In this project I evaluated the effect of social dominance on reconciliation and forgiveness. Based on studies of nonhuman primates, it was hypothesized that humans would be more likely to accept and reciprocate conciliatory gestures when made by more socially dominant people. It was also hypothesized that the moderating effect of relative dominance on a victim?s decision to forgive would not be as strong as relative dominance?s effect on a victim?s decision to reconcile. This hypothesis was based on the expectation that reconciliation is most essential for gaining access to transgressor-controlled resources. However, conciliatory gestures by less dominant transgressors more effectively elicited forgiveness and reconciliation, as these gestures were evidently more successful at making victims feel safe. Also, relative dominance did not have a greater effect on victims? conciliatory behaviors than on forgiveness.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-47).

The present study examined the effects of societal threat on levels of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation and investigated if those self-report measures were consistent or inconsistent with a measure of implicit attitudes regarding Americans and Immigrants. Exposure to societal threat was hypothesized to increase authoritarianism and social dominance orientation, as well as to increase implicit prejudicial attitudes, as measured by the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), towards out-group members. Based on prior findings, men were expected to have higher levels of social dominance orientation. As predicted, exposure to societal threat significantly increased right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. Additionally, men endorsed greater levels of social dominance orientation than did women. However, there were no statistically significant differences in implicit attitudes between the participants who were exposed to societal threat and those who were not (all p’s > .05).

Moral courage captures one's ability to do 'what is right' for 'the greater good' in situations where doing so involves personal danger, risks, or difficulties (Detert & Bruno, 2017; Rate, 2010). Recognizing the organizational and social benefits of moral courage, management researchers and practitioners alike encourage business students and employees to engage in morally courageous behaviours (Comer & Sekerka, 2018; Sekerka & Godwin, 2010). However, we lack the understanding of how others perceive and react to organizational members' acts of moral courage (Detert & Bruno, 2017). This dissertation examines how individuals react to displays of workplace moral courage. I argue that although by and large people do respond favourably towards employees who engage in workplace moral courage, the extent to which such responses are (un)favourable is dependent on characteristics of both the actor (i.e., gender) and the observer (i.e., social dominance orientation). I conduct three pilot studies and three hypotheses testing studies as part of my dissertation. The hypotheses testing studies include two experimental designs and one field-survey design and examine both peer- and supervisor responses to employees' acts of moral courage. While the effects of actor's gender and observers' social dominance orientation on observers' reactions towards workplace moral courage did not fully replicate across all three studies, the pattern of the findings was generally consistent.

This dissertation created a model to explore the effect of dominant group status on stigmatization of mental illness and on moral relativism and the interactive effect of dominant group status on stigmatization of mental illness through moral relativism. The model was conceptualized according to social dominance theory. Latent variables were created to measure moral relativism and stigmatization of mental illness. The latent measures were conceptualized according to current theories in the fields of moral relativism and stigmatization. During statistical analyses the latent measure for moral relativism was found to be unreliable. The study then became confirmatory-exploratory in nature by first comparing the fit indices of three alternate models with single-measure latent variables. The model that best fit the data was then used to conclude the exploratory research on the effect of group status on moral relativism and stigmatization of mental illness. The model was not supported by the data based on fit index and standardized residual scores.

Competition for resources plays an important role in natural selection, creating winners and losers. Winners become socially dominant, obtain resources and so increase their fitness at the expense of losers. Provided they are heritable, phenotypic traits promoting competitive success will be inherited by subsequent generations. Thus, while resource dependent traits (e.g. growth) that rely on competitive outcomes are widely recognised as being under strong selection, this is also likely to be the case for those traits that determine competitive ability and social dominance. In addition, competition is expected to be an important source of stress, for example, harassment of subordinates by dominant individuals. Consequently individual fitness may depend not only on the ability to win resources, but also on the ability to cope with stress. This thesis proposes that social dominance is not just a simple consequence of body size or weaponry, but rather that the interplay between growth, repeatable behavioural characteristics (i.e. personality), and the ability to cope with social and environmental stressors are equally important factors. Thus the dynamic of dominance arises, a model that highlights the expectation of complex relationships between traits causal and consequent to social dominance. Here, empirical studies of Xiphophorus sp. are used to test each element in the model. First the concept of individual personality is explored, asking to what extent it is really stable over long periods of time (equivalent to lifespans). Next, the links between behaviour, physiological stress and contest outcome are considered and, using a repeated measures approach, the hypothesis that individuals differ in stress coping style is evaluated. Finally, using a quantitative genetic approach the additive genetic variance-covariance matrix (G) is estimated between behavioural and life history traits under experimentally manipulated levels of competition. In this way the contribution of genetic and environmental effects to the patterns of trait (co)variation that make up the dynamic of dominance is assessed.

