this playing out, with disastrous consequences – the Challenger Disaster is a major case study, looked at across classrooms in the world. Despite concerns raised by lower-level engineers, high-ranking NASA officials still made the decision to launch the faulty space shuttle, resulting in deaths of the crew members and a rippling effect of construction-related endeavours and projects being cancelled.
Similarly in the Lord of the Flies, we see the charming but misguided Ralph lead the boys into “savagery”. And even in the film “Mean Girls”, when all the Plastics just blindly followed everything Regina George said.
While respecting hierarchy and its place in society, being balanced and critical is essential when making important decisions with extreme consequences.
If you will take anything from this blog post today – it is that we should not immediately put someone’s words on a pedestal, just because they are on a pedestal already. In light of these findings, here are some suggestions for navigating social hierarchies more effectively, whether you are a leader of a member of a team:
- Question everything
Never assume that people in higher social positions are always right. After taking in the information, reflect on it to evaluate whether it is the right thing to do, or whether you were just deluded.
- Seek out diverse perspectives
Hearing from people across the hierarchy can be eye-opening – especially if those viewpoints come from those considered the minority.
- Encourage safe discussion spaces
As a leader, it is important to foster a culture where people feel empowered to bring up issues or concerns without fear of punishment. Set up several checkpoints for feedback over time, and do not only rely on a single feedback session.
[Cited study] Guo, Z., Xing, Z., Liu, L., Schwieter, J. W., & Liu, H. (2024). An fMRI study on how decisions are influenced by affective evaluations from different social hierarchical positions. Cognitive Neurodynamics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-024-10072-6
[1] Roth, Z. C., & Rios, K. (2020). Social hierarchies. Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, 5054-5060.
[2] Hu, J., Blue, P. R., Yu, H., Gong, X., Xiang, Y., Jiang, C., & Zhou, X. (2016). Social status modulates the neural response to unfairness. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(1), 1-10.
[3] Feng, C., Li, Z., Feng, X., Wang, L., Tian, T., & Luo, Y. J. (2016). Social hierarchy modulates neural responses of empathy for pain. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(3), 485-495.
Warwick Neuroeconomics Blog 