Evolutionary preferences for physical formidability in leaders

Politics and the Life Sciences

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2014, Pages 33-53

  Murray, Gregg R ^a  

^a TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

evolutionary theory; followers; formidability; Leaders; resource holding potential

Indexed keywords

FEMALE; HUMAN; LEADERSHIP; MALE; PHYSICAL APPEARANCE; POLITICS; PUBLIC OPINION; THEORETICAL MODEL; UNITED STATES;

FEMALE; HUMANS; LEADERSHIP; MALE; MODELS, THEORETICAL; PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, BODY; POLITICS; PUBLIC OPINION; UNITED STATES;

EID: 84918541990     PISSN: 07309384     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2990/33_1_33     Document Type: Article

References (124)

1. Richard R. Lau and David P. Redlawsk, "Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive heuristics in political decision making. American Journal of Political Science, 2001, 45(4): 951-971
2. Lau and Redlawsk, p. 954
3. Alexander Todorov, Anesu N. Mandisodza, Amir Goren, and Crystal C. Hall, "Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 2005, 308(5728): 1623-1626
4. Susan A. Banducci, Jeffrey A. Karp, Michael Thrasher, and Colin Rallings, "Ballot photographs as cues in lowinformation elections. Political Psychology, 2008, 29(6): 903-917
5. Niclas Berggren, Henrik Jordahl, and Panu Poutvaara, "The looks of a winner: Beauty and electoral success. Journal of Public Economics, 2010, 94(1-2): 8-15
6. William Hart, Victor C. Ottati, and Nathaniel D. Krumdick, "Physical attractiveness and candidate evaluation: A model of correction. Political Psychology, 2011, 32(2): 181-203
7. Anthony C. Little, S. Craig Roberts, Benedict C. Jones, and Lisa M. DeBruine, "The perception of attractiveness and trustworthiness in male faces affects hypothetical voting decisions differently in wartime and peacetime scenarios. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2012, 65(10): 2018-2032
8. Rodrigo Praino, Daniel Stockemer, and James Ratis, "Looking good or looking competent?. Physical appearance and electoral success in the 2008 congressional elections. American Politics Research, 2014, 42(6): 1096-1117
9. James N. Schubert, Margaret Ann Curran, and Carmen Strungaru, "Physical attractiveness, issue agreement, and assimilation effects in candidate appraisal. Politics and the Life Sciences, 2011, 30(1): 33-49
10. Gabriel S. Lenz and Chappell Lawson, "Looking the part: Television leads less informed citizens to vote based on candidates' appearance. American Journal of Political Science, 2011, 55(3): 574-589
11. Kyle Mattes, Michael Spezio, Hackjin Kim, Alexander Todorov, Ralph Adolphs, and R. Michael Alvarez, "Predicting election outcomes from positive and negative trait assessments of candidate images. Political Psychology, 2010, 31(1): 41-58
12. Jeremy N. Bailenson, Shanto Iyengar, Nick Yee, and Nathan A. Collins, "Facial similarity between voters and candidates causes influence. Public Opinion Quarterly, 2008, 72(5): 935-961
13. Anthony C. Little, Robert P. Burriss, Benedict C. Jones, and S. Craig Roberts, "Facial appearance affects voting decisions. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2007, 28(1): 18-27
14. Brian R. Spisak, Peter H. Dekker, Max Krüger, and Mark Van Vugt, "Warriors and peacekeepers: Testing a biosocial implicit leadership hypothesis of intergroup relations using masculine and feminine faces. PLoS ONE, 2012, 7(1): e30399
15. Stanford W. Gregory, Jr., and Timothy J. Gallagher, "Spectral analysis of candidates' nonverbal vocal communication: Predicting U.S. presidential election outcomes. Social Psychology Quarterly, 2002, 65(3): 298-308
16. Casey A. Klofstad, Anderson, Rindy C. and Susan Peters, "Sounds like a winner: Voice pitch influences perception of leadership capacity in both men and women. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2012, 279(1738): 2698-2704
17. Cara C. Tigue, Diana J. Borak, Jillian J.M. O'Connor, Charles Schandl, and David R. Feinberg, "Voice pitch influences voting behavior. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2012, 33(3): 210-216
18. Patricia V. Roehling, Mark V. Roehling, Ashli Brennan, Ashley R. Drew, Abbey J. Johnston, Regina G. Guerra, Ivy R. Keen, Lightbourn, Camerra P. and Alexis H. Sears, "Weight bias in U.S. candidate selection and election. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 2014, 33(4): 334-346
19. Gregg R. Murray and J. David Schmitz, "Caveman politics: Evolutionary leadership preferences and physical stature. Social Science Quarterly, 2011, 92(5): 1215-1235
