Cooperative Versus Coercive Dominance Strategies: Relations with the Environment and Personality

Abstract

We examined whether adverse ecological conditions (i.e., socioeconomic status, neighborhood violence, and parental attachment) were indirectly related to adolescents’ use of cooperative and coercive social strategies through their association with personality traits, consistent with both evolutionary and developmental theories that personality can be adaptively calibrated to the pursuit of social goals in particular ecological contexts. As expected, ecological factors (parental attachment, SES, neighborhood violence), and individual differences (HEXACO personality traits, age, sex) were directly related to use of social dominance strategies. Specifically, anxious attachment and higher SES were indirectly related to cooperative strategies through Extraversion and low Honesty-Humility, whereas less supportive and/or violent environments were indirectly associated with coercive strategies through their relationships with selfish, impulsive, antisocial personality traits. Our results highlight the importance of adopting an ecological approach to adolescent social strategies and are consistent with evolutionary and developmental theories that posit links between individual differences and environmental factors that promote either mutualistic cooperative strategies or individualistic coercive strategies for obtaining social power.