Nature humaine, pouvoir et compétence : une analyse comparative du statut chez les chasseurs-cueilleurs
In humans, influence power can be freely given to highly skilled individuals. In this study, two evolutionary theories on the origin of this type of power are considered: the information goods theory (Henrich and Gil-White 2001), and the social exchange theory (Chapais 2012). Based on this theoretical framework, five main hypotheses were extracted and tested: 1) individuals with higher competence in specific domains of activities have a superior status; 2) an individual's higher competence is evaluated through social comparison; 3) highly skilled individuals are useful to others because they constitute better models to imitate and better partners to cooperate with; 4) followers  defer  to experts in exchange for their partnership ; 5) as a result, individuals compete for status by exhibiting their competence and attempting to improve their reputation. Those predictions were tested by using the eHRAF of World Cultures database and analysing the data relating to ten relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies. The results strongly support all  predictions and indicate that status asymmetries are ubiquitous in the sampled  societies. This suggests that the underlying psychosocial mechanisms constitute human universals.
prestige propensions universelles eHRAF human universals status prestige social inequalities social exchange social learning competition for status cross-cultural studies egalitarian societies