If you ever meet the queen of England, there are certain rules you are advised to follow. Do not speak until spoken to. Bow your head, or curtsey. Address her first as 鈥測our majesty鈥�, then 鈥渕a鈥檃m鈥�, but 鈥測our majesty鈥� again upon leaving. Don鈥檛 make the mistake of calling her 鈥測our royal highness鈥� 鈥� that is for other members of the royal family, pleb! And don鈥檛 expect her to thank you for the 拢40 million plus she gets every year from the public purse, or for paying to have her house done up.
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Apply some rational thought and this is all very puzzling. What has the queen done to deserve such treatment? What makes her 鈥渕ajestic鈥�? Why is her family 鈥渉igher鈥� than yours? If humans were a wild species of primate, you would conclude that the queen must be the dominant female. But dominance has to be earned and kept, often by physical aggression and threats, and is always up for negotiation. Nobody defers to the queen out of fear that she will beat them up if they don鈥檛, and nobody is secretly plotting a leadership challenge. Human societies do have dominant individuals, but what the queen possesses is something quite different: prestige. And we are suckers for it.
According to biologists, this prestige bias is an evolved feature of human cognition that goes back to the time when our ancestors were nomads living in small bands. Humans are social learners, which means we copy the behaviour of other people rather than figuring everything out from scratch. People who copy successful individuals can acquire useful, survival-enhancing skills 鈥� how to hunt, for example. But to do so requires sustained and close contact with the skilled, without getting on their nerves. The best way to do this is to 鈥渒iss up鈥�, as psychologist Francisco Gil-White at the University of Pennsylvania puts it. Pay them compliments, do them favours, sing their virtues and exempt them from certain social obligations. Those of our ancestors who kissed up to talented individuals advanced their own interests, making them more likely to survive and reproduce. .
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This can backfire in the modern world. Now we don鈥檛 just judge the prestige of people we encounter directly, but also those we only know vicariously. To do this, we follow our natural tendency to watch others and conform. If certain people are routinely fawned over, we assume that they are skilled and prestigious individuals who we would be wise to kiss up to ourselves. Hence we show deference to the queen, and any number of celebrities who are famous for being famous.
Prestige exerts such a strong pull on the human mind that is hard to resist. In lab experiments, people find it easier to understand social situations where there is a clear pecking order, and they express preferences for hierarchies, even if they are at the wrong end of them. But we can at least be more discerning about whom we place at the top. If we base prestige on skill and genuine achievement, then those we kiss up to won鈥檛 be the only ones to benefit. Yes ma鈥檃m.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淪ycophancy鈥�
