It is getting away with these things that is high status, not just doing them.
It is actually only getting away with them that is high status. Doing them is not high status.
As far as public speaking, while most of what I’ve done involves coaching competitions, the basic principle of standing up straight corresponding to confidence applies across a broad spectrum. It is not always the case, as there are times when slouching may indicate relaxation or boredom, and relaxation or boredom may signal high status (for example, being the only person in a group who is not stressed out about an upcoming event may signal high ability, which is high-status). Thus, the claim that standing up straight is a low-status thing to do is simply false, as there are many, many occasions when it signals high status.
Standing at attention is another matter; if that is what the original author meant, they should have been clearer.
It is actually only getting away with them that is high status. Doing them is not high status.
Doing them is inferential evidence that he or she has not suffered sanctions for taking similar actions in the past or, having been sanctioned, they have the emotional physical resilience to be unaffected by said sanctions. Both of these predict higher status.
Evidence? There are plenty of low-status people with bad manners or bad posture. What data do you have that leads you to believe that, for some X under discussion here, on observing X, you can systematically infer the doer of X is high status?
More precisely, not suffering sanctions and emotional resilience may predict higher status, but does the behaviour under discussion reliably predict those characteristics, or may it predict others? You ignore the fact that if you display low-status behaviour at a social gathering, people won’t kill you and your offspring; you just won’t get invited back. Thus, people can quite easily repeatedly take actions that lower their status. This is even more so the case if they are somewhat oblivious to social rules, and, of course, being oblivious to social rules makes them far more likely to act “selfishly” (as used by the original author) in the first place.
I believe you need to observe a rather complicated series of events to infer that any particular selfish behaviour shows high-status. This makes the concept advocated by the post’s author rather useless: selfishness signals high status, except when it doesn’t, which is quite frequent and hard to identify precisely.
The behavior of humans provides information about their experiences and their social influences. This being the case I reject your correction and in particular the emphasis on the absolute, ‘only’.
It is getting away with these things that is high status, not just doing them.
The concerns I have with the public speaking competition evidence may be generalizable across a broad spectrum as well.
Standing straight corresponds to confidence in interactions with superiors because the status-acceptable alternative is leaning forward and keeping one’s head down. In say, job interviews, if an interviewee leans back he/she is viewed as not caring enough or unprofessional (and I think this is because their posture is indicating they don’t recognize the authority of the interviewer). Standing straight is the appropriate posture for an interviewee that wants to demonstrate confidence and appreciation of authority. But the interviewer can easily get away with leaning back in his/her chair and in interactions with equals this demonstrates confidence.
I rather explicitly avoid disputing this. There are times when slouching signals high status. There are times when it signals low status. There are times when it signals nothing. The original poster’s claim was that standing up straight signals low status; this claim was made in an unqualified way. Since there are many cases where this is false, his claim is incorrect. In particular, the fact that people often reflect their status in their posture—i.e. people who are presently successful/high-status reflect that by standing up straight and taking up more space—is a serious problem for the original poster’s claim. The fact that cases exist where slouching signals status is largely irrelevant; the original poster’s claim was that standing up straight is principally a sign of low status. This is false, because it is also (indeed, I would argue, normally) a signal of high status.
It is actually only getting away with them that is high status. Doing them is not high status.
As far as public speaking, while most of what I’ve done involves coaching competitions, the basic principle of standing up straight corresponding to confidence applies across a broad spectrum. It is not always the case, as there are times when slouching may indicate relaxation or boredom, and relaxation or boredom may signal high status (for example, being the only person in a group who is not stressed out about an upcoming event may signal high ability, which is high-status). Thus, the claim that standing up straight is a low-status thing to do is simply false, as there are many, many occasions when it signals high status.
Standing at attention is another matter; if that is what the original author meant, they should have been clearer.
Doing them is inferential evidence that he or she has not suffered sanctions for taking similar actions in the past or, having been sanctioned, they have the emotional physical resilience to be unaffected by said sanctions. Both of these predict higher status.
Evidence? There are plenty of low-status people with bad manners or bad posture. What data do you have that leads you to believe that, for some X under discussion here, on observing X, you can systematically infer the doer of X is high status?
More precisely, not suffering sanctions and emotional resilience may predict higher status, but does the behaviour under discussion reliably predict those characteristics, or may it predict others? You ignore the fact that if you display low-status behaviour at a social gathering, people won’t kill you and your offspring; you just won’t get invited back. Thus, people can quite easily repeatedly take actions that lower their status. This is even more so the case if they are somewhat oblivious to social rules, and, of course, being oblivious to social rules makes them far more likely to act “selfishly” (as used by the original author) in the first place.
I believe you need to observe a rather complicated series of events to infer that any particular selfish behaviour shows high-status. This makes the concept advocated by the post’s author rather useless: selfishness signals high status, except when it doesn’t, which is quite frequent and hard to identify precisely.
The behavior of humans provides information about their experiences and their social influences. This being the case I reject your correction and in particular the emphasis on the absolute, ‘only’.
Jack said it well.
The concerns I have with the public speaking competition evidence may be generalizable across a broad spectrum as well.
Standing straight corresponds to confidence in interactions with superiors because the status-acceptable alternative is leaning forward and keeping one’s head down. In say, job interviews, if an interviewee leans back he/she is viewed as not caring enough or unprofessional (and I think this is because their posture is indicating they don’t recognize the authority of the interviewer). Standing straight is the appropriate posture for an interviewee that wants to demonstrate confidence and appreciation of authority. But the interviewer can easily get away with leaning back in his/her chair and in interactions with equals this demonstrates confidence.
I rather explicitly avoid disputing this. There are times when slouching signals high status. There are times when it signals low status. There are times when it signals nothing. The original poster’s claim was that standing up straight signals low status; this claim was made in an unqualified way. Since there are many cases where this is false, his claim is incorrect. In particular, the fact that people often reflect their status in their posture—i.e. people who are presently successful/high-status reflect that by standing up straight and taking up more space—is a serious problem for the original poster’s claim. The fact that cases exist where slouching signals status is largely irrelevant; the original poster’s claim was that standing up straight is principally a sign of low status. This is false, because it is also (indeed, I would argue, normally) a signal of high status.