Von Rueden and Van Vugt’s article discusses leadership roles in small-scale societies (SSS) as an influence to leadership in large-scale societies (LSS).  An interesting component of leadership they address is the scope of influence that leaders in SSS  are granted.  They conclude that the scale of power fluctuates based on the size of the group, the amount of cooperation present, and the necessity for conflict resolution.  I thought this was an interesting insight because I had never thought of the amount of power that was granted to a leader to be reflective of the amount of people within the society.  It makes logical sense, though, as a larger group of people will lead to less cooperation and additional conflicts that would be dismissed in smaller groups. In a weird way, this idea reminded me of the economic concept diminishing marginal returns because with additional members in society, there is ultimately a cap of maximizing productivity for each member, resulting in less production capacity per individual with additional members.  Basically, with more people, there is no longer the need for one person to fish all the time to meet the needs of the society because there are other people who can do it.  It allows for more leisure time, which is a contributor to divisions in large-scale societies.

I thought it was also interesting that the central focus for SSS leaders is the advocacy for cooperation.  Specifically when comparing the physical qualities of SSS and LSS leaders.  Aligning with their thesis, SSS leadership is kind of like the reduced form of LSS leadership, in that SSS solely focus on a physically dominating body stature so that there is more reliability in punishment enforcement and LSS leadership favors larger and more masculine leaders as that is a sign of dominance as well as health and intelligence.  For this component of leadership, LSS leadership is en evolution of SSS leadership suited to address the larger and more complex issues of large-scale societies.

After reading “Methods of Gathering Scientific Evidence” by Stern and Kalof I could not help but think of the current situation that the world is in, and what method of gathering evidence would be best. I think that the coronavirus is so unpredictable and changing day by day because nobody really knows much about the virus itself, in what conditions it can/ cannot survive in, and nobody knows how to cure it. This is causing general panic which is not adding to this already stressful situation. I think that it is clear that the naturalistic observation method would not necessarily work in this situation because nobody was observing at the exact moment when the coronavirus started, but it will be interesting to hear the actual accounts of what it is like to have it and to study it. It is very strange to think about how many retrospective case studies there will be on this situation after this pandemic is over.  I also think that there are many different variations of the sample studies going on as the world and nation try to see what the mortality rates are and how many people actually have the virus. I think that this reading was very interesting especially because it was so easy to relate to what we are all experiencing currently.

I also think that the situation that the world is in with the coronavirus can be applied to the second reading by Von Ruden and vanVugt especially in regard to cultural lags. There are so many cultural lags that we experience in society that we have to deal with, and I think that they are ever more apparent now that we are seeing that we are not equipped for a virus like COVID-19. I think that this article’s discussion of leadership also brings to light the issues that we may have with who is leading the world currently and what this pandemic will do to the upcoming election. I think that it will be very interesting to see what people will look for in a leader in the 2020 election. I find that it is very interesting how this pandemic is becoming political in a sense, Democrats saying that Trump did not do enough in the beginning, and Trump saying that the “liberal” media is blowing the coronavirus out of proportions. I think that this such an unprecedented event that will have a definite impact on the way that our nation and the world is run in the future.

I found this reading very interesting, particularly looking at how the things people look for in leaders hasn’t changed much despite the massive changes to our society. Being tall and strong aren’t particularly helpful in today’s world for leaders, and yet these qualities are still surprisingly sought after. We see this play out time and time again especially in US politics, as candidates who play up the strong man identity tend to do better in elections.

I also found it an interesting thought that for the vast majority of human history leaders operated on a small, interconnected and familial scale. This does make sense to a certain extent, especially as you go back thousands of years. However, even five thousand years ago we did see certain societies operating on a far larger scale, such as in Egypt and China. While within those societies there was still a lot of small scale leadership as well, particularly in Egypt we still see hierarchal and top down leadership styles, even five thousand years ago.

COVID-19 Warning

When I was reading the Stern and Kalof reading about methods of scientific inquiry, my mind naturally went to the current coronavirus crisis. I doubt this will be a very original blog post, considering that most people’s minds are on COVID-19, but this entire situation will be analyzed for years to come. Not only is it a serious pandemic, but it affects almost every sector of life. Labor, the economy, education, government, healthcare, sports, and more have been deeply affected by COVID-19. So how will we analyze this crisis?

The first way is through naturalistic observation, answering this basic question: what happens in a pandemic? I’m sure there are people tracking how colleges and universities, sports leagues, and different industries have responded to coronavirus. Journalists and historians are likely documenting the situation as well, trying to figure out what is going right and wrong. This applies across all of the areas that COVID-19 has affected. But naturalistic observation is more likely to raise questions than answers. For example, we know how different governments responded to the crisis, but how can they improve for next time? That question can be best answered by retrospective case study.

