New ASU study shows humans throughout history relied on experts in order to survive

Being an expert in something provides people a path to leadership positions in businesses, government and even small groups.

A new study out of ASU shows the trend of people looking to experts likely goes back to hunter-gatherer times. The goal of the study was to see how differences in influence among social groups allowed for the survival of humans.

Those differences of influence can arise through different mechanisms. Non-human primates often show one method called a Dominance Hierarchy, where one member of a social group uses force to coerce himself into a leadership position.

But humans can use another hierarchical structure in a group, it’s called a Prestige Hierarchy.

“It's basically identifying expertise and then allowing the whole group to benefit from that expertise.” said Thomas Morgan, an evolutionary anthropologist with ASU.

The researchers ran simulations using archeological data to see how relying on expertise helped with group survival throughout history.

“Prestige evolved in the human lineage at the time when our ancestors became increasingly dependent on learning from each other,” Morgan said.

The team also ran experiments where participants answered questions and were allowed to copy off each other for answers. Leaders naturally occurred among the participants based on how many answers they got right.

Morgan says the findings show prestige changes social structures. That’s important because many researchers have thought that human social groups were largely egalitarian throughout history.

“Those sorts of ideas have been challenged recently with increasing archaeological evidence for there being quite significant inequalities and status differences in foraging populations, but also a deeper dive really into contemporary, supposedly egalitarian societies often shows that while they might not have sort of formal hierarchies or clear institutions, some people do carry more influence than others,” Morgan said.

But relying on other expertise wasn’t always the best thing. Some participants ended up looking to others that weren’t actually good at the task.

“Prestige has this snowballing tendency that, you know, if you're copying who everyone else is listening to. Well, then how do you know they've got good information? You're just kind of hoping for the best,” Morgan said.

And because people were relying on other people too much, they weren’t paying attention to their own work to get the right answers to the questions. Morgan says the findings provide insights beyond anthropological interest.

“They do endorse the idea that expertise matters and it can be good for society as a whole. And then the flip side is, though, that it also encourages us to hold leaders and those with status and influence to account to deliver those benefits for everyone, right?

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.