Editing Sidanius Pratto 1999 (section)

===Basic Assumptions of Social Dominance Theory===

The following is quoted directly from the text:

“(1) While age- and gender-based hierarchies will tend to exist within all social systems, arbitrary-set systems of social hierarchy will invariably emerge within social systems producing sustainable economic surplus.

(2) Most forms of group conflict and oppression (e.g., racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, nationalism, classism, regionalism) can be regarded as different manifestations of the same basic human predisposition to form group-based social hierarchies.

(3) Human social systems are subject to counterbalancing influences of '''hierarchy-enhancing (HE) forces''', producing and maintaining ever higher levels of group-based social inequality, and '''hierarchy attenuating (HA) forces''', producing greater levels of group-based social equality” (Sidanius and Pratto, Chapter 2).