Theatrical Displays
When Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo Bear meet and enter a contest over the apple, they don’t just stare each other down and size each other up to gauge physical strength and level of anger. Chances are that each bear will exhibit behaviors to affect the other’s assessment. Logic says that if asymmetries lead to the establishment of dominance and this is advantageous to both contestants, then all individuals should have an interest in making sure that the asymmetries are effectively communicated and understood. So when two bears want the same apple, it would be advantageous to both parties if each honestly communicates any asymmetries to the other: “I’m strong”/“I’m weak”; “I’m starving”/“I’ve just had a big dinner”; or “I’m willing to fight to the death”/“I have a headache and I’m in no mood for fighting.” Given that communication of RHP and motivation through behavior is advantageous, natural selection has favored the evolution of particular behavioral signals that have this function: they are called behavioral displays, to distinguish them from physical displays of RHP such as large antlers in deer or large canine teeth in male lions. Animals have evolved facial expressions that communicate emotions such as anger or fear and give a potential opponent some information about their motivation to fight or to retreat. Animals (and some people) also scream or break things as a demonstration of strength.
However, this all assumes candid communication. If communications about asymmetries through behavioral displays were always honest, dominance interactions would be predictable with the application of Hawk-Dove models for asymmetric contests. We would all live in a far less stressful world in which parents never squabble with their children and celebrity couples never make the cover of tabloid magazines with their fights. The problem is that communication of asymmetries isn’t always honest. Since the benefits of being dominant are greater than the benefits of being subordinate, it is advantageous to cheat and communicate exaggerated, or blatantly false, information about one’s RHP and willingness to fight. Thus, natural selection has rewarded the tendency to bluff, and bluffing has become an important determinant of dominance. Natural selection has also rewarded the ability to be skeptical and detect bluffing because skeptical individuals have more chances of becoming dominant than gullible ones.
When two animals encounter each other for the first time, a fight will ensue if no clear asymmetries are communicated, recognized, or believed. Winning or losing a fight is a clear demonstration that asymmetries exist. For pairs of individuals that need one or multiple fights to establish dominance, dominance may become a learned relationship. Once dominance is established, these individuals exchange behavioral displays with each other whenever they meet to refresh their memories and to communicate that nothing has changed: the asymmetries of the past persist in the present. Dominants also use periodic aggression to refresh the subordinates’ memory. Using the language of learning theorists, if subordination is a learned response, periodic reinforcement is necessary to prevent the extinction of the response. Depending on the extent of the asymmetries and the kind of social system in which individuals live, the maintenance of dominance may be driven mostly by dominants, or by subordinates, or by both. When asymmetries between opponents are small, maintenance of dominance may be mostly driven by dominants with frequent threats or aggression. When asymmetries are large, subordinates probably live in a constant state of fear, and it’s in their own interest to express frequent unsolicited subordination to dominants. Even in the most asymmetrical dominance relationships, however, rebellion from subordinates is always a possibility, because the asymmetries between two individuals may change over time or in different situations. If an event makes it possible to differentiate asymmetries in the present from asymmetries in the past, fighting may escalate and dominance may be reversed. Subordinates may reach a point where they have nothing left to lose and therefore are more motivated to fight.
Resource holding potential can also be enhanced by acquiring physical strength or political power. In many species of primates, including humans, contests that initially involve two individuals can rapidly escalate to involve the individuals’ families and allies. In the matrilineal society of rhesus macaques, for example, dominance relationships between females are established on the basis of the support provided by female relatives. Therefore, the size and power of one’s family can be considered part of an individual’s RHP and a source of important asymmetries. Asymmetries that arise from the availability of support may need experience to be recognized and taken into consideration. Through experience, a subordinate macaque female learns that higher-ranking females have more numerous and/or more powerful allies who will come to their aid. But like any other asymmetry, the availability of political power must be continually monitored because political allies may unexpectedly turn their backs.
Born Leaders and Losers?
There is another complication. Although it’s true that dominance is a property of relationships, not of individuals, it’s also true that individuals’ physiological and psychological characteristics contribute to their RHP and to their motivation to fight; some may be predisposed to act dominant and others to act subordinate. For example, individuals who are born with low levels of serotonin in their brains are predisposed to be impulsive and aggressive, and having a lot of testosterone in one’s body makes people competitive and driven to succeed. Children who show sharp increases in cortisol when something upsets them may be less capable of handling the stress associated with agonistic confrontations later in life—and are therefore more likely to avoid them.
