Cronin, K. A., Acheson, D. J., Hernández, P., & Sánchez, A. (2015). Hierarchy is Detrimental for Human Cooperation. Scientific Reports, 5, 18634. http://doi.org/10.1038/srep18634
Notes:
p.18639: achieving cooperation among humans is more difficult when there is an underlying hierarchical structure producing different ranks between people and therefore unequal payoffs for the participants. This result is driven by insufficient contributions from lower ranked individuals who cannot be confident that they will benefit from cooperating. Remarkably, human behavior is consistent with a trend that permeates the rest of the primate order; primates in steeply hierarchical societies have difficulty cooperating for benefits that must be divided1 16,21,42 , whereas primates organized in weakly hierarchical (egalitarian) societies are more successful1 16,37 . — Highlighted Jan 30, 2016