20. Piotr Sorokowski, "Politicians' estimated height as an indicator of their popularity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010, 40(7): 1302-1309
21. Gert Stulp, Abraham P. Buunk, Simon Verhulst, and Thomas V. Pollet, "Tall claims?. Sense and nonsense about the importance of height of U.S. presidents. Leadership Quarterly, 2013, 24(1): 159-171
22. Richard L. Fox and Eric R. A. N. Smith, "Candidate gender and voter choice: Analysis from a multimember preferential voting system. Political Psychology, 1998, 19(2): 405-419
23. Amy King and Andrew Leigh, "Bias at the ballot box?. Testing whether candidates' gender affects their vote. Social Science Quarterly, 2010, 91(2): 324-343
24. Andrew Leigh and Tirta Susilo, "Is voting skin-deep?. Estimating the effect of candidate ballot photographs on election outcomes. Journal of Economic Psychology, 2009, 30(1): 61-70
25. Robert G. Lord and Cynthia G. Emrich, "Thinking outside the box by looking inside the box: Extending the cognitive revolution in leadership research. Leadership Quarterly, 2000, 11(4): 551-579
26. Andrew J. King, Dominic D.P. Johnson, and Mark Van Vugt, "The origins and evolution of leadership. Current Biology, 2009, 19(19): R911-R916
27. Heidi R. Riggio and Ronald E. Riggio, "Appearancebased trait inferences and voting: Evolutionary roots and implications for leadership. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2010, 34(2): 119-125
28. Chappell Lawson, Gabriel S. Lenz, Andy Baker, and Michael Myers, "Looking like a winner: Candidate appearance and electoral success in new democracies. World Politics, 2010, 62(4): 561-593
29. Ulrich Rosar, Markus Klein, and Tilo Beckers, "The frog pond beauty contest: Physical attractiveness and electoral success of the constituency candidates at the North Rhine-Westphalia state election of 2005. European Journal of Political Research, 2008, 47(1): 64-79
30. Nicholas O. Rule, Nalini Ambady, Reginald B. Adams, Jr., Hiroki Ozono, Satoshi Nakashima, Sakiko Yoshikawa, and Motoki Watabe, "Polling the face: Prediction and consensus across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2010, 98(1): 1-15
31. Nicholas O. Rule, Jonathan B. Freeman, Joseph M. Moran, John D. E. Gabrieli, Reginald B. Adams, Jr., and Nalini Ambady, "Voting behavior is reflected in amygdala response across cultures. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2010, 5(2-3): 349-355
32. John Antonakis and Olaf Dalgas, "Predicting elections: Child's play!" Science, 2009, 323(5918): 1183
33. Michael L. Spezio, Antonio Rangel, R. Michael Alvarez, John P. O'Doherty, Kyle Mattes, Alexander Todorov, Hackjin Kim, and Ralph Adolphs, "A neural basis for the effect of candidate appearance on election outcomes. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2008, 3(4): 344-352
34. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "Psychological foundations of culture. in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, eds. Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995
35. David M. Buss, "Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1989, 12(1): 1-49
36. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (London: John Murray, 1859
37. Gregg R. Murray and J. David Schmitz, "Caveman politics: Evolutionary effects on political preferences. paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the MPSA Annual National Conference (Chicago, IL, 2008
38. Napoleon A. Chagnon, The Yanomamo (London: Wadsworth, 1997
39. Azur Gat, "The pattern of fighting in simple, small-scale, prestate societies. Journal of Anthropological Research, 1999, 55(4): 563-583
40. Bruce M. Knauft, "Reconsidering violence in simple human societies: Homicide among the Gebusi and New Guinea. Current Anthropology, 1987, 28(4): 457-500
41. Mark Van Vugt, Robert Hogan, and Robert B. Kaiser, "Leadership, followership, and evolution. American Psychologist, 2008, 63(3): 182-196
42. Mark Van Vugt, Dominic D. P. Johnson, Robert B. Kaiser, and Rick O'Gorman, "Evolution and the social psychology of leadership: The mismatch hypothesis. in Leadership at the Crossroads, eds. Donelson Forsyth, George R. Goethals, Crystal L. Hoyt, Michael A. Genovese, Lori C. Han, and Ciulla Joanne B. (New York: Praeger, 2008
43. Richard W. Wrangham and Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (London: Bloomsbury, 1996
44. Frans De Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007
