I thought this articles evolutionary perspective on leadership was interesting because I was actually recently discussing this with my mom. We were talking about how some groups are more likely to be leaders just because that is how our species evolved. Specifically we were talking about how men are more commonly leaders because they are bigger and stronger and were more able to provide when humans used to hunt for their food. I was wondering if that is why it is more common even now for men to work and provide for their families.
Something that I have never thought about, however, that the article addresses is race in terms of an evolutionary perspective on leadership. The article states that likely our ancestors would not have come in contact with those of another race, so it may have had a minimal impact.
I also found this article incredibly interesting when considering race. Because race is something we can perceptually see and are taught that it’s important, it’s so important when considering the evolutionary perspectives. We can also see how this varies across age groups, as this is something we discuss in my child development class often.
I wonder how much of our ancestral lineage effects our ability/ likelihood of being a leader. Im sure it has some effect, but probably not a significant amount. But for the argument with men, I definitely think gender could have a larger effect due to stereotyping and biases. I also found the race section interesting because I rarely think of that as a factor, yet I know it has impact in the working world. Maybe this has been a product of our near past opposed to our ancestral tendencies.
I think that looking at gender and leadership is really interesting. What in our evolutionary history decided the gender roles that we have today? There is the size, strength, and ability to hunt that men have, but why did it not change as society progressed? Though it is now starting to improve, women can hold leadership positions but there is still so far to go. I guess I’m just wondering why evolution still has such a strong influence on society.
In this article, the mention of small-scale societies not having contact with those of a different race struck me. These societies could severely limit conflict or violence in their communities. A modern day example of these small-scale societies can be seen in homogeneous groups such as Amazonian tribes. An alarming question is if these conflicts are inevitable in a diverse country such as the United States.