Parts of this post that deal with positive illusions could apply to any goal that people have, not just the goal to seek status. A classic social psychology article on that topic is Ziva Kunda’s The Case for Motivated Reasoning (pdf). Several aspects of this post are present in her (zir?) paper, including:
the existence of “accuracy goals” which benefit from reaching a correct conclusion and “directional” goals which benefit from reaching a particular conclusion (typically one that casts oneself in a pleasing light)
“reality constraints” which prevent a person from reaching conclusions that are too divergent from reality, or the need to maintain an “illusion of objectivity”
Parts of this post that deal with positive illusions could apply to any goal that people have, not just the goal to seek status. A classic social psychology article on that topic is Ziva Kunda’s The Case for Motivated Reasoning (pdf). Several aspects of this post are present in her (zir?) paper, including:
the existence of “accuracy goals” which benefit from reaching a correct conclusion and “directional” goals which benefit from reaching a particular conclusion (typically one that casts oneself in a pleasing light)
“reality constraints” which prevent a person from reaching conclusions that are too divergent from reality, or the need to maintain an “illusion of objectivity”