Bipolar disorder is an extremely devastating illness, and increasingly robust evidence indicates that it emerges during adolescence. Also during adolescence, peer relationships, particularly close friendships and romantic relationships, become a central mechanism for social maturation and emotional development. The consequences of mania on the development of peer relationships have received little attention. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the association between mania and close peer relationship quality in a community sample of adolescents. Two types of close peer relationships, close friendships and romantic relationships, were evaluated. In addition, the current study examined two potential mediators of the association between mania and close relationship quality, social skills and social dominance. Due to the substantial overlap between symptoms of mania and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and the documented peer relationship difficulties experienced by youth with ADHD, symptoms of ADHD were controlled in study analyses. Participants were 571 adolescents (57% female; 19% 10th grade, 30% 11th grade, 51% 12th grade; 66% Hispanic, 17% White, 7% African-American and Caribbean American, 4% Asian, and 6% mixed or other ethnicity) from 2 public high schools in the Southeastern United States. Adolescents completed self-report questionnaires during school. The Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) was used to assess adolescents' risk for mania. Adolescents reported on their social skills (empathy, cooperation, and assertion) using the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). The Social Dominance Scale (SDS) was used to assess adolescents' tendency to be overly intrusive or dominant in social situations. The Conners-Wells' Adolescent Self-Report Scale (CASS) was used to assess adolescents' self-reported symptoms of ADHD. Parent-report was obtained for 50 adolescents by phone interview. Parent-reported symptoms of mania, social skills, and symptoms of ADHD were assessed. Four hypotheses guided study analyses. First, it was expected that greater levels of mania would be associated with fewer positive qualities and more negative qualities in a close friendship and romantic relationship. Second, it was hypothesized that more symptoms of mania would be associated with poorer social skills and greater levels of social dominance. Third, social skills and social dominance were expected to mediate the association between mania and close relationshp quality. Fourth, it was expected that the hypothesized relationships between mania, social skills, social dominance, and close relationship quality would remain significant after controlling for the association between mania and symptoms of ADHD. Gender was examined as a moderator in the main study analyses. Ethnicity and age were used as control variables. Data analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling with Mplus. Gender was found to be a moderator, and so all study analyses were examined separately for boys and girls. All adolescents reported having at least one close friend. Fifty-four percent (n = 307) of adolescents reported having a romantic partner. Analyses examining qualities of adolescents' romantic relationships were conducted using only those adolescents who reported having a romantic partner. In terms of the first hypothesis, for boys, higher levels of mania were directly associated with more positive qualities in a close friendship, and were also indirectly associated with more positive qualities in both a close friendship and romantic relationship. For girls, higher levels of mania were indirectly associated with more positive qualities in a close friendship, fewer negative qualities in both a close friendship and romantic relationship, and also more negative qualities in both a close friendship and romantic relationship. In terms of the second hypothesis, higher levels of mania were associated with greater empathy for both boys and girls. Higher levels of mania were also associated with more social dominance for both boys and girls. In terms of the third hypothesis, for boys, empathy mediated the association between mania and more positive qualities in a close friendship and romantic relationship. For girls, empathy mediated the association between mania and more positive qualities in a close friendship, and also mediated the association between mania and fewer negative qualities in a close friendship and romantic relationship. For girls, assertion also mediated the association between mania and fewer negative qualities in a close friendship. Finally, for girls, social dominance mediated the association between mania and more negative qualities in both a close friendship and romantic relationship. With regard to the fourth hypothesis, despite significant associations with some study variables, the associations described above remained significant with symptoms of ADHD entered as a control variable in the models. Findings suggest that empathy is an important strength associated with risk for mania in both boys and girls. Through empathy, close friendship and romantic relationship quality was positively associated with risk for mania in boys and girls. Social dominance was also strongly associated with risk for mania in both boys and girls, indicating that social dominance might be one way to differentiate emerging mania from other disorders, such as ADHD, in adolescents. Social dominance, however, was only associated with relationship quality for girls, and specifically, was associated with more negative qualities in both close friendships and romantic relationships. This may be one area, therefore, that girls at-risk for mania might be able to target in order to improve peer relationships. Future research might examine these associations longitudinally in order to determine causality. Additionally, studying close peer relationship quality in adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder would be of interest in future research.

