The Impact of Wealth on Prestige and Dominance Rank Relationships

As Kraus, Tan, and Tannenbaum compellingly argued in their thoughtful target article, there is little doubt that social class has a pervasive influence on human cognition. Here, we build on their article by examining how and why wealth and signals of wealth influence rank dynamics. In our view, a comprehensive account of the impact of social class on psychological functioning must address not only the direct intrapsychic effects of possessing or lacking wealth but also the ways in which wealth and signals of wealth qualitatively alter rank-based social relationships between the haves and have-nots. In other words, how does wealth affect the distribution of social rank and the nature of rank-based social relationships? Within the social sciences, several theoretical models of rank attainment currently prevail, though some have received greater empirical support than others (see Cheng, Tracy, Foulsham, Kingstone, & Henrich, 2013, for a review). In prior work, we have found considerable empirical support for the Dominance-Prestige Account (J. Henrich & Gil-White, 2001), a framework that takes an explicitly evolutionary approach to human social rank dynamics. In our view, this account offers the greatest explanatory power and the most complete integration of the extant empirical knowledge. The major novel contribution of this model is its distinction between freely conferred rank based on respect for a leader’s skills and knowledge (i.e., prestige) and coercively forced rank based on a leader’s ability to invoke fear and intimidate followers (i.e., dominance). Social class inequalities can give rise to differences in both of these two forms of rank, because symbols of class and wealth signal success and skill (and, by implication, promote prestige), yet also result in an ability to wield power and control resources, which can elicit fear and feelings of powerlessness among subordinates (and, by implication, promote dominance). By conceptualizing wealth as a signal and an individual-difference variable that can produce both prestigeand dominance-based hierarchical relationships, we acquire a more nuanced and theoretically rich understanding of the effects of social class on interpersonal relationships and social psychology. Next we discuss this account in detail, first by presenting a brief overview of the Dominance-Prestige Account of rank attainment, then by examining how wealth signals prestige, and finally by examining the ways in which wealth also influences dominance. Throughout this discussion, we focus on wealth, rather than social class more broadly, because we view wealth and resource control as one of the critical conceptual components of class that gives rise to class differences. Although class can also be based on other inequalities, such as educational status and hereditary birthright, these demographics and their associated symbols (e.g., diploma, family name) tend to be less widely advertised, visually salient, or reliably signaled in social interactions, compared with cues of wealth (e.g., jewelry, flashy clothing). For this reason, wealth and cues of wealth provide a better point of entry for examining the effects of class on social interactions, but we hope that in future work the approach delineated below can be fruitfully applied to other aspects of social class.