The researchers examine associations between male status and various measures of reproductive success among foraging/non-foraging, and monogamous/polygynous societies in order to test the "egalitarian hypothesis" which predicts lower status effects in hunter-gatherer groups. Contrary to this hypothesis, they find that male social status is equally significantly associated with reproductive success in foraging and nonforaging societies. Additional support is found for the "mating effort" hypothesis, which predicts that male reproductive success will be more associated with fertility than offspring mortality in polygynous societies, leading the authors to make various suggestions regarding the evolutionary mechanisms at play.

There has been a large increase in the rise and support of dominant leadership in recent years. Using survey data from 25 countries, this study uses experimental techniques to test the effect of followers' perceptions of intergroup conflict on the preference for leaders with facial dominance cues. Unlike previous studies, this one provides a comparison of conditions of war and peace with a control condition and serves as an exploratory add-on to the conflict hypothesis.