This post was co-authored by myself (Sean Falconer) and Amanda Rabinowitz.
In Survivor’s most recent season, David vs Goliath, Angelina Keeley was the first contestant to call out on air the gender divide amongst idol finders. She stated that only 15% of idols are found by women. As many predicted, Angelina’s comment foreshadowed her own eventual idol find later in the game, making her only the 17th female player ever to do so; but perhaps her greater contribution to the franchise was the attention she brought to this distressing statistic.
This is not news to the Survivor superfan community. There’s been a growing awareness of this gender divide as well as informal discussion about it over the past several seasons. The topic has come up several times on RHAP and The Dom & Colin Podcast.
In this article, we take a deep dive into hidden immunity idols and the impact they have had on the game. In particular, we look at how idols have changed the landscape of Survivor winners and the negative impact this is having on the win equity of female contestants.
But first, we begin with a little history.
A short history of hidden immunity idols
The hidden immunity idol was first introduced in Survivor’s 11th season, Survivor Guatemala. There was only one idol that season, found by Gary Hogeboom (Hawkins). Judd Sergeant received a clue to the idol, which he misrepresented by telling everyone that it was “definitely on the ground, man.” Gary witnessed Judd looking in the trees for the idol and realized he was lying. With this information, Gary was able to find the idol and save himself for one tribal.
The original idol that appeared in Guatemala was to be played before votes were cast, to prevent players from voting against a targeted player. Hence, this original idol functioned similarly to the immunity necklace.
A new iteration of the idol was introduced in the following season, Survivor Panama. The holder of this version of the idol could play it after the votes were read to negate votes cast against a target. This was more powerful than Gary Hogeboom’s idol, and also more powerful than the modern era idol, which must be played after the votes have been cast but before votes have been read. Playing the idol after votes are read removes the element of risk that a player takes on in deciding whether to play or hold an idol when votes are still unknown. This overpowered idol is commonly referred to as the “God Idol” or “Super Idol” for this reason (and later, “Tyler Perry Idol” for another reason.)
This version of the idol lasted two more seasons, but after Yul Kwon expertly used the God Idol to manipulate his way to the end and win Survivor Cook Islands, this version was replaced with the less powerful modern idol.
The show has continued to experiment with the idol. In Season 28, Survivor: Cagayan, a single God / Tyler Perry Idol was reintroduced along with regular idols. In Survivor: Kaôh Rōng, a twist was introduced where two regular idols could be combined to create a God Idol. In Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers a God Idol was placed in the game that could be used only for the first vote. Finally, in both Survivor Ghost Island and David vs. Goliath a regular idol with an expiration was used as a twist on the conventional idol.
Despite these experiments, the modern hidden immunity idol that must be played prior to reading the votes, first introduced in season 14, Survivor Fiji, has become a staple of the game. And with good reason, the idol helps bring excitement to every vote, gives the minority an opportunity to overthrow the majority, or a player a chance to overcome incredible odds. The show has clued into this and doubled down, adding more and more idols along with a variety of different advantages.
The growth of idols
Survivor Fiji, the first season with the modern hidden immunity idol, was also the first season to feature more than one idol with a total of three. During the show’s early flirtation with idols in the game, most were very difficult to find, requiring multiple clues or access to rare opportunities, such as being sent to Exile Island.
This all changed in season 19, Survivor Somoa, when Russell Hantz became the first player to ever find an idol without a clue. He actually ended up finding three idols that season. He was able to use these idols to get his minority alliance all the way to the end of the game. He continued this run of finding idols without clues into the next season, Survivor Heroes vs. Villains, forever changing the landscape of Survivor.
Since then, looking for idols without clues has become a routine part of the game and many idols and idol clues are found this way. As can be seen from the chart below, the number of idols per season has continued to increase starting with Somoa, with a peak of 9 hidden immunity idols in Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers. Over the past 10 seasons, the average number of idols found per season is 5.5, and over 7.3 the past three seasons.
The impact of idols
Idols have continued to play a major role in Survivor, but does having an idol actually change your opportunity to win the game?
To quote Jeff Pitman from The True Dork Times, “The most reliable recent indicator for winning a season is playing an idol.“
Possessing an idol definitely impacts your average placement in the game. Historically, the average placement of a person with an idol is 5th overall. That is about twice as high a placement as what you would expect someone to finish in a season having all things equal. In fact, out of the 70 unique players to ever find an idol, only five have ever left the game pre-merge.
