Informal social hierarchies within small human groups are argued to be based on prestige, dominance, or a combination of the two (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). Prestige-based hierarchies entail the ordering of individuals by the admiration and respect they receive from others due to their competence within valued domains. This type of hierarchy provides benefits for subordinates such as social learning opportunities and both private and public goods. In contrast, dominance-based hierarchies entail the ordering of individuals by their capacity to win fights, and coerce or intimidate others. This type of hierarchy produces costs in subordinates due to its aggressive and intimidating nature. Given the benefits and costs associated with these types of social hierarchies for subordinates, we hypothesised that prestige and dominance cues are better recalled and transmitted than social rank cues that do not elicit high prestige or dominance associations (i.e. medium social rank cues). Assuming that for the majority of the population who are not already at the top of the social hierarchy it is more important to avoid the costs of dominance-based hierarchies than to obtain the benefits of prestige-based hierarchies, we further hypothesised that dominance cues are better transmitted than prestige cues. We conducted a recall-based transmission chain experiment with 30 chains of four generations each (N = 120). Participants read and recalled descriptions of prestigious, dominant, and medium social rank footballers, and their recall was passed to the next participant within their chain. As predicted, we found that both prestige cues and dominance cues were better transmitted than medium social rank cues. However, we did not find support for our prediction of the better transmission of dominance cues than prestige cues. We discuss whether the results might be explained by a specific social-rank content transmission bias or by a more general emotional content transmission bias.

小群体的非正式社会等级被认为是建立在声望，统治或两者结合的基础上的（Henrich＆Gil-White，2001）。基于声望的层次结构要求个人钦佩，并且由于他们在有价值的领域中的能力而受到他人的尊敬和尊敬。这种等级制度为下属提供了好处，例如社会学习机会以及私人和公共物品。相反，基于优势的等级制要求个人根据自己赢得战斗，胁迫或恐吓他人的能力进行排序。这种类型的等级制由于其侵略性和威吓性而在下属中产生成本。鉴于与此类下属社会等级制度相关的收益和成本，我们假设，与不引起较高声望或主导地位关联的社会地位提示（即中等社会地位提示）相比，声誉和主导地位提示的记忆力和传递性更好。假设对于尚未处于社会等级制最高层的大多数人口，避免获得基于优势的等级制的成本比获得基于信誉的等级制的好处更为重要，我们进一步假设了优势线索是比声望提示更好地传播。我们进行了基于召回的传输链实验，每组30条链，每个链有4代（假设对于尚未处于社会等级制最高层的大多数人口，避免获得基于优势的等级制的成本比获得基于信誉的等级制的好处更为重要，我们进一步假设了优势线索是比声望提示更好地传播。我们进行了基于召回的传输链实验，每组30条链，每个链有4代（假设对于尚未处于社会等级制最高层的大多数人口，避免获得基于优势的等级制的成本比获得基于信誉的等级制的好处更为重要，我们进一步假设了优势线索是比声望提示更好地传播。我们进行了基于召回的传输链实验，每组30条链，每个链有4代（N  = 120）。参与者阅读并回顾了有名望，支配和中等社会等级的足球运动员的描述，他们的回忆被传递给其链中的下一个参与者。如预测的那样，我们发现声望提示和优势提示都比中等社会等级提示更好地传播。但是，我们没有找到支持我们预测优势提示比声望提示更好地传播的支持。我们讨论是通过特定的社会等级内容传递偏见还是通过更普遍的情感内容传递偏倚来解释结果。