Predispositions to act dominant or subordinate don’t involve only emotions and physiology but cognition as well. In humans and some other primates, dominance depends on social and political intelligence. Cognitive skills that lead to dominance include the ability to learn the rules that constrain behavior in a social group; interpreting, predicting, and manipulating the behavior of others; and forming powerful alliances based on reciprocal obligations. Individuals who become dominant learn better and more quickly than others the rules that govern group behavior, whereas those who become subordinate break these rules because in some cases they are not even aware that the rules exist. In humans, dominance also depends on the ability to decode nonverbal behavior (what facial and bodily cues reveal about an individual’s emotions and motivation), to guess what goes on in other people’s minds (such as what they know and don’t know, what they want and don’t want, what they believe and don’t believe), and to deceive. Dominant individuals are better at interpreting others and persuading them to do what they want with all possible means, including deception. The ability to charm and befriend others and to form alliances with them through the exchange of favors is also crucial. Considering that autism spectrum disorders—which involve deficits in social intelligence skills—are highly heritable, it is likely that individuals at the other end of the continuum, who excel at these skills, may have their genes to thank for some of their talents.
Predispositions, of course, can also be the product of experience, and behaving in a dominant or subordinate fashion can be learned. Being born with a predisposition doesn’t necessarily mean that this predisposition comes straight from our genes. There are environmental effects on us during the nine months we spend in our mother’s womb—for example, fetuses are exposed to different amounts of testosterone and cortisol in utero, and this exposure may affect their brain development. Sometimes environmental effects are mediated by genetic mechanisms—being exposed to particular environments may lead to the expression of certain genes and the suppression of others. Obviously, after we are born, there are myriad opportunities for environment and experience to affect our propensity to act dominant or subordinate. One particularly important type of experience involves confrontations in themselves, and their outcome.
In the males of many animal species, including monkeys, apes, and humans, winning a fight raises testosterone levels, while losing reduces them. Having high or low testosterone, in turn
, increases the probability of winning or losing the next fight, respectively. This means that Boo-Boo Bear is more likely to defeat Yogi Bear if he has just defeated Winnie the Pooh. Yogi is more likely to lose against Boo-Boo if he has already suffered another loss.
The effect of a previous victory or defeat on subsequent confrontations need not be dependent on testosterone. There are other physiological and psychological changes that follow victory or defeat. Agonistic confrontations are stressful for everybody, and as we saw before, in savanna baboons the cortisol levels of all members of a group rise during periods of social instability, when some individuals are challenging others for rank. Cortisol goes back to low levels in dominants once the confrontations are over, but it stays elevated in the subordinates if they continue to be harassed and intimidated. Adults and children of low socioeconomic status (SES) have higher cortisol than those of high SES and display greater changes in cortisol and blood pressure levels in response to a conflict. In married couples, the spouse who perceives himself or herself to be subordinate in the relationship shows a higher increase in blood pressure reactivity during marital disagreements. Just as an increase in testosterone following a victory may increase one’s self-confidence, ambition, and motivation to fight again, a decrease in testosterone and an increase in cortisol following repeated defeats or in association with chronic subordination can result in depression and shame, which can lead to submissive behavior: avoidance of eye contact, hunching body posture, social avoidance. These physiological and behavioral changes promote acceptance of and adjustment to subordination.13
By now it should be clear that dominance and submission don’t exist only in the minds of the researchers who study behavior but in fact are deeply lodged in human minds and human bodies as well as in the minds and bodies of many other animal species. We have physiological, emotional, and learning mechanisms that allow us to constantly assess our own performance in agonistic confrontations, that tell us whether we are dominant or subordinate in a relationship, and that help us adjust to the situation. When we win a contest and become dominant, we feel good about it and we want more of the same. When we lose and become subordinate, we feel bad and either cut our losses and adjust to the situation or start preparing for a future rebellion.
The experience of wins and losses with other individuals influences not just individuals’ perception of their own RHP but also their assessment of other individuals’ RHP and their estimation of their probability of winning or losing. After a crushing defeat, any new opponent looks scary to us. Or, if the bully who defeated us was a bold man with a gray beard, we may behave submissively to all bold men with gray beards we encounter in the future. Since we project changes in our internal physiological and psychological states onto others through our behavior, our own self-assessment also influences how our RHP and motivation to fight are assessed by others.
As we all know, social relationships can be quite complex. The interplay between individual characteristics, context, and previous experience, with all of their feedback mechanisms, makes the assessment of asymmetries in a contest very difficult. Dominance, however, is an integral component of all our social relationships and has a pervasive influence on all aspects of our everyday social lives. The sooner we recognize this, the better we will understand why our relationships work the way they do. Humans and some other primates are obsessed with dominance, although not necessarily at a conscious level. Dominance is so entrenched in human nature that thinking we can have social relationships without it is unrealistic. What we can do instead is to provide mechanisms that allow all individuals to fully express their own potential—whether in their personal or public life—so that they can compete for dominance to the best of their abilities. Everybody is dominant or subordinate in a relationship at some point in their lives, and we should accept changes in dominance and subordination as a fact of life, like growing up and getting old.
