I am interested in whether arrogance is useful or detrimental in an evolutionary sense. It seems that the answer may depend on the outcome of interest (short-term or long-term reproductive situations, with arrogance potentially being more attractive in short-term reproductive situations). What other factors play into the evolutionary benefits or costs of arrogance?
Nick, have you seen the Johnson & Folwer, 2011, Nature paper (on overconfidence)?
Yes, but it would be worth reading again. I am specifically interested in arrogance (the nastier stuff intrinsic to things like Paulhus's over-claiming technique). There seems to be some disagreement in the literature about whether arrogance can lead to fitness payoffs. Folks (e.g., von Hippel et al. at the 2015 SPSP conference) have argued that arrogance is negatively related to being rated as attractive--that is, after one partitions confidence and arrogance. The idea as I understand it is that confidence is adaptive, whereas arrogance is not. I'm wondering if there are conditions in which arrogance is evolutionarily useful...
I cannot address your question directly, but you might find something worthwhile in considering the social constraints (good and bad) associated with close social relationships, as discussed in the social capital literature (e.g., James Coleman versus Ronald Burt).
See Czarnaa, Dufnerb, Clifton, 2014 for a network approach to narcissism. While this article certainly paints an unfit picture of arrogance, it does illustrate how narcissicism places you outside of a group and its (potentially limiting) constraints.
Up to Jeffrey, it is important we define arrogance as precisely as possible and then begin looking at whatever it is in the myriad of contexts where it may be a factor. Of the hundred or so factors we might initially postulate, there are a hundred more we will miss at first take. It is an interesting question but one that requires we back up, define our terms and carefully categorize the contexts we wish to examine.
Psychometric Note: Arrogance has been operationally defined, for better or worse, using a facet of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, so arrogance is not the same as narcissism, but arrogance is a lower order facet of the general narcissism construct. I'm not sure how von Hippel et al. have defined arrogance exactly (the work is yet to be published), but the idea they've posited is that arrogance negatively impacts one's attractiveness to members of the opposite sex, in particular when the positive influence of confidence on attractiveness is accounted for. So, the overarching theme here is that whereas the impact of something like over-claiming on attractiveness is positively mediated by confidence, the same effect is negatively mediated by arrogance. That is, they've posited that arrogance seems to be costly, at least for mating in the way they've defined things. It seems to me that arrogance is useful in some sense in relationship contexts and status contexts, but this is not yet clear in the literature. So, I'm trying to generate some ideas about the conditions in which arrogance is useful and for what outcomes.
You would have to differentiate between self-ascribed arrogance and perceived arrogance. Although the two are correlated, there may be small or large discrepancies between the two. Unintentionally coming across as arrogant to a perceiver is probably maladaptive. Intentionally being arrogant could be useful as part of a long-term Machiavellian strategy, but it would then have to fit into a larger set of operations.
Arrogance could at least be some kind of threatening gesture / display behaviour against others.
"Psychometric Note: Arrogance has been operationally defined, for better or worse, using a facet of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, so arrogance is not the same as narcissism..."
Well... OK... personality factors... and obviously it is not the same like narcissism. However... evolutionary fitness...
Let's assume it is a threating gesture. And let's furthermore assume it maybe has something to do with group behavior. Why then not assume it could be some kind of in-group thing dependend on ones status one wants to reach. In that case: The lower ones status and the higher the status one wants to reach the more arrogance is shown torwards other group members.
Cost-benefit: Reaching a high status without investing in stuff like self-improvment (skills, education etc.). Protection against downward social movement. Which could (if this is right) explain why there is always some trouble with self-esteem. Arrogant people could indeed be less competent dependend on the dimension they compare themself with people with a status they want to reach.
Arrogant people could for example also show a higher tendency when it comes to free riding (not really interested, rather passiv). However torwards authority they could be more active.
"You would have to differentiate between self-ascribed arrogance and perceived arrogance."
Could be a problem one could somehow solve... When it comes to perceived arrogance I would rather ask something like if a person was perceived as most nonprototypal... less the leader... Because the trouble with arrogant people is indeed that their behaviour is perceived as bothersome and unpleasent.
In that case: The higher a persons status compared to other group members and the less input the more arrogant a person is perceived.
