When I first learned about social status as a concept, I somehow got the mistaken impression that any kind of status seeking is amoral. This caused me harm because I didn’t want to violate any social boundaries, and trying to avoid violating status seeking behavior hobbles your ability to find and follow up on opportunities.
I think status seeking can be zero sum, and in such cases it should be avoided (like playing school with the intention of becoming valedictorian).
Status seeking can be positive sum while consisting of iterated zero sum games (like playing in a tennis club).
Status seeking behavior in positive sum environments generally consists of good things, like working harder at the gym.
The concept is extremely useful to keep in mind when designing environments. What constitutes status seeking should be legible, enable and encourage prosocial behavior, and allow social norms to be learned in a healthy way. Losing in iterated zero-sum games is often a common factor in environments with this attribute, since losing is then an expected outcome of playing, and the game can altered so that an individual loss is seen as providing a gain in knowledge, and continuing to play becomes the source of reward.
This can be actively implemented into zero-sum social situations by setting up a situation to expose oneself to frequent but non-comprimising losses. Like starting debates to entertain others with the intention of being roasted.
Sometimes the thing that seems like zero-sum between two players actually has a third player, let’s call them “audience” or “environment”, and the payout is different when you include those. Two people trying to win a tennis match provide entertainment for the audience. Also, in short term, one of the players wins and the other one loses, but in long term, both have practiced their skills and had some healthy exercise.
Status seeking is immoral when it comes to conflict with doing the right thing. Sometimes that means cheating to appear better than you actually are. Sometimes it means generating negative externalities.
But in a healthy environment, social status can be a way to recognize and reward doing the right thing.
When I first learned about social status as a concept, I somehow got the mistaken impression that any kind of status seeking is amoral. This caused me harm because I didn’t want to violate any social boundaries, and trying to avoid violating status seeking behavior hobbles your ability to find and follow up on opportunities.
I think status seeking can be zero sum, and in such cases it should be avoided (like playing school with the intention of becoming valedictorian).
Status seeking can be positive sum while consisting of iterated zero sum games (like playing in a tennis club).
Status seeking behavior in positive sum environments generally consists of good things, like working harder at the gym.
The concept is extremely useful to keep in mind when designing environments. What constitutes status seeking should be legible, enable and encourage prosocial behavior, and allow social norms to be learned in a healthy way. Losing in iterated zero-sum games is often a common factor in environments with this attribute, since losing is then an expected outcome of playing, and the game can altered so that an individual loss is seen as providing a gain in knowledge, and continuing to play becomes the source of reward.
This can be actively implemented into zero-sum social situations by setting up a situation to expose oneself to frequent but non-comprimising losses. Like starting debates to entertain others with the intention of being roasted.
Sometimes the thing that seems like zero-sum between two players actually has a third player, let’s call them “audience” or “environment”, and the payout is different when you include those. Two people trying to win a tennis match provide entertainment for the audience. Also, in short term, one of the players wins and the other one loses, but in long term, both have practiced their skills and had some healthy exercise.
Status seeking is immoral when it comes to conflict with doing the right thing. Sometimes that means cheating to appear better than you actually are. Sometimes it means generating negative externalities.
But in a healthy environment, social status can be a way to recognize and reward doing the right thing.