It feels like an implicit sense of excitement that if you get validation from that particular person or group, your future will contain additional degrees of freedom you maybe can’t directly qualify as precise or rational hypothesis over and above the feeling of new and exciting opportunities. I was trying to keep it mildly PG for the sake of the tone of the forum but I can be more direct. When I was younger I was extremely status driven (without being aware of it until calming down in later years).
When I was in high school there was an extremely high status person X who threw semi-exclusive parties with what many considered to be most attractive members of the opposite sex in not just our school but the district.
Person X had a particular style and fashion taste. I had the notion that if I dress in a way person X will think is cool, or people that can influence person X’s opinion of my own ‘coolness’ due to a signalling of a shared particular taste—it would increase the odds I will become friends with person X, as person X would consider me to somewhat of a peer in those status bearing considerations.
In most cases, the particular fashion sense wouldn’t be definable in shorthand. There would be too many load bearing constraints, which is exactly why it would be a fitting marker for ‘taste similarity’
The idea was, the next time person X throws one of their parties there will be increased odds I will be invited, and increased odds that when I go to said parties, those attractive people will consider me attractive because of my status associations with Person X. Therefore, I will have increased chances of getting lucky, or a girlfriend who otherwise I would have no reasonable chance at ‘getting with’ .
After getting included in person X’s group, I am compelled to uphold these fashion norms, for fear if I don’t, person X will consider me as the kind of association that reduces their signalled value to the individuals they care about retaining status with, call them, their X primes. Not upholding these norms therefore would lead to not being invited to the parties anymore, and therefore, no more opportunities. To some degree, that would feel like a return to ‘hopelessness’.
This kind of thinking dominated my teenage mind, because there was nothing I found intrinsically more exciting or motivating than having a girlfriend. And the more high status of a girlfriend (of which attractiveness is one major variable) , the more that would compound favour externally (with person X or their X primes) and further snowball increased selection—long past whether it would work out with any particular girlfriend or not.
I found that after entering the professional world many such notions evaporated, but interestingly, not within many of my old contacts from high school—who still rely on similar mechanisms (though different signalling factors) to maintain their social groups into adulthood.
Scott Alexander’s article also mentions that people want to avoid looking like low-status people. Do you recognize this? If so, can you please say something about how that feels like?
It feels like being fearful of losing something. Like, the feeling of being afraid you are going to get some kind of call with bad news. In the case of these status pursuits, you would be afraid of ‘missing out’ on some social gathering or interaction and it would hurt in your chest if it happened, rejection causes people a form of semi-physical pain (at least, the same parts of the brain light up during rejection as they do for physical discomfort), and looking low status risks being treated like it, and thus risks putting yourself in a painful scenario.
It feels like an implicit sense of excitement that if you get validation from that particular person or group, your future will contain additional degrees of freedom you maybe can’t directly qualify as precise or rational hypothesis over and above the feeling of new and exciting opportunities. I was trying to keep it mildly PG for the sake of the tone of the forum but I can be more direct. When I was younger I was extremely status driven (without being aware of it until calming down in later years).
When I was in high school there was an extremely high status person X who threw semi-exclusive parties with what many considered to be most attractive members of the opposite sex in not just our school but the district.
Person X had a particular style and fashion taste. I had the notion that if I dress in a way person X will think is cool, or people that can influence person X’s opinion of my own ‘coolness’ due to a signalling of a shared particular taste—it would increase the odds I will become friends with person X, as person X would consider me to somewhat of a peer in those status bearing considerations.
In most cases, the particular fashion sense wouldn’t be definable in shorthand. There would be too many load bearing constraints, which is exactly why it would be a fitting marker for ‘taste similarity’
The idea was, the next time person X throws one of their parties there will be increased odds I will be invited, and increased odds that when I go to said parties, those attractive people will consider me attractive because of my status associations with Person X. Therefore, I will have increased chances of getting lucky, or a girlfriend who otherwise I would have no reasonable chance at ‘getting with’ .
After getting included in person X’s group, I am compelled to uphold these fashion norms, for fear if I don’t, person X will consider me as the kind of association that reduces their signalled value to the individuals they care about retaining status with, call them, their X primes. Not upholding these norms therefore would lead to not being invited to the parties anymore, and therefore, no more opportunities. To some degree, that would feel like a return to ‘hopelessness’.
This kind of thinking dominated my teenage mind, because there was nothing I found intrinsically more exciting or motivating than having a girlfriend. And the more high status of a girlfriend (of which attractiveness is one major variable) , the more that would compound favour externally (with person X or their X primes) and further snowball increased selection—long past whether it would work out with any particular girlfriend or not.
I found that after entering the professional world many such notions evaporated, but interestingly, not within many of my old contacts from high school—who still rely on similar mechanisms (though different signalling factors) to maintain their social groups into adulthood.
Thanks! This does make sense.
Scott Alexander’s article also mentions that people want to avoid looking like low-status people. Do you recognize this? If so, can you please say something about how that feels like?
It feels like being fearful of losing something. Like, the feeling of being afraid you are going to get some kind of call with bad news. In the case of these status pursuits, you would be afraid of ‘missing out’ on some social gathering or interaction and it would hurt in your chest if it happened, rejection causes people a form of semi-physical pain (at least, the same parts of the brain light up during rejection as they do for physical discomfort), and looking low status risks being treated like it, and thus risks putting yourself in a painful scenario.