If arrogance is operationally defined as a low score on Lee & Ashton's Honesty/Humility scale in the HEXACO six factor model of personality, then there would seem to be an evolutionary advantage to arrogance in situations where short-term mating strategies are most effective. See Lee & Ashton (2012): "Sex, Power, and Money: Prediction from the Dark Triad and Honesty–Humility"
See the 1996 paper 'Egalitarianism and Machiavellian Intelligence in Human Evolution' (in my uploaded papers) for work showing that arrogance was NOT effective in the long forager stage of human evolution; it was met universally among hunter-gatherers with counter-dominant reactions from ridicule rising step by step through to execution. (This was beautifully expressed by a !Kung hunter to RB Lee, who was offended that they were expressing contempt for his farewell gift of a mighty ox. If someone sees himself as a great hunter, said the hunter, he will end up killing someone; so we rubbish the meat he brings 'to cool his heart and make him gentle'.) This turned out to be a much more effective foraging group 'strategy' than anything involving social hierarchy and dominance. The vigilant counter-dominance that sustained this mode of living was neutralised by the creation of surpluses with agriculture and herding.
"who was offended that they were expressing contempt for his farewell gift of a mighty ox. If someone sees himself as a great hunter, said the hunter, he will end up killing someone; so we rubbish the meat he brings 'to cool his heart and make him gentle'."
But that sounds more like a tribal bullying ritual. Comparable to our culture were it is said: "Say thank you if you get a present.". If you asked me both strategies do hide true feelings while when it comes to the dislike of an arrogant. Or do you think it was just a rational explanation? I don't know... normaly everyone would be like happy if they have less and someone gives them a whole ox. At least I would cover it in gold right before I open up a huge BBQ while dancing around it *lol*
The paper identifies many observations across the ethnographic literature of groups taking a variety of strategies to bring back to earth, if necessary with a bump, individual men (they were all men) behaving arrogantly. The !Kung hunter was one of the most aware of this reaction, which I take to be an evolved tendency in us all: we just don't like being overtly dominated or pushed around. This proved effective in sustaining the generalised sharing of meat, which is why it was adaptive. Chris Boehm's 1999 'Hierarchy in the Forest' identifies many other instances, though his analysis is not evolutionary.
However Gangestad and a few other researchers came to the conclussion (already before 2010) that those aspects reflect more likely sex-partners (sexiness) than stable relationships (attractivity). So arrogance is sexy but not attractive. And it could indeed be linked to the preference for being dominated and observable behavior that reflects 'stupidity'. But (and that is something which speaks against a benefit): When it comes to humans and partner selection estrus doesn't seem to play such a big role anymore. Arrogance could beside that have a negative effect: Noone likes the hard to get type. So no matter if a woman perceives an arrogant man as sexy... as long as you are not at a Christmas party ovulating and being knocked out by alcohol it simply won't work.
Stephanie, thanks for the reference. Steve Gangestad's group has written some fascinating albeit controversial stuff. There's the 2007 JPSP paper, "Changes in women's mate preferences across the ovulatory cycle". Is that the one you are referring to? In Table 3, it shows a two-way interaction (Trait X Context) indicating that arrogance is preferred in short-term more than long-term mating contexts. It also shows the three way interaction (Trait X Context X Conception Risk) in line with your statements. Either result points to the tension that is growing in the literature: Some evolutionarily-minded scholars are arguing that arrogance has very little to no functionality (See David Erdal's interesting comments and references in this thread), whereas others have presented data indicating the opposite.
Without further definition of precisely what we mean by arrogance I will take it to be used here in the "general" colloquial sense (so dangerous) in which case the answer based on both the majority of theoretical constructions is....none.
I agree the term 'arrogance' is weakened as a category of study by having an inbuilt value flavour; perceptions of what is arrogance as opposed to what is simply confidently assertive will vary by individual and by culture. There is no question that confidence is judged as worth listening to, even at the sub-second processing level (Jiang and Pell forthcoming in Cortex), and seems to be given extra attention by female brains. But we found a universal reaction against anything approaching attempted dominance – a puzzle in a primate whose ancestors were undoubtedly arranged along hierarchies of dominance and submission. Andy Whiten and I see counter-dominance (as opposed to competing for dominance) as key to sustaining the sharing of meat that was central to human evolution. see Whiten and Erdal 2012
Arrogance could be taken as the opposite of humility, which a virtue praised in the Bible. We read that the humble will in turn be exalted. Howevr, arrogance may be helpful in situations which call for assertiveness.
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