Humanity’s Hardwiring For Status

Something that’s behind the scenes of our day to day choices is a desire for status. It’s quietly a part of how our society works, and explains why we care so much about the lives of the rich and famous, why we buy expensive things to signal wealth, and why so many people seek power in work and politics.

A desire for higher status in society has been planted into our psychology through generations and generations of evolution. What’s unique is the way we express this evolutionary need for status in modern our modern world.

The driving force of evolution was all to accomplish one goal: To keep us and our kin alive to ensure that our genes were passed into future generations. Those who could secure essential resources like food, water, shelter, and protection were most likely to survive the longest. So who do those resources go to? Those who have the highest status within the group, they get to eat before everyone else does. 

Originally, it was the most physically dominant that achieved the highest status. This is still true in the animal kingdom where the strongest, biggest, most aggressive, most violent males lead the pack. But in today’s world, dominance no longer is derived just from the individual’s strength. Dominance comes from the strength of all the resources at their disposal. It’s no longer the physically strongest that has the highest status but the person that has the most power.

This is true for major political leaders who have militaries to enforce their mission, celebrities who have a platform and audience to activate, and the wealthy who can afford to secure resources when they’re scarce. People who are in a position to influence others can organize resources in ways that others can’t, and therefore ensure that they get whatever they want. 

Whether we realize it or not, as social creatures we are very sensitive to the power dynamics in our environments. There’s a delicate game of taking advantage of opportunities to elevate our status without ruining our good standing with others who are higher status. It’s a dynamic that influences every interaction we have.

But given that we live in a world where resources are abundant and we’re not fighting for survival like we used to, this evolutionary hardwiring for status is a bit out of place. It’s hard to do, but it’s on each one of us to live a life that’s authentic to ourselves and not the one that signals status, motivated by unmet evolutionary needs.