Dominance Hierarchy

[Martin Hash]

The male dominance hierarchy is pure body chemistry. Hierarchy, status, literally controls a man's quality of life and even how long they live. For example, relative status, meaning of three people in a room, where you are in dominance modulates the release of serotonin in your brain. The farther a man is up in the dominance hierarchy, uncertainty & threat relatively decrease, decreasing stress, allowing serotonin to increase, which means less irritability. Higher-ups in the dominance hierarchy demean those below them, which suppresses their status, which lowers serotonin, which causes them to stop fighting upward.

When a person is stressed, their body releases cortisol. This is a primordially survival mechanism, meaning it affects everything: decreased immune system, cell aging, Alzheimer's, obesity, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, diabetes, depression, impaired learning, blood pressure; all to put the body into fight-or-flight response. It saves you in the instant but is deadly if chronically secreted over a lifetime due to subjugation in a dominance hierarchy.

Positive emotions are caused by dopamine. Dopamine is released during pursuit of goals, a great motivational power, but it turns off when a goal is achieved. Any goal works to increase dopamine, which is why games are popular because games establish their own frame of reference, increasing relative status. Stories work the same way by putting you in the role of the hero; the hero’s goals are your goals, which trigger dopamine, increasing perceived status, increasing serotonin, decreasing cortisol.

[DrYouth]

What balances out the chemistry of the dominance hierarchy is bonding chemistry.
Among groups with social cohesion their is oxytocin and vasopressin secretion which are the glue that creates mutual trust.
In groups with high trust this dampens the cortisol raising effects of low status.
There is still a dominance hierarchy but the low ranking members of these high trust groups suffer less stress as the high ranking members are more likely to have their back, as it were. That being said free riders are still punished and ostracism from the group is still a potential consequence of not pulling your weight.