Title: “Human Hierarchy Formation and Its Health Implications” Topic Area: Evolutionary Anthropology- Status and Health Keywords: Status, Hierarchy, Coalitions, Health, and Humans

Stress in an important determinant of socially mediated causes of poor health. Stress can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, lower immune function, and impair other physiological functions. We review the literature on stress and physiology in primates and other animals in order to extract from it important insights into human health patterns. From this literature, we learn that both dominant and subordinate social status can have negative health consequences, but that low status can have more detrimental, long-term effects on health. Dominant individuals may trade-off between short-term health consequences and the long-term benefits of high status, whereas low status individuals incur high, chronic, and long lasting health costs. Furthermore, human hierarchy formation is hypothesized to be highly dependent on coalitional membership. We build on these findings with a review of some of the human literature on mental health and self-efficacy. Findings suggest that the types and the number of relationships that individuals establish and maintain during their lifetime also influence health. A lack of social support can lead to the perception of lack of control, which, in turn, tends to increase emotional distress, depression, and anxiety. Finally we discuss a few studies suggesting that an individual's cultural background mediates the relationship between social status, social relationships, and health outcomes. We conclude that future research on sociality and human health should focus on multivariate relationships between specific aspects of social hierarchies and alliances, cultural beliefs and values, the stress response, and human health in turn.