Lin Wei-Hsiang, da Cruz Janir Ramos, Sandi Carmen, Herzog Michael H
Laboratory of Psychophysics, Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, Geneva, Switzerland.
iScience. 2025 Jul 15;28(8):113109. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113109. eCollection 2025 Aug 15.
Social interactions are fundamental to human life, with social dominance being a key factor in these interactions. Previous studies have shown that dominant males are faster in decision-making tasks compared to non-dominant ones, even in the absence of a social context such as competition. Additionally, dominant males exhibit a significantly higher N2/P2 EEG component, which is an inherent trait rather than a state marker of dominance. While it has been suggested that social hierarchies are more pronounced among males, recent findings challenge this notion. Here, we show that the N2/P2 component is also higher in dominant than in less dominant females, with similar amplitude and latency as their male counterparts. Our results suggest that women exhibit dominance-related neurobiological traits similar to men. Our findings underscore the importance of further investigating the socio-cultural and environmental factors that contribute to gender disparities in social hierarchies.
社交互动是人类生活的基础，社会支配地位是这些互动中的一个关键因素。先前的研究表明，与非主导男性相比，主导男性在决策任务中速度更快，即使在没有竞争等社会背景的情况下也是如此。此外，主导男性表现出显著更高的N2/P2脑电成分，这是一种内在特征而非支配地位的状态标记。虽然有人认为社会等级制度在男性中更为明显，但最近的研究结果对这一观点提出了挑战。在这里，我们表明，主导女性的N2/P2成分也高于较不主导的女性，其幅度和潜伏期与男性对应者相似。我们的结果表明，女性表现出与男性相似的与支配地位相关的神经生物学特征。我们的研究结果强调了进一步研究导致社会等级制度中性别差异的社会文化和环境因素的重要性。
