3 results

Being a leader or being the leader: The evolution of institutionalised hierarchy

Conference Proceeding
Perret, C., Hart, E., & Powers, S. T. (2019)
Being a leader or being the leader: The evolution of institutionalised hierarchy. In ALIFE 2019: The 2019 Conference on Artificial Life, (171-178). https://doi.org/10.1162/isal_a_00158
Human social hierarchy has the unique characteristic of existing in two forms. Firstly, as an informal hierarchy where leaders and followers are implicitly defined by their pe...

When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., & Lehmann, L. (2017)
When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours: Effects of group size on evolution of helping. Biological Reviews, 92(2), 902-920. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12260
Understanding the evolution of sociality in humans and other species requires understanding how selection on social behaviour varies with group size. However, the effects of g...

How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies

Journal Article
Powers, S. T., van Schaik, C. P., & Lehmann, L. (2016)
How institutions shaped the last major evolutionary transition to large-scale human societies. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 371(1687), 20150098. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0098
What drove the transition from small-scale human societies centred on kinship and personal exchange, to large-scale societies comprising cooperation and division of labour amo...