Sex determination occurs early in development for most animals, at which time sex is fixed for life. Many teleost fishes, however, exhibit remarkable sexual plasticity throughout their life history, ranging from multiple morphs within a sex to functional adult sex reversal. To understand the development and evolution of adult sex reversal, I examined behavioral, endocrine, and genetic contributions to the regulation of functional sex in adult animals, using the bluebanded goby (Lythrypnus dalli) as an experimental model. This species was found to be equally capable of sexual transitions from female to male (protogyny) as from male to female (protandry). Throughout adult life, sexual phenotype is determined by social status, an emergent property of agonistic behavioral interactions that follows a relatively simple social convention: if dominant become or remain male, or if subordinate, become or remain female. The translation of social status into a change in sexual phenotype in the protogynous direction requires a rapid drop in circulating estrogens and an increase in the gonadal expression of a testis differentiating gene dmrt1. Steroid hormones do not play a significant role in modulating status, but the androgen 11-ketotestosterone does positively correlate with the expression of paternal behavior. Taken together, these findings suggest an evolutionary mechanism in sexually plastic species that has linked the conserved molecular cascades of sexual differentiation to a novel signal that varies over life history, social status, thereby allowing for lifelong phenotypic plasticity.

For various reasons, certain races tend to play particular sports. Sports with low costs of participation (e.g., basketball and football) have higher percentages of minority participants relative to sports with high costs of participation (e.g., golf). In addition to the cost of participation being a deterrent, stereotypes can also play a role into who plays various sports. Certain races tend to feel most competent in a particular sport (e.g., African Americans in basketball). This study focuses on the degree to which stereotypes contribute to the under representative rates of minorities in golf, compared to their overrepresented White counterparts. Data were collected from 217 students at a large US public university. A pilot test was used to develop a scale depicting the "general golfer." In the primary study, participants used a 7-point scale to rate the degree to which the "general golfer," Whites, Asians, Hispanics, and African Americans exhibited these characteristics. Examples of these characteristics include "refined", "etiquette", and "skillfulness." The scale items were all reliable. The correlation between the general golfer and Whites was the strongest (r = .50), followed by Asians (r = .36), Hispanics (r = .29), and African Americans (r = .23). The correlation between the general golfer and Whites was significantly stronger than correlations between the general golfer and African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, t's > 2.3, p's < .05. In addition, Whites were viewed as more appropriate for golf relative to racial minorities. Stereotypes can influence which races people view as appropriate and not appropriate for golf. These stereotypes can in turn impact participation, or lack thereof, of certain races in golf. If certain racial groups are not considered appropriate for a sport in which mental strength, etiquette, and persistence are valued, this could also impact access to jobs in which these characteristics are also valued. In addition, these stereotypes can potentially lead to self-limiting behavior by the negatively affected races.

This thesis deals with two main issues: personality (stable individual differences in behavior) and behavioral endocrinology (or socioendocrinology) in nonhuman primates. The first part of the thesis comprises of two primate personality studies of two species: Hanuman langurs and Barbary macaques. Two basic methods of animal personality research (behavioral coding and trait rating) were compared. Stability of personality assessments has been demonstrated. Social rank of individuals was used to validate the questionnaire ratings as well as to illustrate the independence and stability of personality assessment. The second part of the thesis is based on two studies investigating hormone levels in female Barbary macaques. The relationship between cortisol, testosterone, dominance hierarchy and behavior was investigated. And the possible effect of maternal hormone levels around the time of conception on the sex of an infant was evaluated.