Two Ways to Stay at the Top: Prestige and Dominance Are Both Viable Strategies for Gaining and Maintaining Social Rank Over Time

Abstract

The dual-strategies theory of social rank proposes that both dominance and prestige are effective strategies for gaining social rank (i.e., the capacity for influence) in groups. However, the only existing longitudinal investigation of these strategies suggests that, among undergraduate students, only prestige allows people to maintain social rank over time. The current study provides a longitudinal test of dominance and prestige in a context where dominance is more normative: MBA project groups. Among 548 MBA students in 104 groups, peer-rated dominance and prestige predicted gains in social rank over the course of 4 weeks, indicating that both strategies may help people not only gain social rank but also maintain it over time. Furthermore, prestige—but not dominance—led to social rank because of willingly given deference from group members. This confirms a central but thus-far-untested principle of dual-strategies theory: While prestige is based on freely conferred deference, dominance is not.

Keywords

hierarchy dominance prestige social rank deference

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