Social dominance theory


Social dominance theory is a theory of intergroup relations that focuses on the maintenance and stability of group-based social hierarchies. According to the theory, group-based inequalities are maintained through three primary intergroup behaviors: institutional discrimination, aggregated individual discrimination, and behavioral asymmetry. The theory proposes that widely shared cultural ideologies provide the moral and intellectual justification for these intergroup behaviors.
Social dominance theory was first formulated in 1994 by psychology professors and researchers, Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto. The theory begins with the observation that human social groups tend to be organized according to group-based social hierarchies in societies that produce economic surplus. These hierarchies have a trimorphic structure. This means that these hierarchies are based on age, sex, and arbitrary-set, which are group-based hierarchies that are culturally defined and do not necessarily exist in all societies. Arbitrary-set hierarchies can be based on ethnicity, religion, nationality, and so on.
Human social hierarchies consist of a hegemonic group at the top and negative reference groups at the bottom. More powerful social roles are increasingly likely to be occupied by a hegemonic group member. Males are more dominant than females, and they possess more political power. Most high-status positions are held by males.

Hegemonic group

Social dominance theory is a consideration of group conflict which describes human society as consisting of oppressive group-based hierarchy structures. The key principles of social dominance theory are:
The reason that social hierarchies exist in human societies is that they were necessary for survival of inter-group competition during conflict over resources. Essentially, groups organised in hierarchies were more efficient at combat than groups who were organised in other ways, giving a competitive advantage to groups disposed towards social hierarchies.
Social dominance theory explains the mechanisms of group hierarchy oppression using three basic mechanisms:
These processes are driven by legitimizing myths, which are beliefs that justify social dominance:
Social dominance theory is a multi-level theory of how societies maintain group-based dominance. Proposed initially by Sidanius and Pratto, the theory assumes that societies are based on social structures in which dominant groups have higher social status, political authority, power and wealth. Thus, a group-based hierarchy in which dominant groups secure a disproportionate share of the good things in life whiles subordinate groups receives a disproportionate share of the bad stuff. Over time, such structures incorporate into a legitimized myth that serves to perpetuate and maintain this form of group-based hierarchy and creates an ideology that strengthens social dominance, creates intergroup oppression, discrimination and supports prejudice.
Notably, social hierarchy is a universal feature that marks humanity. However, the nature of these hierarchical differences and inequality differs across cultures and societies.
The theory identifies two aspects of myth legitimization. Hierarchy enhancing legitimizing myth perpetuates inequality and maintains intergroup inequality, whereas hierarchy attenuating legitimizing myth decreases group-based inequalities and ensures equity. Myth legitimation has implications for human rights and social justice.
For instance, hierarchy attenuating myths argue for a reduction of the disparities that exist between social groups in their access to resources, power, and legitimacy. Whiles hierarchy enhancing legitimizing myths suggest that some rights and privileges are reserved only for certain groups, serving to increase group-based inequality and social hierarchy.
Scales measuring social dominance orientation correlate robustly across countries with a variety of kinds of group prejudices and with hierarchy - enhancing policies. Social dominance orientation correlates negatively with tolerance, egalitarianism, universalism, humanitarianism, and support for hierarchy - attenuating policies such as human rights.

Duckitt and right-wing authoritarianism

John Duckitt suggests that Social Dominance Orientation in an important construct but is similar to Right Wing Authoritarianism with its features of conventionalism, authoritarian aggression and authoritarian submission. These three core authoritarian characteristics identified since The Authoritarian Personality. Duckitt's model is largely environmental in origin. He proposes a model in which RWA and SDO are produced by punitive childhood socialization, personality, and worldview beliefs flowing from these effects in which the world is viewed as a dangerous. High RWA in turn influences ingroup and outgroup attitudes. Unaffectionate socialisation is hypothesised to cause tough-minded attitudes. This promotes a view of the world as competitive, dog-eat-dog place. The need to compete is, in his view, explains components of high SDO and influences ingroup/outgroup attitudes. Duckitt predicts that the high correlation between the views of the world as dangerous and competitive emerge from parenting styles tending to covary along the dimensions of punitiveness and lack of affection. The model also suggests that these views mutually reinforce each other. Duckitt further examines the complexities of the interaction between RWA, SDO and a variety of specific ideological/prejudicial beliefs and behaviour. For instance:
Duckitt also argues that this model may explain anti-authoritarian-libertarian and egalitarian-altruistic ideologies.

Relation to Marxism

SDT is influenced by Marxist and socio-biological ideas. Marx described the oppressive hierarchy of hegemonic group dominating negative reference groups, in his examples the bourgeoisie dominate the proletariat by controlling capital, not paying workers enough, and so on. However Marx thought that the working class would eventually grasp the solution to this oppression and destroy the bourgeoisie in a revolution.

Felicia Pratto and legitimizing myths theory

Legitimizing myths theory is about ideologies that explain and justify social systems. The term "myth" is meant to imply that everyone in society perceives these ideologies as explanations for how the world works, not whether or not they are true or false. There are two functional types of legitimizing myths: hierarchy-enhancing and hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing myths. Hierarchy-enhancing ideologies contribute to greater levels of group-based inequality. Hierarchy-attenuating ideologies contribute to greater levels of group-based equality. People endorse these different forms of ideologies based in part on their psychological orientation toward dominance and their desire for unequal group relations. People who are higher on SDO tend to endorse hierarchy-enhancing ideologies, and people who are lower on SDO tend to endorse hierarchy-attenuating ideologies. SDT finally proposes that the relative counterbalancing of hierarchy-enhancing and -attenuating social forces stabilizes group-based inequality.
Various processes of hierarchical discrimination are driven by legitimizing myths, which are beliefs justifying social dominance, such as paternalistic myths, reciprocal myths, and sacred myths. Pratto et al. suggest the Western idea of meritocracy and individual achievement as an example of a legitimizing myth, and argues that the myth of meritocracy produces only an illusion of fairness. SDT draws on social identity theory, suggesting that social-comparison processes drive individual discrimination. Discriminatory acts are performed because they increase the actors' self-esteem.

Biological sex and dominance

Consistent with the observation that, in patriarchal societies, males tend to be more dominant than females, SDT predicts that males will tend to have a higher social dominance orientation. As such males will tend to function as hierarchy enforcers, that is, they will carry out acts of discrimination such as the systematic terror by police officers and the extreme example of death squads and concentration camps. This is supported by evidence such as police officers possessing measurably higher levels of SDO. SDT also predicts that males that carry out violent acts have been predisposed out of a conditioning called prepared learning.

Criticisms

John C. Turner and Katherine J. Reynolds from the Australian National University published in the British Journal of Social Psychology a commentary on SDT titled Why social dominance theory has been falsified which outlined six fundamental criticisms based on internal inconsistencies:

1. That the supposed evolutionary basis of the social dominance drive is largely fantasy;
2. That the social and psychological substance of the theory does not follow from and indeed is at odds with the so-called ‘ubiquitous drive’;
3. The meaning and role of ‘social dominance orientation’, the trait variable that dominates the research, are rendered problematic by a growing amount of evidence ;
4. The BA hypothesis has already been demonstrably falsified ;
5. The hypothesis of ‘ideological asymmetry’, supposedly an aspect of BA, is in fact patently inconsistent with it and illustrates that attitudes to dominance hierarchies and group inequalities are a function of one’s group identity, interests and position in the social structure rather than any invariant biological drive, just as realistic conflict and social identity theories would expect;
6. That Social dominance theory is reductionist in that it seeks to derive all political ideologies, intergroup relations and indeed the whole social structure from one psychological drive. It is also criticised as "philosophically idealist" – abstracted, or reified as a "hard-wired original sin of biology".

They suggest intergroup attitudes simply follow social structure and cultural beliefs, theories and ideologies developed to make sense of group's place in the social structure and the nature of their relationships with other groups. In this view, social dominance orientation is a product rather than a cause of social life.. They cite their own test relating "strength of gender identification" as a moderator of "gender‐social dominance orientation relationship" reporting that group identification was associated with increased dominance orientation in males but decreased dominance orientation in females.