My point is precisely that I think status is not popularity but more like power. In fact, it surprises me to even consider status as popularity. Al Capone type criminals were not liked, but feared. Fear can elicit more respect(ful behavior) than liking. Wait, now I am seriously confused, I always assumed people behaving high status should come accross at least slightly scary to others, even a genuine achievement as “oh, he can do something I never will”, could it really be that acting high status is more often liked than feared? A classic example of high-status signal is correcting other people’s grammar. That cannot possibly make one popular, but a bit feared yes, as it conjure childhood memories of teachers.
For Americans, Meryl Streep may be far more popular than Vladimir Putin, but that does not translate into a corresponding hierarchy of fears.
It’s a common error of too many parents to believe that fear brings respect. In my experience, fear brings hatred. Only the self-preservation parts of the reaction to fear are often mistaken for gestures of respect. Again, my experience is that true respect comes from admiration.
But again the problem is that does status mean popularity? What does that mean? It is not that I think popularity creates fear, I think status as such does not equal popularity, it is more like being seen a BIG, not popular, and t this may or may not create fear.
As for fear and respect, this is highly complicated IMHO. As far as I can tell, there are some people who genuinely respect those who scare them because they admire their fearsomeness. I think at our school the bully type guys genuinely respected the scariest male teachers as basically they saw them a role model on how to be a bigger bully. I think there is something true about the cliche “these villains only respect violence” type stuff from movies. Basically it means, often when people were hurt a lot, they will turn very defensive and the best defense is an offense and thus adopt a hard, tough “don’t try messing with me” frame. At that point, those who are more fearsome may be genuinely respected and imitated. This is pretty common with males of lower-class background, the most dangerous looking MMA guys having the most respect.
Needless to say, I don’t consider it healthy. I mean, not healthy for children. As for adults… I would say, for most people, by the time we turned 30, unless we lived in very sheltered circumstances, we probably developed a darker, harder, “don’t try messing with me” side just as a cumulative effect of conflicts and bullying received and all that. And thus we may respect scary dominant people. It is probably part of the normal cumulative emotional scarring going on with life. Well, or mine is abnormal.
That’s respect that leads to avoiding conflicts with those people. On the other hand we usually don’t build relationships with them that are about exchanging favors.
Is status about favor exchange? I really would like a definition of what status is and isn’t. My go-to definition is that it is about being “big”. This is primitive, but that is the whole point, it has to be.
Status is about access to resources and control for resources. A person who gets favors from other people can access more resources.
Having the ability to physically beat up a doctor isn’t likely to give you any preferential treatment from the doctors. Other forms of social status do.
You got the causation the wrong way around. The point of a signal isn’t that the signal itself makes you popular it’s that the signal goes along with status.
Few people correct the status of people they consider to be higher status then themselves.
The only way that a low status people corrects a high status person is that the person is completely clueless.
Correcting a high status person can mean losing their support.
Al Capone type criminals were not liked, but feared.
There are social interactions where people I driven by mainly by fear but that’s not the kind of environment in which you want to be.
My point is precisely that I think status is not popularity but more like power. In fact, it surprises me to even consider status as popularity. Al Capone type criminals were not liked, but feared. Fear can elicit more respect(ful behavior) than liking. Wait, now I am seriously confused, I always assumed people behaving high status should come accross at least slightly scary to others, even a genuine achievement as “oh, he can do something I never will”, could it really be that acting high status is more often liked than feared? A classic example of high-status signal is correcting other people’s grammar. That cannot possibly make one popular, but a bit feared yes, as it conjure childhood memories of teachers.
For Americans, Meryl Streep may be far more popular than Vladimir Putin, but that does not translate into a corresponding hierarchy of fears.
It’s a common error of too many parents to believe that fear brings respect. In my experience, fear brings hatred. Only the self-preservation parts of the reaction to fear are often mistaken for gestures of respect. Again, my experience is that true respect comes from admiration.
But again the problem is that does status mean popularity? What does that mean? It is not that I think popularity creates fear, I think status as such does not equal popularity, it is more like being seen a BIG, not popular, and t this may or may not create fear.
As for fear and respect, this is highly complicated IMHO. As far as I can tell, there are some people who genuinely respect those who scare them because they admire their fearsomeness. I think at our school the bully type guys genuinely respected the scariest male teachers as basically they saw them a role model on how to be a bigger bully. I think there is something true about the cliche “these villains only respect violence” type stuff from movies. Basically it means, often when people were hurt a lot, they will turn very defensive and the best defense is an offense and thus adopt a hard, tough “don’t try messing with me” frame. At that point, those who are more fearsome may be genuinely respected and imitated. This is pretty common with males of lower-class background, the most dangerous looking MMA guys having the most respect.
Needless to say, I don’t consider it healthy. I mean, not healthy for children. As for adults… I would say, for most people, by the time we turned 30, unless we lived in very sheltered circumstances, we probably developed a darker, harder, “don’t try messing with me” side just as a cumulative effect of conflicts and bullying received and all that. And thus we may respect scary dominant people. It is probably part of the normal cumulative emotional scarring going on with life. Well, or mine is abnormal.
That’s respect that leads to avoiding conflicts with those people. On the other hand we usually don’t build relationships with them that are about exchanging favors.
Is status about favor exchange? I really would like a definition of what status is and isn’t. My go-to definition is that it is about being “big”. This is primitive, but that is the whole point, it has to be.
Status is about access to resources and control for resources. A person who gets favors from other people can access more resources.
Having the ability to physically beat up a doctor isn’t likely to give you any preferential treatment from the doctors. Other forms of social status do.
You got the causation the wrong way around. The point of a signal isn’t that the signal itself makes you popular it’s that the signal goes along with status.
Few people correct the status of people they consider to be higher status then themselves. The only way that a low status people corrects a high status person is that the person is completely clueless.
Correcting a high status person can mean losing their support.
There are social interactions where people I driven by mainly by fear but that’s not the kind of environment in which you want to be.