In the past 10 seasons, every winner has had an idol at some point in the game except for two. It’s important to note that both of the non-idol finders did have advantages and one of those advantages gave the contestant immunity at final 6, a key point in the game.
It’s clear that finding idols has a major impact on your overall success rate in the game. With an increasing number of idols being available, this impact will continue to shape the outcome of the game. Given the propensity of idols to land in the hands of men, this is not good for the prospects of future female players.
The idol gender divide
Throughout the history of the game, 98 idols have been found, only 18 (18.4%) of these by a woman. If we look at just the past 10 seasons, i.e. the modern era of the game, only 14% of idols have been found by a woman.
Kelley Wentworth is the only woman to ever find more than one idol in a season, meanwhile, 18 men have achieved this feat.
Although Survivor is now a long running show with 37 seasons under its belt, the sample size of winners is still relatively small for drawing inferences about how changes in game mechanics may influence likelihood of winning. That said, when we look at who is winning the game over time, there are trends that suggest the game is becoming less equitable with regard to gender, a trend which appears to coincide with the proliferation of idols and other advantages.
In the pre-idol era of the game, the first 10 seasons, there were exactly 5 female and 5 male winners. Since the introduction of the idol, there have been 17 male winners and 10 female, with only 3 female winners in the past 10 seasons.
Looking at the top five finishers for a season through the first 10 seasons, there was an exactly 50% split between men and women finishing in the top five. In the past 10 seasons, 58% of the final five have been made up of men. Even at the merge, the odds are stacked against female players, as only 45% of players making the merge in the past 10 seasons are female. In some seasons, like Millennials vs. Gen X, only 4 out of 13 post-merge players are female. With all things equal in that scenario, the four post-merge women only have a 30% chance of winning the game and there’s plenty of other examples where women make up less than 40% of the post-merge players.
More men than women tend to win individual immunities as well. In the past 10 seasons, only 34.7% of individual immunities have been won by women. Even when adjusted for there being fewer female players post-merge, this is still low. However, it is important to note, that there is a significant difference between individual immunities won through challenges and those found covertly through idol hunting. With individual immunities, each win elevates your threat level as it is completely visible to all players that you have the ability to win challenges. An increased threat level increases your chances of being targeted by other players.
On the other hand, hidden immunity idol finds are by their nature hidden, so they may not increase your threat level. Furthermore, if men are more likely to win challenges and more likely to also find idols then at nearly every tribal post-merge a man will be protected.
Idols are not only advantageous as a means of protecting oneself from being voted out of the game, but increasingly juries are considering idol finding and playing key facets of the “Survivor Resume.” As more idols have been introduced into recent seasons, much of the strategic game-play centers on knowing where idols are, splitting votes to account for the opposition’s idols, and playing idols correctly to protect targeted players in your alliance. Players who find and control idols essentially have more opportunities to “score points” with the jury in each of these areas.
There’s clearly a large gender divide between the players that find idols and it is also clear that this is negatively impact women’s odds of winning the game. But why do more men find idols?
Why is there a gender divide?
This is a difficult question to answer and we’ve heard a variety of theories thrown out by prior contestants. One commonly discussed theory is that there are often gender-assigned roles in the early part of the game. Women tend to stay in camp, cooking food, boiling water, and weaving palm fronds while the men are off collecting firewood and exploring. This affords the men more opportunities to be away from camp, potentially looking for an idol or scouting areas for potential idol hiding spots.
Women may also feel more social pressure to stay at camp and form relationships with their tribemates early in the game. Research in the field of social psychology has demonstrated that women are expected to be focused on communal, rather than individualistic goals (i.e. what’s good for the group); and women who are successful leaders tend to show a leadership style that is focused on building relationships, rather than demonstrating agency. Hence, women may feel wary of spending too much time away from camp in the early portion of the game, when developing social bonds is so critical.
This general tendency for women to be communally oriented may be heightened in the context of the Survivor early game, in which a player’s value to the tribe is so dependent on their ability to perform in team challenges. Women are more likely to be early boots (57% of pre-merge boots in the past 10 seasons are women), almost certainly because they are seen as physically weaker and less valuable in athletic challenges. Physically weaker players must rely even more on strong social relationships to carry them through the early votes. This is in contrast to physically strong players who can afford a relatively poor social game, simply by virtue of their inherent value to the tribe as an asset in challenges or around camp. Val Collins, who famously lied about having two hidden immunity idols, recently suggested this theory on a RHAP podcast.