45. Magnus Enquist and Olof Leimar, "Evolution of fighting behavior, decision rules and assessment of relative strength. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1983, 102(3): 387-410
46. G.A. Parker, "Assessment strategy and the evolution of fighting behavior. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1974, 47(1): 223-243
47. Herbert Gintis, Eric Alden Smith, and Samuel Bowles, "Costly signaling and cooperation. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2001, 213(1): 103-119
48. Michael E. Price and Mark Van Vugt, "The evolution of leader-follower reciprocity: The theory of service-for-prestige. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2014, 8(363) 1-17
49. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001
50. Randolph M. Nesse, "Maladaptation and natural selection. Quarterly Review of Biology, 2005, 80(1): 62-70
51. Charles Crawford, "Adaptations, environments, and behavior: Then and now. in Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology, eds. Charles Crawford and Dennis Krebs (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008
52. Robert Foley, "The adaptive legacy of human evolution: A search for the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. Evolutionary Anthropology, 1995, 4(6): 194-203
53. John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, "The past explains the present: Emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology and Sociobiology, 1990, 11(4-5): 375-424
54. S. Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner, "Paleolithic nutrition: A consideration of its nature and current implications. New England Journal of Medicine, 1985, 312(5): 283-289
55. S. Boyd Eaton, Beverly I. Strassman, Randolph M. Nesse, James V. Neel, Paul W. Ewald, George C. Williams, Alan B. Weder, Stanley B. Eaton, III, Staffan Lindeberg, Melvin J. Konner, Iver Mysterud, and Loren Cordain, "Evolutionary health promotion. Preventive Medicine, 2002, 34(2): 109-118
56. Marcello Spinella, "Evolutionary mismatch, neural reward circuits, and pathological gambling. International Journal of Neuroscience, 2003, 113(4): 503-412
57. Joseph Henrich and Francisco Gil-White, "The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 2001, 22(3): 165-196
58. Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar, "Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution, 1992, 22(6): 469-493
59. Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999
60. Aaron Sell, Liana S. E. Hone, and Nicholas Pound, "The importance of physical strength to human males. Human Nature, 2012, 23(1): 30-44
61. Akko Kalma, "Hierarchisation and dominance assessment at first glance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1991, 21(2): 165-181
62. Aaron Sell, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Daniel Sznycer, Christopher von Rueden, and Michael Gurven, "Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2009, 276: 575-584
63. Amotz Zahavi and Avishag Zahavi, The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999
64. Stewart J. McCann, "Height, societal threat, and the victory of margin in presidential elections (1824-1992). Psychological Reports, 2001, 88(3): 741-742
65. Daniel E. Re, Lisa M. DeBruine, Benedict C. Jones, and David I. Perrett, "Facial cues to perceived height influence leadership choices in simulated war and peace contexts. Evolutionary Psychology, 2013, 11(1): 89-103
66. Wayne E. Hensley, "Height as a measure of success in academe. Psychology, 1993, 30(1): 40-46
67. Daniel M. T. Fessler, Colin Holbrook, and Matthew M. Gervais, "Men's physical strength moderates conceptualizations of prospective foes in two disparate societies. Human Nature, 2014, 25(3): 393-409
68. Thomas Gregor, "Short People. Natural History, 1979, 88(2): 14-19
69. Bruce J. Ellis, "The evolution of sexual attraction: Evaluative mechanisms in women. in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, eds. Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995
70. Nancy M. Blaker, Irene Rompa, Inge H. Dessing, Anne F. Vriend, Channah Herschberg, and Mark Van Vugt, "The height leadership advantage in men and women: Testing evolutionary psychology predictions about the perceptions of tall leaders. Group Processes Intergroup Relations, 2013, 16(1): 17-27
71. Daniel E. Re, Milena Dzhelyova, Iris J. Holzleitner, Cara C. Tigue, David R. Feinberg, and David I. Perrett, "Apparent height and body mass index influence perceived leadership ability in three-dimensional faces. Perception, 2012, 41(12): 1477-1485
