High Social Rank Comes at a Price, Wild Baboon Study Finds

[RandySF]

ScienceDaily (July 14, 2011) — Being at the very top of a social hierarchy may be more costly than previously thought, according to a new study of wild baboons led by a Princeton University ecologist.

A new study, "Life at the Top: Rank and Stress in Wild Male Baboons," published in the July 15 issue of the journal Science found that in wild baboon populations, the highest-ranking, or alpha, males have higher stress-hormone levels than the highly ranked males below them, known as beta males -- even during periods of stability. The findings have implications in the study of social hierarchies and of the impact of social dominance on health and well-being, a subject of interest among researchers who study human and other animal populations.

"An important insight from our study is that the top position in some animal -- and possibly human -- societies has unique costs and benefits associated with it, ones that may persist both when social orders experience some major perturbations as well as when they are stable," said lead author Laurence Gesquiere, an associate research scholar in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "Baboons are not only genetically closely related to humans, but like humans they live in highly complex societies."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714142137.htm

[babylonsister]

1. Damn. My mind went to Bachmann, but she's female. Maybe they're

wrong? :shrug:

[RKP5637]

3. But she wears a jock strap! n/t

[Hutzpa]

4. Is it a jock strap or chooz spa?

guess one will never know.

[babylonsister]

6. omg...

:rofl:

[aquart]

2. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

[provis99]

5. see? we must weep for the poor billionaires.

They have it so rough.

[Angry Dragon]

7. Easy solution to that problem

The billionaires just need to give all their money away and problem solved

Also we need to help them, the republicans can now say that taxes have to be raised greatly
on the wealthy to save them from so much stress