It is likely that COVID-19 will serve as the case study for most future pandemics, because it actually escalated to the highest point of any pandemic in the last 100 years. It also takes place at a moment of unprecedented ability to document information for future study, making it easy to go back and study what happened. Of course, the operations of government and politics in this period will be studied, but another interesting angle is the rise of teleworking. How much efficiency do companies actually lose from employees working at home, and could this lead to a future where offices are less necessary to run a business? Despite all of the destruction and havoc caused by the coronavirus, it could very well lead to huge changes in how our lives function after the crisis is over.

I found the The Christopher von Rueden and Mark van Vuaght reading to be interesting. I don’t remember ever discussing large scale versus small scale in the leadership classes that I’ve taken so it was interesting to read about the implications. This reading reminded me a lot of my previous leadership 102 class with Dr. Harwell where we focused mostly on how there are different leadership styles and how they are used for different situations respectively. An idea that I was familiar with and could relate to in my 102 was the “mismatch hypothesis” mentioned in the reading. This reminded me of an activity that we did in Dr. Harwell’s class where we had to list the important aspects or physical attributes of what a leader possesses and listed them on the board.

Personally, my thoughts on what a leader possessed went straight to dominance and being physically fit and basically correlated a leader as masculine. I wondered why people are already inclined to generally view men to be leaders and the reading’s evolutionary explanation about gender touched upon that. I think it is more important when selecting a leader to judge them on their intellectual capabilities and their success rather than physical aspects. Overall, in this reading it was just interesting to see how much of the leadership we see in LSS is a result of the SSS.

The reading by Stern and Kalof was a nice reminder of concepts I remember learning in 102 and in AP Statistics my senior year of high school. Reading about surveys especially brought me back to Stats because we had so many discussions about why many surveys actually don’t provide valid data. There are so many factors that one has to consider when making a survey that it almost drives you nuts; for example, how will the survey be delivered? If it’s through phone, you have to consider that some people might not own a landline. If people don’t pick up, that also affects the data. If it’s interviewing in public, the sample you get at a mall versus outside of a bar will get a different demographic, so you have to consider if the sample you’re getting is representative or not.

I was really fascinated by the von Reuden reading. The discussion of SSSs and LSSs reminded me of the book Big Fish, and the comparison of the metaphor of being a big fish in a small pond or a big fish in a big pond. It made me think of the SSSs and LSSs in my life. If you think of a household as an SSS, mine reflects what happens in an LSS, in that my dad makes more money, has more of an alpha male personality, and is the confident one that makes the ultimate decisions. It makes me wonder how that has affected the way I perceive what I leader is. Since I’ve gone to a liberal high school and college and have been exposed to progressive ideas from a young age, I think that would have altered any initial traditional ideas of leadership in my subconscious. Still, according to this paper, despite our beliefs, the leaders that actually show up in LSSs are more traditional.

My second thought from this reading is how do we change what a leader looks like to what society looks like? How do we get more women to be leaders, and more people of color? We all know by now that a leader doesn’t always have to be tall, over-confident, and masculine with aggressive tendencies. In fact, I remember reading last year that people prefer a leader not to look like that. What’s holding us back, and how can we fix it?

I had never considered potential similarities of differences between LSSs and SSSs, but as I read the article, it was easy to connect the information to other leadership course and the real-world. Almost immediately, the reference to the “dark side of leadership – dominance”, allowed me to affirm what leadership is and is not. My LDST 101 course taught me to always view leadership through the lens of consent versus coercion. If an individual attains power through fear and threats, they are coercive and are not considered a leader. I appreciate that the article highlights this distinction before continuing their argument.

There were a couple aspects of SSSs that made me laugh at how they are so apparent in
“life lessons” I have learned growing up. For example, it is stated that “individuals with the most kinship ties to other group members tend to hold positions of influence”. This made me think of the importance of networking. Of course, this can also be implemented on a larger scale, but even within small companies, a person who has made the effort to create new connections with people will have a greater chance of professionally advancing. One of my grandma’s favorite sayings is, “The more people you know, the father you’ll go”. Another lesson that I could connect the reading to was the description of prosociality. Children are often taught to share their toys (fairness) and take turns (generosity), but the next step is to do these things when nobody is watching (integrity). These are heavily simplified definitions, but are integral parts of leadership. Before reading this, I didn’t realize the implications of this aspect and put into perspective how important every single choice affects long-term status as a leader. Status is ultimately controlled by the followers and I’d like that this observation can help highlight the role of accountability.

One question I had about SSSs is if it strictly applies to these remote communities (i.e., Amazonian villages) or if some form of the model can be applied to close-knit suburbs or family-owned businesses? I don’t recall the reading mentioning it, but I am curious to see the extent of which it applies.

For the Stern and Kalof reading, I have learned about research definitions and terms before, but it was helpful to be reminded of the many details. My research paper for this class is an example of a retrospective case study I believe. I was able to make some naturalistic observations during the show’s season, but most of my information is from the past. I cannot draw conclusions because I am not running an experiment, so I will end with a correlation.

