Neuroendocrine Mechanisms, Stress Coping Strategies, and Social Dominance: Comparative Lessons about Leadership Potential

Abstract

The authors examine dominance and subordination in the social psychology, political science, and biology literatures. Using Summers and Winberg (2006) as a guide, the authors suggest that extreme dominance or subordination phenotypes—including social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism—are determined by an organism's genetic predispositions, motivations, stress responses, and long-term hormone release and uptake states. The authors offer hypotheses about the likely neurochemical profiles for each of these extreme dominance and subordination phenotypes and suggest two designs that begin to test these hypotheses.