OnStatus

Quora Answer : Is status zero-sum?

May 2, 2011

I suspect the term "status" is vague and needs to be drilled down into further.

We clearly see animal species that seem to compete for status or position in "dominance hierarchies". And for them, position in the hierarchy guarantees access to scarce resources such as food and mates. Hence, to the extent that the kind of status we're talking about is like this biological notion, then yes, it certainly is zero sum because the rewards are, themselves, scarce.

The most depressing thing I read recently is this story ( http://www.economist.com/node/18483423 , hope it doesn't go behind a firewall) which documents some experimental psychologists who found that people were more likely to co-operate in non zero-sum social games with those who appeared to be higher status (were wearing expensive clothes).

That's a horrific discovery if it's a) true, and b) we can't somehow change ourselves to overcome this tendency. It means that even when we construct non-zero-sum situations, our brains still think of status as a zero-sum competition.