The von Rueden and van Vuaght reading was very interesting. In 102, my class focused a lot on how different leadership styles could be better suited for different situations, but large scale versus small scale was never a large of discussion. ­The most basic principle is the same: leaders emerge when there is a need to solve a problem. According to this reading, this concept has been the same some basic societies began. In general, the reading says that the ideal leader is an older, stronger man. Characteristics are specific to what a certain culture values, which is interesting to me because it highlights unspoken norms and preferences. In SSS, a potential benefit to being a leader is reciprocity. This is not shared with LSS leadership incentive. This difference seems to show that SSS leadership is more personal. I wonder the different pressures that come from leading a group where so many individuals know you personally versus one that is of a very large scale.

It is easy to focus on LSS leadership because those are the leaders in recent history that are most famous in Western society. It is incredibly insightful to understand how SSS conditions shaped LSS leadership. I think that SSS-type leaders still exist within LSSs. Though some might argue that a university or even a singular classroom does not count as a society, the criteria for emerging leaders may follow SSS guidelines. There are countless connections between different types of leaders. It is very interesting to think of the many reasons they emerge and succeed.

From the very beginning, I was intrigued by Von Rueden’s and van Vugt’s article, as I have had others sprinkle in “evolutionary psychology” quite often, but now I have some cold hard facts. My older brother has a PhD in school psychology, so I guess he’s reliable, but he’s still my brother …

From the get-go, it was a good reminder that “LSSs with extensive bureaucracies emerged only ~10,000 years ago” while we have lived “in SSSs for ~200,000 years, and our hominid ancestors for several millions of years.” It’s goes back to our lizard brains, and how we have a massssssive amount of years of evolutionary processes that have equipped us with patterns and instincts that simply do not serve us nowadays. I wanted to speak of one lizard brain factor in particular that the reading touches on a lot, but I continue to wonder how important it is to modern times.

The recurring factor/drive is that of reproductive success/sex/mating strategies. Ultimately, “the currency in evolution is reproductive success, i.e. representation of genes in subsequent generations.” In SSSs, this manifests in how leaders in SSSs would find a means of benefit from being a leader, and “mating strategies” is an evolutionary reason as to why women are less likely to be in leadership positions than men. While I don’t think this is mentioned explicitly in the text, it also seems like the perfect archetype for a leader in SSSs also correlate to the depiction of the most attractive type of man: masculine, physically fit, tall, broad, etc. I can definitely see how our lizard brain still manifests this in LSSs, but I do want to comment on how deeply mismatched this has become.

In our modern times, so much of our daily lives has mindfully made one independent, away from having children. Having a child has steadily become more and more difficult/detrimental for parents who want to devote themselves to their career. In addition, even when we reflect on sex, we now can compartmentalize the role of dating/sex in our lives to dating apps or our weekend nights out. It really is archaic to believe now that our purpose as humans is to reproduce, so it frustrates me that attractiveness, especially MALE attractiveness, still binds us when we make decisions on our leaders. This is nothing mind-blowing, but this rant of mine came about because of how this reading once again shed light on how our lizard brain perceives leadership and how fueled it is on physical survival and attraction.

In the very first paragraph in the body of this reading, the authors introduced the evolutionary approach to leadership. One particularly interesting idea was the “mismatch hypothesis” where we judge and select candidates somewhat on their physical attributes when the more important aspects of that person are their intellectual abilities and past experiences that would help that individual become a more successful business or political leader. This reminded me of an activity that we did in either this class or Bezio’s 101 class where we pictured a leader and then listed out our thoughts on leadership examples on the board. My mind personally went to presidents who are pretty much all tall, decently fit males; I had to do a self-check to instead suggest non-traditional leaders even though those are the people that inspire me more than the white male presidents of the past. In this instance, I think it is hard to tell whether this is an example of my own evolutionary bias (which I’m sure I hold to some degree) or whether it is more the product of past voters/generations choosing these evolutionarily-qualified men as what leaders are.

In the “functions of leaders in SSSs,” I felt that the duties of the US President were somewhat shaped by these ideas, whether conscious or not. (Sorry to keep talking about the US Presidency but it’s kinda on my mind right now.) He is responsible for managing relations with other nations, as with other groups, as well as the “power to quell conflict” aka being Commander in Chief for all military branches. The reading also says that the leader is not always granted large amounts of power/control but usually is well-respected so their opinion holds more weight. While the US President no doubt has lots of power/control, his position is designed to not be the only voice in the room, through having a designated cabinet who acts as advisors and specialists in a variety of areas, and through having two other branches of government that check his power and actions.

The connection between the US Presidency and the leaders of SSSs did not end there. The description of leaders closely aligns with who our past presidents were. They were all on the older side, as is with SSSs leaders, except for times of institutional change (think JFK). As mentioned before with the evolutionary portion, we gravitate towards taller and stronger people who are pretty much always men as indicated in the “Gender” section of this reading. I think the “hubs of social networks” part translates to a presidential candidate being popular, being the type of person that you want to be friends with. For the most part, presidential candidates from both parties are already involved in politics in some way, making them already known and giving them a group of people who inherently support them. I think this makes Donald Trump’s election more interesting because it breaks this idea of society.