"Social dominance theory is a multi-level theory of how societies maintain group-based dominance. Nearly all stable societies can be considered group-based dominance hierarchies in which one social group – often an ethnic, religious, national, or racial one – holds disproportionate power and enjoys special privileges and at least one other group has relatively little political power or ease in its way of life."
2. Use of Force and Institutional Discrimination
How inequality is maintained through force
"Stable inequality among groups is maintained in part through the use of disproportionate force against subordinate groups."
Institutional discrimination in resource allocation
"Another major way in which dominance is maintained is through institutional discrimination in the allocation of desirable resources. For example, public and private institutions typically provide better education, financial services, healthcare, and jobs for members of dominant groups rather than for members of subordinate groups."
3. Legitimizing Myths
Definition and importance of legitimizing myths
"Legitimizing myths are widely known within a society and are linked to the basic cultural cosmology in ways that make them seem self-apparently true. Reflecting and reproducing culture, legitimizing myths change over historical time in order to frame and legitimize different aspects of social structure."
Hierarchy-enhancing vs. hierarchy-attenuating myths
"Recognizing that the content and functions of legitimizing myths are not equivalent, social dominance theory identifies two broad functional types of legitimizing myths. Hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths help maintain or increase group-based inequality, and hierarchy-attenuating legitimizing myths decrease group-based inequality and promote egalitarian relations among social groups."
4. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)
Definition and significance of SDO
"Social dominance orientation is defined as an individual’s psychological orientation to group-based dominance. Generally, people may prefer and endorse such hierarchies or reject them, and scales measuring social dominance orientation correlate robustly across countries with a variety of kinds of group prejudices."
5. Summary
"Social dominance theory implies that dynamic ideological and political struggles occur even in fairly stable societies and it also points out that normative institutional discrimination and cultural ideologies play as important a role in group oppression as force does."