Men Hunting Men
A power pyramid recruits young men with ease. As with all our instincts we can find the reasons in our evolutionary history. Human men formed groups to hunt large wild animals. This is a high-risk high-benefit team activity. Older men share their knowledge, and younger men share their physical abilities and time. Young men who respond to "follow me" from older men are more likely to come back with meat. And that maps to reproductive success.
A "follow me" promise of future rewards from an older man is a trigger. The bigger the promise, the bigger the response. It does not have to be logical or sane. Indeed, insane propositions are often more attractive than sane ones. A sane proposition requires hard work and patience. An insane one just needs suspension of disbelief. "I know some VCs and they’ll invest millions in your idea!" is hard to refuse.
There are a set of "follow me" triggers that let one man take control over others, even a group. The triggers work best on younger men, under 40, and without children. These are the ones I know:
❂ Making a solitary approach. This shows confidence, and defuses the group’s natural defense reactions. A single man cannot be a physical threat to a group.
❂ Showing dominant body language, particularly towards the existing dominant male. If the dominant male does not fight back, they have stepped down, at least for a while.
❂ Appearing to be older and wiser. This triggers the "wise old man" response in younger males. Wisdom is precious, as long as it is relevant.
❂ Controlling the conversation. Dominant males sustain eye contact, focus on higher status males, and smile less. They speak less, at lower pitch, and lower volume. This forces others to pay close attention to them. This triggers the "is dominant" response.
❂ Making promises of potential wins. These can be as large and difficult as possible. The crazier, the better. Young men’s biology makes them natural gamblers. A huge potential payoff triggers the gambling response, no matter how slim the chances.
❂ Invoking a common enemy. This triggers the defensive reaction. It gives the group focus and energy the outsider can own and steer.
❂ Demanding action and proposing a plan. This triggers the "follower" response. If a majority of the group responds, the outsider is now in charge.
❂ Attacking internal enemies, especially the old leadership. This triggers the paranoia and revenge responses. With luck the new leader can purge the hierarchy of all potential threats.
Not every pretty, flirtatious woman is a psychopath. Not every man who uses these techniques is a psychopath. The difference lies in outcomes. Do we see deception and exploitation or honesty and mutual gain? Are people getting burned-out and depressed, or happier and more independent? Psychopathy hides well, yet when it is organizing people for its own ends, the damage will eventually show.
These triggers evolved for valid reasons. The ability to organize around charismatic leaders saved our ancestors many times. And we leap to respond. If the triggers affect us at all, the biological imperative is to be first.
Once the response kicks in, it grows to match the trigger. A natural leader can push the stimuli to a certain level, no more. Mallory keeps pushing, far beyond what is normal and necessary. The effect calms down after a while. Yet that supernormal stimulus shock leaves an imprint that lasts for years.
Mallory takes a group towards self-destruction, while emptying the coffers. When he says, "follow me!" it hooks Bob into a situation he has no control over. Bob feels he cannot abandon without betraying his ideals, his friends, his own investments.
I’ve seen this used hundreds of times, often with catastrophic effects. It causes burnout: utter exhaustion, disgust and depression. Today we can recognize this as the classic outcome of a psychopathic relationship.
What is the clearest sign an organization is one or the other type? From my own experience, I believe it is the size of an independent team. By "independent" I mean free to organize and work as they choose. A dozen or less indicates a piece in a living system. Above twelve is likely a power pyramid or part of it.
A good theory lets us make further deductions and inferences. Let’s try a few:
❂ Why are there so few women in power pyramids? Is this due to sexism and discrimination? Although sexism and discrimination are rampant, I don’t think this explains it. Men enjoy working with women, for the most part. It is partly because power pyramids are incompatible with being a full-time parent, especially a mother. It is partly because women tend to ignore the "follow me" triggers that push men to sacrifice time with their family.
❂ Can psychopathic women rise in power pyramids? This seems unlikely. Most female psychopaths disdain the male concept of mass power, and do not seem to speak the male protocol. Both male and female psychopaths lack the talents for building power pyramids, and succeeding in them, except by upward conquest. Female psychopaths will tend to target powerful men. Most men who succeed in power pyramids are not psychopaths, and thus vulnerable.
❂ Most of us fear and distrust power pyramids for good reasons. These organizations make billions of people miserable, even if these effects are hidden in the much larger success stories of our living systems. It does not mean all businesses are toxic. Far from it. It does not mean free market economics are to blame. True free markets underlie living systems, and are the enemy of power pyramids.
❂ We now have a evolutionary explanation for premature graying and male-pattern baldness. Graying and baldness signal male maturity and age. They trigger the "wise old man" response in younger men, and defuse the competitive instincts. When a man goes gray or bald earlier than others, he is mimicking the signals of old age. This can give him an advantage, if he is smart enough to pull it off.
Women Hunting Women
Female psychopaths hunt other women. That is a given. The question is "how," not "whether." Like the male-to-male pattern, it can be hard to see, almost cryptic. Our blindness to gender-biased behavior can make this research harder than it should be. Every time I write "women do X" or "men do Y," without qualifiers, it hurts. And yet these generalizations are a vital tool for approaching the truth.
Male relationships tend to be cheap, loud, and public. Power pyramids appear to project male power over entire industries, economies, and countries.
Female relationships are by contrast secretive and deep. They carry vital knowledge about people and events. Above all, they are an important defense against Mallory no matter her gender. To learn how the female Mallory hunts Alice, we must decode the female protocol. Then we must see how to cheat it.
The female protocol shows as a conversation between two women who have met before. The two women talk about people and events. The talk is not random. It is an exchange, a trade. The dialog continues until both women have what they want, and then it ends.
It is quite easy to see. Two women who know each other and have been apart for some time will sit apart, and chat. They will talk and listen in turns, neither woman dominant nor submissive. After a period of talking, they will defocus from each other. They switch attention back to the rest of the world. It is tempting to call this a "gossip protocol." Yet it is more accurate to call it a "grooming protocol." It is intimate, yet non-sexual. As far as I can see, it is the human version of the grooming behavior other primates engage in.