Dr. Christopher R. von Rueden
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Profile
Dr. Christopher von Rueden looks at leadership through the lens of cultural and evolutionary anthropology. An anthropologist with expertise in traditional human societies, his research focuses on how humans form status hierarchies, why we evolved to do so, and the demographic and ecological factors that cause our hierarchies to be more or less coercive. Relatedly, he studies the role of leader-follower relationships in the evolution of human cooperation.
At the Jepson School, von Rueden teaches courses such as Theories and Models of Leadership and Sex, Leadership, and the Evolution of Human Societies.
In addition to his work on status and leadership, he has published on topics such as why humans differ in personality traits and cross-cultural variation in parenting and in gendered divisions of labor.
He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with Tsimané forager-horticulturalists of Amazonian Bolivia, and more recently, with Himba pastoralists of northern Namibia. His work with the Tsimané is part of a larger project (the Tsimané Health and Life History Project) that investigates aging, health, and social behavior in a small-scale human population.
Through his affiliations with the Santa Fe Institute and the Culture and the Mind Project, von Rueden has investigated social networks and wealth inheritance in traditional human societies and cross-cultural variation in moral decision-making, respectively. He serves on the board of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society and is president of One Pencil Project, an NGO providing educational resources to indigenous populations in Bolivia and Namibia.
He received a doctorate in anthropology, with an emphasis in cognitive science, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Harvard University. To learn more about von Rueden's scholarship and teaching, visit his personal website.
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Awards
Fellow, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 2024
Distinguished Educator Award, University of Richmond, 2023
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Awards
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Selected Publications
Journal Articles
A.B. Eisenbruch, K.M. Smith, C.I. Workman, C. von Rueden, C.L. Apicella (2024). US adults accurately assess Hadza and Tsimane men's hunting ability from a single face photograph. Evolution and Human Behavior.
C. von Rueden (2024). “Think leader, think alpha male” and the evolution of leader stereotypes. Evolution and Human Behavior.
Christopher von Rueden (2023). Unmaking egalitarianism: Comparing sources of political change in an Amazonian society. Evolution and Human Behavior.
Cody T. Ross, Paul L. Hooper, Jennifer E. Smith, Christopher von Rueden, et al. (2023). Reproductive inequality in humans and other mammals. PNAS.
Tanya Broesch, Christopher von Rueden, Kim Yurkowski, et al. (2023). Fatherhood and child–father attachment in two small-scale societies. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
P. Durkee, A. Lukaszewski, C. von Rueden, M. Gurven, D. Buss, & E. TuckerDrob (2022). Niche diversity predicts personality structure across 115 nations. Psychological Science.
Aniruddh D. Patel and Chris von Rueden (2021). Where they sing solo: Accounting for cross-cultural variation in collective music-making in theories of music evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
J. E. Smith, C. von Rueden, M. van Vugt, C. Fichtel, & P. M. Kappeler (2021). An evolutionary explanation for the female leadership paradox. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
Adrian V. Jaeggi, Aaron D. Blackwell, Christopher von Rueden, et al. (2021). Do wealth and inequality associate with health in a small-scale subsistence society? eLife.
Daniel Redhead and Christopher R. von Rueden (2021). Coalitions and conflict: A longitudinal analysis of men's politics. Evolutionary Human Sciences.
T. Broesch, P. Carolan, S. Cebioglu, C. von Rueden, A. Boyette, C. Moya, B. Hewlett, & M. Kline (2021). Opportunities for interaction: Natural observations of children’s social behavior in five societies. Human Nature.
C. Curtin, C. Barrett, A. Bolyantz, A. Crittenden, D. Fessler, S. Fitzpatrick, M. Gurven, M. Kanovsky, G. Kushnick, S. Laurence, A. Pisor, B. Scelza, S. Stich, C. von Rueden, & J. Henrich (2020). Kinship intensity and the use of mental states in moral judgment across societies. Evolution and Human Behavior.
Mark van Vugt and Christopher von Rueden (2020). From genes to minds to cultures: Evolutionary Approaches to Leadership. The Leadership Quarterly.
Sarah Alami, Christopher von Rueden, Edmond Seabright, Thomas S. Kraft, Aaron D. Blackwell, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan & Michael Gurven (2020). Mother's social status is associated with child health in a horticulturalist population. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Paul E. Smaldino, Aaron Lukaszewski, Christopher von Rueden, Michael Gurven (2019). Niche diversity can explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure. Nature Human Behaviour.
Christopher von Rueden (2019). Making and unmaking egalitarianism in small-scale human societies. Current Opinion in Psychology.
C. von Rueden, D. Redhead, R. O’Gorman, H. Kaplan, & M. Gurven (2019). The dynamics of men's cooperation and social status in a small-scale society. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Z. Garfield, C. von Rueden, & E. Hagen (2019). The evolutionary anthropology of political leadership. The Leadership Quarterly.
