Everything we do in life can be explained as a struggle to win more clout in a community we care about. Generally status can be gained in 3 ways:
<ul>
<li>Dominance: Impose your will through force. This applies to dictators as much as verbally abusive partners.</li>
<li>Virtue: Win points by being better. Think Michelle Obama or Mahatma Gandhi.</li>
<li>Competence: Be the winner. In business like Donald Trump. Or in beauty like the Instagram models.</li>
</ul>
Status can be tied to narcissism and other negative traits, but it's the driver behind all our actions, including the positive. We could have never invented anything without it.

Life Is A Status Game

When we consider conscience, the ultimate judge in our head, can also be considered a form of a status game. Conscience is just an imagined, a simulated game. We subconsciously imagine what others would think about our actions.That's why we are proud about ourselves when we do something good even when we are alone. Or we feel shame when we don't raise to the standards of our imaginary audience.

Conscience Is A Status Game

The more status games one plays the more happy (s)he will be. This means being part of more groups you care about: your professional circle, family, extended family, interest groups, friends etc. The larger the number of groups, the more opportunity for scoring status points.

Happiness Depends On How Many Status Games Are On

Interesting perspective about a key driver in our lives. 

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Science of Storytelling comes a bold and ambitious investigation of status that will redefine human culture for our times There's something humans desire even more than gold. It's a fundamental drive that's common to all humanity, cutting across race, gender, age and culture. Our need for it is such that exactly how much of it we possess dramatically effects not only our happiness and well-being but also our physical health. It'sstatus, argues Will Storr. You can't understand human behaviour without understanding The Status Game. This game, which we are all playing, is not only the secret of our success, but also of our most evil behaviour. Everything is subordinate to status, and humans aren't unique in our complicity with it. By reflecting on the various ways humans negotiate this game - through status hierarchies, values, myths and sacred markers, Storr gives readers a master class in this most malevolent of social mysteries.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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'Will Storr is one of our best journalists of ideas ... The Status Game might be his best yet' James Marriott, Books of the Year, The Times What drives our political and moral beliefs? What makes us like some things and dislike others? What shapes how we behave, and misbehave, in groups? What makes you, you? For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, bestselling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are. From the era of the hunter-gatherer to today, when we exist as workers in the globalised economy and citizens of online worlds, the need for status has always been wired into us. A wealth of research shows that how much of it we possess dramatically affects not only our happiness and wellbeing but also our physical health - and without sufficient status, we become more ill, and live shorter lives. It's an unconscious obsession that drives the best and worst of us: our innovation, arts and civilisation as well as our murders, wars and genocides. But why is status such an all-consuming prize? What happens if it's taken away from us? And how can our unquenchable thirst for it explain cults, moral panics, conspiracy theories, the rise of social media and the 'culture wars' of today? On a breathtaking journey through time and culture, The Status Game offers a sweeping rethink of human psychology that will change how you see others - and how you see yourself.

The Status Game

Life Is A Status Game

Conscience Is A Status Game

Happiness Depends On How Many Status Games Are On

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