How important is status in society? What is a status game?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You might not think of yourself as a person who cares about status. Yet in The Status Game<\/em>, Will Storr writes that not only are you constantly competing for status, but the need for status is wired into your brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Below we’ll discuss why people compete for status in society, and how it becomes a game in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n The need for higher status in society might not be a flattering picture: We all see ourselves as the hero of our story, and we like to think that we\u2019re defined by what we do, not by our need for others\u2019 approval. But, Storr argues, the basic drive to gain status within our social groups is a product of how humans evolved as a species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Neuroscientists agree with Storr that our intense interest in status can be tracked in the brain. Researchers have found that our brains are so sensitive to information about social hierarchies<\/a> that we can\u2019t ignore cues about other people\u2019s status, even when that information isn\u2019t relevant to the task at hand. This suggests that status is hard-wired into the brain and strongly influences how we interact with other people.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this section of the guide, we\u2019ll explore how Storr defines status and how the competition for status<\/a> becomes a game. Then, we\u2019ll outline the types of status games we play and the factors that determine which games we compete in throughout our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do we mean when we talk about status? Storr explains that status involves more than being liked or accepted by a group. Instead, he defines status as feeling respected or admired by the people around you<\/strong>. When humans lived in itinerant hunter-gatherer bands, he says, we had an evolutionary motivation to join a social group because it conferred survival advantages. Conversely, a lack of social connection isolated us, leaving us feeling vulnerable and threatening our health and well-being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Storr\u2019s definition of social status is consistent with those of other experts. Sociologists define status as the level of honor or prestige<\/a> attached to our position in society. They explain that two kinds of social status determine our place in the social hierarchy<\/a>: \u201cachieved status,\u201d which you gain through your own accomplishments, and \u201cascribed status,\u201d which comes from your family\u2019s social position and socioeconomic background, your sex, and your race. Both kinds of status help us achieve social connection<\/a>, which, as Storr argues, is key to our survival. Indeed, the CDC reports that people with strong social bonds have a 50% increased likelihood of survival<\/a> compared to those who have fewer connections with others.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Status also gives you something over and above a survival advantage: It helps you find your place<\/a> within your social group. Storr points out that humans don\u2019t just want to belong<\/em> to a social group. We<\/strong> also want to rise up the social hierarchy within that group<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Storr\u2019s observation that we want to both fit in with and stand out from our peers squares with what other experts have observed about our social behavior. In This Is Marketing<\/em><\/a>, Seth Godin explains that some people tend to be driven by a desire for belonging<\/a> and others by a desire for superiority. In this model, the need for belonging<\/a> is about connecting with people whose opinion you value, while the need for superiority is about differentiating yourself and demonstrating your dominance in the social group. These two desires often coexist<\/a> in the same person, and we balance them against each other when making decisions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The competitive nature of our pursuit of status isn\u2019t the only reason that Storr calls it a game\u2014a status game also has rules and symbols<\/strong> that draw us in and compel us to play along. Next, we\u2019ll take a look at two things that need to happen for status to become a game: We come to rely on rules to structure the status game, and we accept status symbols as a means of assessing our performance in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When humans band together in a social group, we naturally create stories, which take the form of cultural narratives, ideologies, religions, and systems of morality. These stories serve as rules you have to follow not only to gain acceptance within the group<\/strong> but also to seek the respect and admiration of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Storr explains that some of the rules within social groups are ancient and universal (like helping other group members or respecting a leader\u2019s authority). But other rules are culturally specific, particular to their time and place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your brain is wired to seek things that are valuable, including social connection and social status. According to Storr, these value judgments are linked to a \u201cstatus detection system,\u201d which figures out how you\u2019re performing against other people by looking at status symbols: signals that have an agreed-upon meaning relevant to a person\u2019s social standing<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An obvious status symbol might be the car someone drives or the shoes they wear. But material objects aren\u2019t the only status symbols your brain uses to size up other people. Storr explains that your brain has learned to read social value in people\u2019s appearance, behavior, voice, body language<\/a>, and facial expressions. Your brain is extraordinarily attentive to these cues because it wants to know where others stand\u2014and how you measure up against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you join a group and accept the rules and symbols of the group\u2019s status game, you naturally internalize its stories and values, meaning that you subconsciously experience your membership in the group as a game. You then play the game to keep gaining more status. This causes you to become invested in upholding the rules and symbols of the game<\/strong>, because your own status depends upon their continued relevance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What form do these status games take? Storr writes that we play three different kinds of status games<\/strong>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Storr explains that virtue and success games, which he calls \u201cprestige games,\u201d differ from dominance games <\/strong>because they tap into distinct psychological processes. The drive for dominance is ancient, he says, and the evolutionarily newer desire to gain prestige by demonstrating virtue or success hasn\u2019t overwritten that earlier instinct to gain influence<\/a> by exerting force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most games aren\u2019t \u201cpure\u201d games that fall into just one category. Storr writes that for thousands of years, humans have played virtue-dominance games<\/strong>, where people win status by embodying and enforcing the moral principles valued by the group. We might speculate, for example, that in a paleolithic hunter-gatherer band, a person might have gained status by enforcing the rules of a religious ritual or by assigning a punishment to a wrongdoer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Storr writes that the success game is an evolutionarily newer kind of game than the dominance game. He traces Western cultures\u2019 emphasis on individual success to the medieval breakdown of early Europe\u2019s kin-based social systems into nuclear families. He says that when people began to seek status outside of their kin groups, they began playing success games<\/strong>: joining guilds, attending universities, moving to cities, and building knowledge in science, philosophy, and theology. Success games incentivized people to learn new ideas, and the pursuit of knowledge came with a new kind of prestige. This pushed innovation forward and fostered the development of the scientific method. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Storr writes that a combination of factors\u2014including the genes we inherit, the environment we experience in childhood, and the people we spend our time with\u2014determines which status games we play <\/strong>throughout our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He points out that developmental changes that take place in the adolescent brain increase our sensitivity to other people\u2019s judgments. These changes motivate us to seek the reward of social approval (and to avoid the pain of social rejection). Around the same time in our lives, we\u2019re initiated into our first status games: often a sports team, a religion, a fraternity or sorority if we go to college, or a military force if we enlist as young adults. As we learn to play our first status games, we learn how to signal our membership in the groups we play them with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Psychologist Mitch Prinstein, author of Popular<\/em><\/a>, further explains that just prior to puberty, the brain changes in ways that make us feel more invested in our social relationships<\/a>. The social status we achieve as adolescents affects what experts call our \u201csocial information processing\u201d tendencies later: things like what we pay attention to in social situations, the extent to which we\u2019re sensitive to rejection, and the likelihood that we\u2019ll see social cues as threatening. This can have an effect on the social groups\u2014or status games\u2014we participate in as adults.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How important is status in society? What is a status game? You might not think of yourself as a person who cares about status. Yet in The Status Game, Will Storr writes that not only are you constantly competing for status, but the need for status is wired into your brain. Below we’ll discuss why people compete for status in society, and how it becomes a game in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":20344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24],"tags":[1243],"class_list":["post-111188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-society","tag-the-status-game","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Is a Status Game?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Is Status?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How Does Status Become a Game?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
We Agree on Rules to Structure the Game<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Status Symbols Tell Us How We\u2019re Performing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
What Kinds of Status Games Do We Play?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What Determines Which Games We Play?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n