There could also be some self-fulfilling prophecy here. Future male players see other male contestants from prior season finding idols and wish to emulate them. With fewer female role models finding idols, perhaps this is negatively impacting how future female players see their path to succeeding in the game.
Of note, even if there is only a slight tendency for men to search for idols earlier and longer than women, a small advantage can multiply over time, ballooning into a large discrepancy. With an increase in idols being available, especially in the early game, those who find an idol early have an increased probability to find idols later. For example, in the past 10 seasons, players who find an idol, find an average of 1.43 per season. Essentially, the rich get richer. So even once female players get to a later stage of the game where they can explore and look for idols, the idols are likely to already have been found and even if they are available, the early idol hunters (i.e. the men), have a distinct advantage to find further idols.
If we look at non-idol advantages, such as vote steals, extra votes, etc. which are typically introduced later in the game (average of day 17) and are often found by random circumstance, there is no gender divide. These types of advantages are a newer game mechanic and we have less data for comparison, but to date, there have been 15 such advantages, 8 of which have been found by a female player.
We believe that the reason for the gender divide is directly linked to the means in which idols are hidden and introduced into the game. Since idols are immediately available on day 1, and are obtained by spending considerable time hunting through the jungle away from camp, women are at a major disadvantage in finding them early in the game– and that advantage only multiplies as the days go by and idols consolidate among a few players with early idol-finding success. This gender-disadvantage directly translates to poorer overall placement and a lower likelihood of winning. Couple this with a lower probability of winning individual immunities, and women are more vulnerable for elimination in the post-merge portion of the game.
Final thoughts
We have proposed some possible explanations for why women have relatively less success than men in finding idols. We believe that these explanations largely reflect gender expectations in society in general, rather than anything that Survivor production or Survivor players are doing to intentionally favor male players. The introduction and evolution of the hidden immunity idol have produced strategic intricacies and narrative drama that are undoubtedly good for Survivor as a game and a television show. However, it is also clear that most of the modern changes to the game, including F4 fire-making, seem to favor a specific type of player who tends to be male. Creative ways of making idols and advantages available could potentially preserve some of the benefits of the hidden immunity idol, while correcting a stark gender imbalance that threatens to undermine Survivor’s appeal.
What are your thoughts on how idols have impacted Survivor? Let us know if you have any suggestions for how to close the gender gap in this aspect of the game.
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The existence of a gender gap in recent seasons among the final winners, probably reflects a more authentic facet to Survivor now compared to earlier seasons because accounting finding hidden "idols" as an advantage to winning may or may not be of benefit to men. However, forming relationships and "secret" gender based alliances may have given women an unfair advantage in the first 10 seasons as studies clearly show women who form groups are more likely to eliminate men in tribal council but the inverse is not true, meaning men not only don't routinely form gender based alliance,but even if men do form such groups, their selection on who gets eliminated is NOT gender based.
So in short, while a group of women are more likely to eliminate men in Survivor's tribal council but men do not increase the likelihood of women getting eliminated.
Furthermore, in jurors choosing the final winner, studies suggest men are more forgiving of personal betrayal and more understanding of the competitive nature of the Survivor game than women, especially given this forms a major part of the masculine mental architecture formation in relation to male reproductive behavioural tendencies, so men unlikely let personal feelings affect their decision. Conversely, women are known to be affected by emotional factors especially if related on a personal level in making decisions, which maybe consciously or unconsciously influence women.
So, adding the "hidden idol" feature to Survivor may actually eliminate the "hidden relationship and alliance strategy" has been giving women a notable advantage in winning resulting in an equal 50% winning outcomes between both the genders in the first 10 seasons which doesn't necessarily indicate fairness as intrinsic gender difference cannot be eliminated in such competing situations.
Therefore, contrary to the premise provided in this article, the introduction of "hidden idols" would actually give a more authentic and fair perspective for the Survivor game as represented by the final outcome consisting of an unequal winning ratio in favour of men rather than women. Just because there's perfect 50:50 equal gender ratio does not indicate "fairness", in fact it demonstrates the very opposite is true as inherent gender difference just cannot be eliminated when men and women compete together.