72. Szabolcs Szamado, "How threat displays work: Speciesspecific fighting techniques, weaponry and proximity risk. Animal Behavior, 2008, 76(5): 1455-1463
73. Fellicity A. Huntingford and Angela K. Turner, Animal Conflict (London: Chapman &Hall, 1987
74. John Archer and David Benson, "Physical aggression as a function of perceived fighting ability and provocation: An experimental investigation. Aggressive Behavior, 2008, 34(1): 9-24
75. Michael D. Jennions and Patricia R. Y. Backwell, "Residency and size affect fight duration and outcome in the fiddler crab, Uca annulipes. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 1996, 57(4): 293-306
76. Elizabeth A. Archie, Thomas A. Morrison, Charles A. H. Foley, Cynthia J. Moss, and Susan C. Alberts, "Dominance rank relationships among wild female African elephants, Loxodonta africana. Animal Behaviour, 2006, 71: 117-127
77. T. H. Clutton-Brock, F. E. Guinness, and S. D. Albon, Red Deer: Behaviour and Ecology of Two Sexes (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982
78. Frans De Waal, Our Inner Ape (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005
79. J. Heinze and B. Oberstadt, "Worker age, size, and social status in queenless colonies of the ant Leptothorax gredleri. Animal Behaviour, 1999, 58(4): 751-759
80. William A. Searcy, "Morphological correlates of dominance in captive male red-winged blackbirds. Condor, 1979, 81(4): 417-420
81. Elizabeth A. Whiteman and Isabelle M. Cote, "Dominance hierarchies in group living cleaning gobies: Causes and foraging consequences. Animal Behaviour, 2004, 67(2): 230-247
82. Daniel G. Freedman, Human Sociobiology: A Holistic Approach (New York: Free Press, 1979
83. Donald E. Brown and Y. Chia-Yun, "'Big man' in universalistic perspective" (Unpublished manuscript, Santa Barbara, CA: University of California, Santa Barbara, 1993
84. Carles Boix and Frances Rosenbluth, "Bones of contention: The political economy of height inequality. American Political Science Review, 2014, 108(1): 1-22
85. J. Lawrence Angel, The People (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971
86. William A. Haviland, "Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: Implications for ancient Maya demography and social organization. American Antiquity, 1967, 32(3): 316-325
87. Steffen R. Giessner and Thomas W. Schubert, "High in the hierarchy: How vertical location and judgments of leaders' power are interrelated. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2007, 104(1): 30-44
88. Jerome S. Bruner and Leo Postman, "Symbolic value as an organizing factor in perception. Journal of Social Psychology, 1948, 27(2): 203-208
89. William F. Dukes and William Bevan, "Size estimation and monetary value: A correlation. Journal of Psychology, 1952, 34(1): 43-53
90. Lotte Thomsen,Willem E. Frankenhuis, McCaila Ingold-Smith, and Susan Carey, "Big and mighty: Preverbal infants mentally represent social dominance. Science, 2011, 331(6016): 477-480
91. Colin Holbrook and Daniel M. T. Fessler, "Sizing up the threat: The envisioned physical formidability of terrorists tracks their leaders' failures and successes. Cognition, 2013, 127(1): 46-56
92. Abigail A. Marsh, Henry H. Yu, Julia C. Schechter, and R.J.R. Blair, "Larger than life: Humans' nonverbal status cues alter perceived size. PLoS ONE, 2009, 4(5): e5707
93. W. D. Dannenmaier and F. J. Thumin, "Authority status as a factor in perceptual distortion of size. Journal of Social Psychology, 1964, 63(2): 361-365
94. Rich Masters, Jamie Poolton, and John Van Der Kamp, "Regard and perceptions of size in soccer: Better is bigger. Perception, 2010, 39: 1290-1295
95. Paul R. Wilson, "Perceptual distortion of height as a function of ascribed academic status. Journal of Social Psychology, 1968, 74(1): 97-102
96. Linda A. Jackson and Kelly S. Ervin, "Height stereotypes of women and men: The liabilities of shortness for both sexes. Journal of Social Psychology, 1992, 132(4): 433-445
97. Gert Stulp, Abraham P. Buunk, Simon Verhulst, and Thomas V. Pollet, "High and mighty: Height increases authority in professional refereeing. Evolutionary Psychology, 2012, 10(3): 588-601
98. Petri Bockerman, Edvard Johansson, Urpo Kiiskinen, and Markku Heliovaara, "The relationship between physical work and the height premium: Finnish evidence. Economics and Human Biology, 2010, 8(3): 414-420
99. Lars Cernerud, "Height and social mobility. Scandinavian Journal of Social Medicine, 1995, 23(1): 28-31
100. John S. Gillis, Too Tall, Too Small (Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing, 1982
