In terms of how relative status works out in practice, I see it as affecting people’s first, instinctive reactions to many (probably most) social circumstances.
In an argument between Bob and Carol, who should I support?
If someone criticises me, how do I react?
If someone praises me, how good does it make me feel?
If I disagree with someone, how likely am I to fight my corner?
How do I react when someone takes something which I don’t feel they deserve?
Who do I want to spend time with?
Would this be a good person to date?
If Dave does this, should I do it too?
Other things will also affect these decisions such as liking the person or system 2 thinking—status is just one model of many required to explain human behaviour. These other models aren’t zero-sum. I personally find it helpful for predictive power to have a separate model for relative status:
What would Dave’s decision be if he only cared about relative status?
What would Dave’s decision be if he based it entirely on whether he likes me?
If Dave just thought about this logically what would he decide?
...
How do I put these answers together to predict Dave’s actions?
***
I’d argue that apparently absolute questions such as buying Dave a Birthday present would include relative status considerations as there’s a relative status between you and Dave to consider. This might or might not have a big effect on the final decision but it would probably change how you feel about spending time/money on Dave which could easily subconsciously move your actions one way or the other.
Certainly if you’re higher status than him you’d expect him to be more grateful than if he was higher status (within the status model alone).
In terms of how relative status works out in practice, I see it as affecting people’s first, instinctive reactions to many (probably most) social circumstances.
In an argument between Bob and Carol, who should I support?
If someone criticises me, how do I react?
If someone praises me, how good does it make me feel?
If I disagree with someone, how likely am I to fight my corner?
How do I react when someone takes something which I don’t feel they deserve?
Who do I want to spend time with?
Would this be a good person to date?
If Dave does this, should I do it too?
Other things will also affect these decisions such as liking the person or system 2 thinking—status is just one model of many required to explain human behaviour. These other models aren’t zero-sum. I personally find it helpful for predictive power to have a separate model for relative status:
What would Dave’s decision be if he only cared about relative status?
What would Dave’s decision be if he based it entirely on whether he likes me?
If Dave just thought about this logically what would he decide?
...
How do I put these answers together to predict Dave’s actions?
***
I’d argue that apparently absolute questions such as buying Dave a Birthday present would include relative status considerations as there’s a relative status between you and Dave to consider. This might or might not have a big effect on the final decision but it would probably change how you feel about spending time/money on Dave which could easily subconsciously move your actions one way or the other.
Certainly if you’re higher status than him you’d expect him to be more grateful than if he was higher status (within the status model alone).