Sociality, Hierarchy, Health Comparative Biodemography: A Collection of Papers (2014) / Chapter Skim
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16 Of Baboons and Men: Social Circumstances, Biology, and the Social Gradient in Health--Michael G. Marmot and Robert Sapolsky
16 Of Baboons and Men: Social Circumstances, Biology, and the Social Gradient in Health--Michael G. Marmot and Robert Sapolsky
Pages 365-388
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. We propose that psychosocial processes linked to social experience constitute a major reason for the health gradient.
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examine how some similar health gradients exist in nonhuman primates that, importantly, lack the lifestyle risk factors of humans (e.g., smoking, differential health care access)
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MARMOT AND ROBERT SAPOLSKY 367 (a) Life expectancy at age 25 Men Women Life expectancy at 25 (years)
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Initially, it will appear as if the relationship is straightforward, with low dominance rank associated with poor health. However, as will be reviewed, there is great variability in social structure among the numerous primate species and rank/health relationships vary accordingly.
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VARIED HEALTH GRADIENTS IN VARIED PRIMATE SOCIETIES Baboons, Hierarchies, and Health A frequent feature of social primates (as well as of other social mammals) is the existence of dominance hierarchies.
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. As will be described below in the section "Personality," males that are particularly successful in this realm tend towards certainly personality styles associated with low basal cortisol levels.
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In addition, despite the picture of baboons as being highly aggressive, the vast majority of dominance interactions involve not overt aggression but only threats of aggression or, even more often, psychological intimidation. Moreover, the physiological correlates of rank track more closely with the psychosocial stressors of the rank than with the physical stressors.
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As stated above, we drew the conclusion that neither risk factors associated with lifestyle nor differences in medical care were the major causes of the health gradient in humans. Critically, the great strength of the studies of nonhuman primates is that issues of health care access and lifestyle risk factors (e.g., smoking)
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, being high-ranking in a stable hierarchy carries with it tremendous psychological advantages. As outlined above, this includes considerable amounts of social control and predictability, and the low basal cortisol levels and low incidence of atherosclerosis typical of dominant individuals at such times are commensurate with these low levels of psychological stress (Sapolsky, 2005)
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Unlike in the primates, the turmoil of unemployment does not change the health gradient. In the end, it is the high-status individuals who have more options.
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. This extensive multiyear study of multiple troops of a different wild population of baboons replicated the general finding of elevated basal cortisol levels in subordinate males.
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For example, the more often female baboons were harassed by a highly aggressive male who had recently transferred into the troop, the greater the extent of immune suppression (Alberts et al., 1992)
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Commensurate with this idea, social subordination is associated with elevated basal cortisol levels in captive populations of wolves, but not in feral populations (Creel, 2001)
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In contrast, Old World primates such as savannah baboons and rhesus macaques have "despotic" hierarchies, in which there is highly unequal resource acquisition. As noted, subordination is associated with hypercortisolism in despotic hierarchical species, but not in egalitarian ones.
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. As another example, in a meta-analysis encompassing all the primate species in which rank/cortisol studies have been carried out, the availability of such positive coping outlets to subordinate individuals was significantly, albeit mildly, predictive of their basal cortisol levels (Abbott et al., 2003)
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had lower basal cortisol levels than rank matched subordinate males without that tendency (Virgin and Sapolsky, 1997)
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In humans there is much speculation and some evidence that affiliative behavior may also operate at the group level in the form of social capital or collective social efficacy. This is taken up below in the section "Social milieu and Culture." Personality The magnitude of the stress-response is not only modulated by the intensity and nature of the stressors, psychosocial or otherwise, and the availability of coping outlets, but also by personality factors that influence whether and how those stressors and coping outlets are perceived.
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. Social Milieu and Culture As emphasized throughout, there is no single generic primate species but, instead, phylogenetic variability as to social system across the primates.
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Thus, even within the same primate species, the rank/health relationship will vary as a function of local social milieu. An enduring question in the study of the social determinants of health is whether the environment in which an individual lives and works has an impact on health over and above the socioeconomic characteristics of the individual.
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The circumstances under which subordinate animals suffer health disadvantage have their counterpart in human societies. One clear advantage of studying nonhuman primates is their very nonhumanness.
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. Social status predicts wound healing in wild baboons.
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. Contribu tion of job control and other risk factors to social variations in coronary heart disease incidence.
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British Medical Journal, 294, 86-90. Murray, C., Kulkarni, S., Michaud, C., Tomijima, N., Bulzacchelli, M., and Iandiorio, T
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British Medical Journal, 314, 1271-1274.
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