Social Dominance Theory: Explorations in the Psychology of Oppression

Question: What is the difference between capitalism and communism? Answer: Under capitalism you have the exploitation of man by man. Under communism it is just the reverse. Russian saying Despite impressive gains in the spread of quasi-democratic social practices and respect for human rights witnessed in the past hundred years (e.g., Pinker, 2011), intergroup discrimination, oppression, and violence continue to thrive within every modern social system. Whether one considers the marked discrimination against immigrants in the relatively egalitarian Sweden (Nordenstam & Ringstrom, 2013; Orange, 2013), the money-dominated elections of post-industrial states (Lessig, 2011), or the unambiguously oppressive dictatorships across the majority of the Arab world, systems of group-based social inequality and domination continue, despite our best efforts, to maintain their grip around the throats of democratic and egalitarian aspirations. While there are certainly vast differences in the degree of group-based social inequality across social systems, or across historical epochs within any given society, group-based social inequality appears to be a human universal present in all kinds of societies (see, e.g., Bowles, Smith, and Borgerhoff Mulder, 2010), even in hunter-gatherer communities (e.g., Ames, 2007; Arnold, 1993; Kennett, Winterhalder, Bartruff, & Erlandson, 2008). Having made this basic observation of the near ubiquity of group-based social inequality, social dominance theory (SDT; Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) argues that many familiar types of group-based oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, nationalism, classism, religious intolerance, hostility toward the mentally ill) are essentially particular instantiations of a more general process through which dominant groups establish and maintain social, economic, and military supremacy over subordinate groups. Therefore, it is suggested that specific instantiations of oppression across social contexts cannot be comprehensively understood without serious consideration of the dynamic and multileveled forces producing and sustaining the phenomenon of group-based social hierarchy. The Trimorphic Nature of Group-Based Social Hierarchy SDT argues that there are essentially three related, yet qualitatively distinct types of group-based social hierarchy. The first type of hierarchical system is the “age system,” in which those considered to be “adults” have more social, economic, and political power than those considered “juveniles.” While the specific age separating one category in this system from another may vary between societies and within a given society over time, this dichotomy appears to be universal (James & James, 2008).