We must also accept the notion that the quality of life in a relationship, a family, a company, or a country may depend in large part on the personalities and the behavior of the dominant individuals within them. We can’t prevent people from becoming dominant, but we can teach them that dominance comes with responsibilities. Dominants have leadership duties, and since subordinates pick up the tab for their success, dominants must make it easier on subordinates by being tolerant, generous, and forgiving. After all, dominance is not forever—we must be ready to step aside when the time comes.
Chapter 3
We Are All Mafiosi
Nepotism is something we can hardly do without. For one thing, nepotistic concern for the welfare of children is the engine of the capitalist system; take that away and you destroy the main incentives for innovation and the creation of wealth. For another, meritocracy unleavened by personal ties is inhumane, as ample evidence will show. Finally, on the individual level, nepotism is a profoundly moral relationship, one that transmits social and cultural values and forms a healthy bond between the generations. In short, nepotism works, it feels good, and it is generally the right thing to do. It has its origins in nature, has played a vital role in human social life, and boasts a record of impressive contributions to the progress of civilization.
—Adam Bellow, In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History
The Raccomandazione
The Air Force base Caserma G. Romagnoli sits in Piazzale Aldo Moro, one of the busiest squares in Rome. The base is only a few blocks away from the Stazione Termini—Rome’s main train station—and across the street from the campus of L’Università di Roma La Sapienza, one of the largest universities in Europe, home to over 100,000 students. The Caserma Romagnoli is an unusual base: no airplanes or helicopters can be found there, nor any military vehicles except for some blue passenger cars with the Air Force license plate. Instead, there are office buildings and a dormitory surrounded by tall perimeter walls. No one can see anything from the outside, and many college students who crowd the sidewalks along the perimeter walls don’t even know what’s inside.
It is seven in the morning on a cold winter day, and two young soldiers wearing the dark blue pants and light blue shirt of the Italian Air Force approach the main entry point to the Caserma, where a soldier standing in a booth monitors the pedestrian traffic in and out of the base. They appear to be carrying two heavy grocery bags. The guard in the booth asks to see the contents of the bags. One of them is full of raw meat: lamb racks, pork chops, ribs, steaks, and sausages. The other contains prescription drugs: antibiotics, pain relievers, anti-inflammatories, antidepressants, blood pressure and cholesterol drugs, and a multitude of others. The guard nods, snickers, and lets the two soldiers pass with their precious cargo. Clearly, he’s seen this before and knows what it’s about. I observe the whole scene from a few feet away and have no idea what’s going on. Are the soldiers and officers on the base having a big barbecue? Did the infirmary run out of drugs? A few days later, after talking with other soldiers, I figure it all out.
To explain what happened at the entry point that day, first it’s necessary to clarify the meaning of an important Italian word. The Italian word for “recommendation” is raccomandazione. “Recommendation” and “raccomandazione” sound similar, and according to the dictionary, they mean the same thing: advice, or support for an idea or cause. The two words are also used in similar contexts. For example, in both the United States and Italy, people applying for jobs may be recommended—or raccomandati—by someone else. This, however, is where the similarities end. In the United States, letters of recommendation provide an evaluation of a candidate’s qualifications and are usually written by a senior person who is familiar with the candidate, such as a former teacher or employer. These letters are often a requirement of the application process; all candidates must have them; and although in theory they can be good or bad, in practice they tend to be uniformly good. As a result, good letters of recommendation don’t necessarily increase one’s chances of getting a job. Letters of recommendation make the m
ost difference when they are bad.
In Italy, the raccomandazione is not a requirement of the job application process. It endorses a candidate but doesn’t necessarily provide a description of his or her qualifications, it’s usually made with a phone call instead of in a letter, and it generally comes from a family member or family friend. Not all candidates who apply for a job have a raccomandazione; those who don’t generally don’t stand a chance. For those who do have one, the chance of success depends not on how good the raccomandazione is—a raccomandazione can’t be good or bad—but on the power and influence of the person who makes the call. The raccomandazioni are not meant to facilitate the review of applications by providing additional information about the candidates, but rather to rig the review process and guarantee the success of a particular candidate, regardless of his or her credentials. The raccomandazione is not advice or support; it’s a request or even an order: make sure Mr. X gets the job. Typically Mr. X is a family member or a protégé of the recommender. The raccomandazione is the quintessential instrument for nepotistic influence on Italian public life.
Before we return to the Caserma Romagnoli and the mysterious dealings with meat and drugs that I witnessed, we also need some historical background. Until 1995, military service was mandatory in Italy. When Italian boys turned eighteen, they were drafted into a twelve-month service period in one of the armed forces. One day a young man would simply receive a postcard in the mail with information about his assignment. College students could request a deferral of military service to complete their studies. The military service could even be avoided altogether if one had a serious medical condition or was a conscientious objector.
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