C. von Rueden, S. Alami, H. Kaplan, & M. Gurven (2018). Sex differences in political leadership in an egalitarian society. Evolution and Human Behavior.
von Rueden, C. & Jaeggi, A. (2016). Men’s social status and reproductive success in 33 non-industrial societies: effects of subsistence, marriage system, and reproductive strategy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
H. C. Barrett, A. Bolyanatz, A. Crittenden, D. Fessler, S. Fitzpatrick, M. Gurven, J. Henrich, M. Kanovsky, G. Kushnick, A. Pisor, B. Scelza, S. Stich, C. von Rueden, W. Zhao, & S. Laurence (2016). Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
C. von Rueden, S. Gavrilets, & L. Glowacki. Solving the puzzle of collective action through inter-individual differences (2015). Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B.
C. von Rueden & M. van Vugt (2015). Leadership in small-scale societies: some implications for leadership evolution and practice. The Leadership Quarterly.
L. Glowacki & C. von Rueden (2015). Leadership solves collective action problems in small-scale societies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
C. von Rueden, A. Lukaszewski, & M. Gurven (2015). Adaptive personality calibration in a human society: effects of embodied capital on prosocial traits. Behavioral Ecology.
M. Gurven, A. Jaeggi, C. von Rueden, P. Hooper, & H. Kaplan. (2015). Does market integration buffer risk, erode traditional sharing practices, and increase inequality? A test among Bolivian forager-farmers. Human Ecology.
C. von Rueden, B. Trumble, M. Emery Thompson, J. Stieglitz, P. Hooper, A. Blackwell, H. Kaplan, & M. Gurven (2014). Political influence associates with cortisol and health among egalitarian forager-farmers. Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.
C. von Rueden, M. Gurven, H. Kaplan, & J. Stieglitz (2014). Leadership in an egalitarian society. Human Nature.
M. Gurven*, C. von Rueden*, M. Massenkoff, H. Kaplan, & M. Lero Vie (2013). How universal is the Big Five? Testing the Five-Factor Model of personality variation among forager-farmers in the Bolivian Amazon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
C. von Rueden, M. Gurven, & H. Kaplan (2011). Why do men seek status? Fitness payoffs to dominance and prestige. Proc. R. Soc. B.
M. Borgerhoff Mulder, S. Bowles, T. Hertz, A. Bell, J. Beise, G. Clark, I. Fazzio, M. Gurven, K. Hill, P. Hooper, W. Irons, H. Kaplan, D. Leonetti, B.Low, F. Marlowe, R. McElreath, S. Naidu, D. Nolin, P. Piraino, R. Quinlan, E. Schniter, R. Sear, M. Shenk, E.A. Smith, C. von Rueden, & P. Wiessner. (2009). Intergenerational wealth transmission and the dynamics of inequality in small- scale societies. Science.
C. von Rueden, M. Gurven, & H. Kaplan (2008). The multiple dimensions of male social status in an Amazonian society. Evolution and Human Behavior.
Book ChaptersC. von Rueden (2024). Status. In J. Koster, B. Scelza, & M. Shenk (Eds.) Human Behavioral Ecology (pp. 153-179). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108377911.008
S. Lonati, Z.H. Garfield, N. Bastardoz, and C. von Rueden. (2024). Leadership as an Emotional Process: An Evolutionarily Informed Perspective. In L. Al-Shawaf & T.K. Shackelford (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Evolution and the Emotions, (pp. 1021-1039). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197544754.013.33.
C. von Rueden (2023). The origins of patriarchy. In G. Goethals, S. Allison, & G. Sorenson (Eds.) The Sage Encyclopedia of Leadership Studies. Sage Publishing.
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In the News
Does social status shape height? (Science News)
Fri., Jun. 28, 2024Leadership and hierarchy from an evolutionary perspective (The Dissenter podcast)
Mon., Aug. 8, 2022How you feel about your place on the social ladder can affect your health (U.S. News & World Report)
Mon., Oct. 4, 2021When kinship is traced through women, their health follows (Sapiens)
Thu., Mar. 25, 2021Nature and nurture both contribute to gender inequality in leadership -- but that doesn't mean patriarchy is forever (The Conversation)
Tue., Aug. 18, 2020The status of women: Anthropologists find a mother's social status improves her children's health (The Current)
Wed., Mar. 11, 2020From animals to human society: What we learn when women lead (Discover Magazine)
Thu., Feb. 6, 2020Social complexity and personality (Behavioral & Social Sciences at Nature Research)
Tue., Sep. 17, 2019Differences in personality structure among humans (ScienceDaily)
Mon., Sep. 16, 2019A Truly Disturbing New 8-Year Study Reveals A Brutal Truth About Becoming A Success (You Won't Like This At All) (INC.)
Wed., Sep. 4, 2019It Really Is Who You Know: Spending Time with "High-Status" People Can Increase Your Own Social Standing, Scientists Discover (Daily Mail)
Wed., Aug. 7, 2019Are Large-Scale Societies Outliers When It Comes to Core Elements of Moral Judgment? (The Evolution Institute)
Thu., May. 17, 2018Academic Minute: Why Men Care About Status (Inside Higher Ed)
Wed., Jan. 11, 2017The Conversation About Trump Should Consider the Evolution of Men's Political Psychology (The Evolution Institute)
Mon., Nov. 7, 2016How social status affects your health (New York Times)
Mon., Dec. 15, 2014 - Links