101. Patrik K. E. Magnusson, Finn Rasmussen, and Ulf B. Gyllensten, "Height at age 18 years is a strong predictor of attained education later in life: Cohort study of over 950,000 Swedish men. International Journal of Epidemiology, 2006, 35(3): 658-663
102. Nicola Persico, Andrew Postelwaite, and Dan Silverman, "The effect of adolescent experience on labor market outcomes: The case of height. Journal of Political Economy, 2004, 112(5): 1019-1053
103. Olga Epitropaki and Robin Martin, "Implicit leadership theories in applied settings: Factor structure, generalizability, and stability over time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2004, 89(2): 293-310
104. Donald R. Kinder, "Presidential character revisited. in Political Cognition, eds. Richard R. Lau and Sears David O. (Hillside, New Jersey: Earlbaum, 1986
105. Arthur H. Miller, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Oksana Malanchuk, "Schematic assessments of presidential candidates. American Political Science Review, 1986, 80(2): 521-540
106. Dean Keith Simonton, Greatness: Who Makes History and Why (New York: Guilford, 1994
107. Philip A. Higham and D. William Carment, "Rise and fall of politicians: The judged height of Broadbent, Mulroney, and Turner before and after the 1988 Canadian federal election. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 1992, 24(3): 404-409
108. Diana C. Mutz, Population-Based Survey Experiments (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011
109. U.S. Census Bureau: State and County QuickFacts: USA, "USA." http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000. html, accessed July 28, 2014
110. David C. Geary, Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1998
111. Phyllis B. Eveleth and James M. Tanner, Worldwide Variations in Human Growth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990
112. Bernt Bratsberg, Knut Red, Oddbjrn Raaum, Robin Naylor, Markus Jäntti, Tor Eriksson, and Eva Österbacka, "Nonlinearities in intergenerational earnings mobility: Consequences for cross-country comparisons. The Economic Journal, 2007, 117(519): C72-C92
113. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Healthy Weight: It's Not a Diet, It's a Lifestyle, About BMI for Adults. http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/ adult-bmi/index.html, accessed May 16, 2014
114. Harvard School of Public Health, "Why Use BMI?" http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/ obesity-definition/obesity-definition-full-story/#references, accessed July 5, 2014
115. Rebecca M. Puhl and Chelsea A. Heuer, "The stigma of obesity: A review and update. Obesity, 2009, 17(5): 941-964
116. Aiping Ding, Matthew M. Mille, Tianyu Liu, Peter F. Caracappa, and X George Xu, "Extension of RPI-Adult male and female computational phantoms to obese patients and a Monte Carlo study of the effect on CT imaging dose. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 2012, 57(9): 2441-2459
117. Daniel E. Re and David I. Perrett, "The effects of facial adiposity on attractiveness and perceived leadership ability. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2014, 67(4): 676-686
118. Brian R. Spisak, Astrid C. Homan, Allen Grabo, and Mark Van Vugt, "Facing the situation: Testing a biosocial contingency model of leadership in intergroup relations using masculine and feminine faces. Leadership Quarterly, 2012, 23(2): 273-280
119. Mark Van Vugt and Brian R. Spisak, "Sex differences in the emergence of leadership during competitions within and between groups. Psychological Science, 2008, 19(9): 854-858
120. Gregg R. Murray and Susan M. Murray, "Caveman executive leadership: Evolved leadership preferences and biological sex. in Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences, ed. Gad Saad (New York: Springer, 2011
121. Gregg R. Murray, "Evolutionary theory and preferences for female and male leaders" (Unpublished manuscript, Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University, 2014
122. Emma Chapman, Simon Baron-Cohen, Bonnie Auyeung, Rebecca Knickmeyer, Kevin Taylor, and Gerald Hackett, "Fetal testosterone and empathy: Evidence from the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' test. Social Neuroscience, 2006, 1(2): 135-148
123. John Archer, "The influence of testosterone on human aggression. British Journal of Psychology, 1991, 82(1): 1-28
124. Allan Mazur and Alan Booth, "Testosterone and dominance in men. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1998, 21(3): 353-363