Social Dominance Theory Explained: Why Humans Create Hierarchies
If you've ever wondered why societies consistently organize themselves into rankings of power and status—with some groups systematically advantaged and others disadvantaged—you're asking one of psychology's most important questions. Social Dominance Theory (SDT) offers a framework for understanding why hierarchy seems universal across human societies, and why inequality persists even when we claim to value equality.
What Is Social Dominance Theory?
Social Dominance Theory, developed by psychologists Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto in the 1990s, argues that all human societies organize themselves into group-based hierarchies. In these systems, one or more dominant groups enjoy disproportionate access to resources, power, and status, while subordinate groups face systematic disadvantage.
The theory makes a bold claim: hierarchy is not a bug in human social organization—it's a feature. Societies don't accidentally create inequality; they actively maintain it through interconnected psychological, social, and institutional mechanisms.
The Three Key Components
Group-Based Hierarchy
Human societies organize around at least one group-based hierarchy. This could be based on race, ethnicity, class, caste, religion, gender, or other social categories. What matters is that some groups systematically have more power, resources, and prestige than others. In the UK, for example, white British people generally hold more institutional power than Black, Asian, or other ethnic minorities.
Legitimizing Myths
Societies create stories, beliefs, and ideologies that justify and maintain hierarchy. These "legitimizing myths" make inequality seem natural, fair, or inevitable. Examples include:
"People are poor because they don't work hard enough" (meritocracy myth)
"Some cultures are simply more advanced than others" (cultural superiority)
"Men are naturally better leaders" (biological essentialism)
"Colonialism brought civilization to backwards peoples" (white savior narratives)
These myths serve a psychological function: they reduce guilt for dominant groups and reduce resistance from subordinate groups by making the hierarchy seem legitimate.
Hierarchy-Enhancing and Hierarchy-Attenuating Forces
Societies contain both forces that strengthen hierarchy and forces that challenge it. Hierarchy-enhancing institutions include discriminatory policing, unequal education systems, and biased hiring practices. Hierarchy-attenuating forces include civil rights movements, progressive taxation, and anti-discrimination laws. Hierachies can also be dismantled from within, through protest, activism and disasstisfaction.
The balance between these forces determines how extreme inequality becomes in any given society.
Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)
Not everyone supports hierarchy equally. SDT introduces the concept of Social Dominance Orientation—individual differences in how much people prefer group-based hierarchy and inequality.
High SDO individuals:
Prefer their group to dominate others
Support policies that maintain or increase inequality
Are more likely to endorse legitimizing myths
Often gravitate toward hierarchy-enhancing careers (police, military, business)
Low SDO individuals:
Prefer equality between groups
Support redistributive and egalitarian policies
Are more likely to challenge legitimizing myths
Often gravitate toward hierarchy-attenuating careers (social work, human rights, education)
Importantly, both dominant and subordinate group members can have high or low SDO, though dominant group members with high SDO are particularly invested in maintaining their advantages.
Why Do Humans Create Hierarchies?
SDT suggests several interconnected reasons:
Evolutionary Psychology
Some theorists argue that hierarchy provided evolutionary advantages in competition for resources, mates, and survival. Groups that could organize hierarchically might have outcompeted more egalitarian groups.
Resource Competition
When resources are limited (or perceived to be limited), groups compete. Hierarchy emerges as the dominant group secures disproportionate access to resources and creates systems to maintain that advantage.
Psychological Comfort
Hierarchies provide psychological benefits even to those they disadvantage. They create:
Predictability and social order
Clear rules about "your place" in society
Reduced uncertainty about social interactions
A framework for understanding the world
Self-Enhancement
Being part of a "superior" group boosts self-esteem for dominant group members. This psychological reward motivates people to maintain hierarchies even when they're not personally benefiting materially.
How Hierarchies Are Maintained
Understanding how hierarchies persist is crucial. SDT identifies several mechanisms:
Institutional Discrimination
Schools, workplaces, legal systems, and other institutions operate in ways that systematically advantage dominant groups, often without requiring conscious prejudice from individuals within those institutions.
Behavioral Asymmetry
Dominant groups engage in more hierarchy-enhancing behaviors (discrimination, exclusion, violence) than subordinate groups engage in hierarchy-attenuating behaviors (protest, resistance). This asymmetry keeps the system stable.
Ideological Asymmetry
Legitimizing myths are more widely believed and promoted than counter-narratives. "Hard work leads to success" gets more airtime than "the system is rigged."
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
When subordinate groups are denied education, they appear less educated. When they're excluded from power, they appear less capable of leadership. These outcomes then "justify" the original discrimination.
Real-World Examples
Racism in the UK
Despite rhetoric about multiculturalism, British society maintains racial hierarchies through:
Employment discrimination (identical CVs with "ethnic" names receive fewer callbacks)
Educational disparities (Black Caribbean students face higher exclusion rates)
Criminal justice bias (Black people disproportionately stopped and searched)
Legitimizing myths ("immigrants are taking our jobs," "some cultures don't value education")
Global Economic Hierarchy
The international order maintains hierarchy between wealthy Western nations and the Global South through:
Structural adjustment programs that benefit wealthy nations
Unequal trade agreements
Brain drain (talent migration from poor to rich countries)
Legitimizing myths about "developed" vs "developing" nations
Gender Hierarchy
Despite progress toward gender equality, hierarchies persist through:
Wage gaps and glass ceilings
Occupational segregation (women in lower-status "caring" professions)
Unequal distribution of domestic labor
Legitimizing myths about natural differences in capability
Implications for Individuals
Understanding SDT has profound implications for how you see the world and your place in it:
If You're in a Subordinate Group:
Your struggles are not personal failings. The system is designed to disadvantage you. Recognizing this can reduce self-blame and redirect energy toward collective action or strategic navigation of an unjust system.
If You're in a Dominant Group:
Your advantages aren't purely the result of merit. Acknowledging this doesn't require guilt, but it does require honesty about how hierarchies work and a choice about whether to enhance or attenuate them.
For Everyone:
Hierarchies feel natural because they're ubiquitous, but "natural" doesn't mean "inevitable" or "good." Understanding the mechanisms that create and maintain hierarchy is the first step toward either accepting, navigating, or changing them.
Can Hierarchies Be Eliminated?
This is where SDT becomes controversial. Some interpretations suggest hierarchies are so deeply embedded in human psychology and social organization that elimination is impossible—we can only shift which groups are advantaged and which are disadvantaged.
Others argue that while group-based hierarchies have been universal historically, this doesn't mean they must be universal forever. Hierarchy-attenuating forces can, over time, flatten hierarchies significantly even if they can't eliminate them entirely.
What's clear is that reducing hierarchy requires more than good intentions. It requires:
Challenging legitimizing myths
Strengthening hierarchy-attenuating institutions
Collective action from subordinate groups
Defection of some dominant group members from hierarchy maintenance
Systemic and structural change, not just individual attitude shifts
Conclusion
Social Dominance Theory explains why, despite centuries of movements for equality, hierarchies persist. They're maintained by interlocking psychological, ideological, and institutional mechanisms that make inequality seem natural and inevitable.
Understanding SDT doesn't tell you whether you should accept hierarchy, strategically navigate it, or fight to dismantle it. That's a moral and political choice, not a psychological one. But it does illuminate the forces you're working with—or against—whichever path you choose.
The hierarchies you've experienced aren't accidents. They're systems. And systems, unlike accidents, can be understood, predicted, and potentially changed.
What are your thoughts on social hierarchy? Have you experienced its effects in your own life? Share your perspective in the comments below.
