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What Are 'Status Signals'?

• Status Signals are tangible indicators of some intangible quality that increases a person’s Social Status or group affiliation.
• Status seeking is a part of human nature and can be harnessed for good or ill.

Josh Kaufman Explains 'Status Signals'

Every minute of every day, a nontrivial part of your brain has been devoted to keeping track of how you measure up against the rest of the world. Without very much effort, you could make a list of things like:

• Who is more attractive than you.
• Who is stronger than you.
• Who is wealthier than you.
• Who is more influential than you.
• Who is more powerful than you.
• Who is more famous than you.
• Who is better than you are in some specific area of skill. (Regardless of whether or not you’re skilled in that area at all.)

Humans are social creatures—we’re built to survive and thrive in groups. Group behavior confers many advantages when it comes to ensuring survival in an often hostile Environment, but it also introduces intragroup competition for scarce resources.

The individuals who prosper within the group tend to be the ones who most successfully compete on obvious reproductive survival dimensions (like beauty, wealth, strength, coalition-building or group influence) and those who innovate by inventing a new dimension to compete on. That’s why humans have direct incentives to explore, create, and build skill in millions upon millions of different areas: being “the best” in something is a straightforward way to increase Social Status.

Relative status is often tricky to calculate precisely, so we rely on Status Signals: tangible indicators of some intangible quality that increases a person’s Social Status or group affiliation. Rare or expensive items, awards, honors, victory in recognized competition, and verifiable public acclaim are all examples of Status Signals.

Status concerns permeate human Desires and actions. Have you ever dreamt of being a movie star? Performer or musician? Professional athlete? Astronaut? CEO? Politician or world leader? Celebrity? Those are all occupations that carry significant Social Status, and the status is a huge part of the compensation for the otherwise extreme demands and sacrifices required to break into, compete in, and maintain position in those fields.

Ever wanted to buy a Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Tesla Model S? A private jet, or your own yacht? A private island? That’s status-motivated cognition: all of these things, aside from their utility, signal wealth.

Ever wanted to win a Nobel Prize, be Time magazine’s Person of the Year, win an Oscar, or be awarded some prestigious medal of honor? These sorts of awards signal importance, skill, or influence.

Ever felt envy when someone accomplishes something impressive, purchases something cool, or receives some sort of difficult-to-attract attention? The benefit in question doesn’t harm or diminish you in any way, but their good fortune does change your perceived relative status, even if the tangible benefit is minimal.

This sort of pattern of thought and behavior operates at all levels. A substantial amount of our cognitive resources are devoted to tracking our current status and changes in our status relative to others. Likewise, many things that factor into our emotions and behavior boil down to a single question: “Will this improve my Social Status in some meaningful way?”

A Rolex doesn’t tell time any better than a Timex, but that’s not the point: it’s an obvious signal of wealth. In the same way, an Olympic gold medal is poor compensation on a currency-per-hour basis for the years of intense training it takes to win. Not only that: Does it really matter, in the grand scheme of things, who was able to run a little faster or play a game a little better than the second-best competitor? Again, that’s not the point: an Olympic gold medal is a recognized symbol of victory in worldwide competition. It’s not about the value of the materials or the value of the skill: it’s about the status conferred to the winner.

Status seeking is a part of human nature and can be harnessed for good or ill. Learning to recognize status-motivated behavior—in yourself and in other people—will help you understand why people tend to act in certain predictable ways, help you avoid common pitfalls, and improve your ability make wise Decisions.

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"The People’s Theatre, what nonsense! Call it the Aristocrat’s Theatre and the people will come."

Jules Renard, nineteenth-century French author

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