Emma GreenIt is one of the most powerful incentives of human behaviour, but how exactly does our social standing affect our everyday lives?
Leading neuroscientist and professor of psychology Michael Gazzaniga once said, “When you get up in the morning you do not think about triangles and squares. You think about status. You think about where you are in relation to your peers.” It is something that drives nearly every decision that we make, from what we wear, to whom we associate with and the career path that we eventually take.
But when we talk about status, what exactly do we mean? Social status is often confused with social class, or what is otherwise known as sociometric status. Whereas social class refers to an individual’s position in society in relation to their economic background — such as their occupation and income — social status concerns the level of prestige, respect and influence that person is afforded by other people. Although someone may be low down the pecking order in regards to their sociometric status, in terms of their standing within their peer groups — such as their friendship circle or workplace — they might reign supreme.
Pursuing status, after all, is a universal human behaviour, whether we are conscious of it or not. Just like other animals, humans have evolved to care about status, because having a high ranking within a pack ensured our survival and access to resources such as food and potential mates. Although our social status may no longer be a matter of life and death, we still crave it.
The ventral striatum, deep within the brain, acts as a reward centre, and becomes especially activated at the beginning of adolescence whenever we receive social rewards such as attention or approval from others. We suddenly become keenly aware of which of our peers are receiving the most praise and respect, and which ones are deemed more powerful and influential, and we start to seek this out for ourselves.
This type of behaviour isn’t just confined to a playground setting. All societies have some form of social hierarchy as a way of allocating resources, leadership and power.
Status is usually determined in two ways.
Some societies value what is called “ascribed status”, the social position that is assigned to an individual at birth, based on factors such as their gender, race and family background. A baby born into a royal family will be given greater status compared to a baby born to a commoner, although the capabilities of either child at that point are unknown. However, the process of infant socialisation requires that each child be ascribed a ranking at birth.