How and Why We Play Social Status Games - Will Storr

Ali Abdaal 0:00 Hey friends, how's it going? Welcome back to deep dive, what you're about to hear is an interview with wills store, who is the best selling author of this book of this status game. And he's written a bunch of other books, including a book selfie, which is all about like selfie and social media culture and how we're obsessed with ourselves. But this new one is fantastic. It's called the status game. And it's one of my favourite topics is basically about all of the different ways in which practically all human behaviour is ultimately motivated towards seeking and acquiring more social status, we talk about how status is a fundamental part of the human condition and how this has been a thing from like the dawn of time, we talk a little bit about the three different types of status games that we can play in everything that we do. And we talk a little bit about how the pursuit of status is often seen as a negative thing, but it can actually drive us to do bigger and better things with our lives. And we also talk about practical ways to increase one's social status, if you're into that kind of thing, by you know, tactics like warmth and sincerity or sound like tactics, or actually just generally being a decent human being. So yeah, hope you enjoy the discussion that okay, let's talk about let's talk about the status game. How did you come become interested in the topic of the pursuit of social status? Will Storr 1:01 Well, so the heretics and then selfie, and then the science of storytelling, those three books were all about that idea of the brain as a storyteller, they're all pursuing this one idea, which is the brain is, is this delusional machine, which, as I said, before, remixes reality into this heroic story. We're in the middle of the world, the universe, everything revolves around us. We're amazing, you know, as long as we're psychologically healthy, we have all these, you know, creative artists. So I, you know, I started to think, okay, so if that's, if that's what's really going on, if that's the kind of delusion we're in the middle of, that's the kind of lie of the brain, what's the truth of the brain, or what's actually going on, kind of beneath the hood. And so this phrase that I read, I think it was a psychologist, I think Robert Hogan came up with this phrase, that I used it in the selfie and the science of storytelling that our you know, our secret, subconscious drive is to get along, and get ahead. And after that, I always love that, because it's, it feels so simple to understand. And the reason it's those things is because we're tribal, or tribal animal, you know, we're these apes that have mastered the art of cooperative living, you know, we were driven to and so so for those reasons, we have these very strong, subconscious urges to getting together in groups of people who are like minded, and, you know, pursue goals with them, but also compete for status with other members of that group. But also those groups compete for status with rival groups. And so that that's tribal life. That's life in the tribe, you know. That's why we were organised, human life is organised like that, because it was organised like that 20,000 years ago on the African savanna. And, you know, sounds amazing, that's still human life today. You know, those groups are political groups, they're football teams, they're, you know, cults, they're religions, they're corporations that that we, this is what we do. That's human social life is group ish. And it's complete competition. And so so the status game is, is really a book about that get along and get ahead. Now, that's what a game is a game is you get along you, you clump into a game of group that you're playing a game with, and then you you start competing. Ali Abdaal 3:10 Yeah. How did the story kind of come together? Did you start off with the hypothesis that this is the thing? And then find the stories and the examples and stuff to back it up? Or was it more investigative? Like what was what was the approach there? Will Storr 3:21 Yeah, it was. So when I was researching selfie, and selfies about how the West West in the West were very individualistic, and, you know, self obsessed, relatively speaking to the rest of the world. And so it was looking kind of selfie culture, that narcissistic culture. It's a great title, by the way. Yeah, it wasn't my architect. Ali Abdaal 3:41 I remember seeing it like, I think in 2017 or something. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, interesting book. Yeah. Will Storr 3:47 Yeah. Yeah. And, and I interviewed this guy called Professor Bruce Hood is a very well known psychologist at the University of Bristol. And it's in my interview, he said to me, oh, you know, he said, Why do we do the things that we do? Say once you've got enough money to live and survive, and we've got enough money for our family to survive? Everything's just about validation. You didn't use the word status, you use the word validation. Now that's what we write books. That's where we pursue Inspire. I'm a scientist. And when he said that my immediate response was, how come I so cynical, such ridiculous thing to say? And then I just sort of thought about it for another 30 seconds. And I thought, I think he's right. I think he's right, I really do think he's right. And that just really stayed with me. And then I just started researching it. I started really doing looking at the science of kind of status. But then what the lightbulb moment for me was really the game part of it, because if you just say it's all about status, has half the story. The other half is the connection. You know, once you once we've connected is that connecting with other people. So once I've sort of started to realise that that I, one of the lightbulb moments for me was was one of my ghostwriting clients, actually, I need to go with a working class background to be very successful. And he's very, very alpha male, like a You know, powerful, you know, the military background like for middle class, lower middle class, like book geek like me, quite intimidating. And, you know, when I first met him, I was at a meeting a publishing company, I was a bit nervous to be with him because I felt like, as far as he's concerned, I'm this wimp this little nerdy whim, you know, with a little cardigan on. But I kind of felt he was a bit nervous to meet me, he was a bit uncomfortable eating me. And that really made me sort of swipe what was going on there. And it was great, because we were, he was really nice. And I was expecting him to be a bit dismissive of me, they were so nice, you know, and he was really enthusiastic to understand and his whole thing with me was just like, mate, I don't know what you do, but just do what you do. Yeah, just make this a great book. And you know, he'd really trusted me. Yeah, and, and that was the big breakthrough for me. Because, because, because I realised that that we have different ways of measuring status. Like his way of measuring status is with physical strength. Ganter, probably football, like talking about football. That's his criteria for claiming status. And that's where he's proud of his physicality. Whereas my criteria claiming status are things like books you've written and getting nice reviews, and the times are of no, I can paintings on the wall. So those kinds of things. And, and that's when I suddenly realised it's, we're not all competing with each other, we're playing different status games. So when he came around my house to work on my book, and you saw the paintings on the walls and all the books on the shelf, yeah, even with the fact of his incredibly masculine life, he probably would have felt a little bit intimidated and a little bit uncomfortable. Because he's in, he's in a different world now. And his criteria for claiming status suddenly doesn't count. Yeah. And he, you know, and when I go into his world, and I'm meeting with his very, very masculine, terrifying people, I'm like, yeah, it's Yeah, I mean, everyone's really nice. So so, you know, but that that was the breakthrough. Like, we were playing different status games. And the thing to understand is that is that is that we're not all competing with each other. We're all playing little individual games. And each of these games has kind of symbolic ways of claiming status. So you think about monopoly, the way you the way you symbolise status in monopoly is those little plastic houses and hotels and the money. And that's how we play status games. So his symbolic claims to status or his physicality, his history of extreme violence, you know, his success, his huge successes in that physical world. Yeah. And probably very proud of playing I know, you can measure football, or whatever those things are. And mine are completely different. And but, and it was, and it was an understanding that really made me see the world in a different way to understand the status games that we all play and how they drive us and make us kind of different kinds of people. Ali Abdaal 7:52 We're going to take a very quick break to introduce our sponsor, brilliant, brilliant is a fantastic online platform for learning maths, science and computer science with interactive and engaging courses that I've been using for many years. 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So thank you so much brilliant for sponsoring this episode. Yeah. Yeah, as I was listening to the audiobook, I find myself thinking that it is very hard to get away from the fact from the idea that seeking status is bad. And that, you know, similar to with the the stuff they talk about in the elephant in the brain, you know, that that quote from allegedly from JP Morgan, that a man always has two reasons for doing something, the good reason and the real reason. And if I think of like, what's my real reason for being YouTuber for doing this podcast, but one of wanting to write a book, it's like, if I've got to be honest with myself, it is brutally status motivated, and I'm like, shit. This is bad. Like, shouldn't I have a more like, altruistic impact? It's like, yeah, it's kind of nice, like teaching people is kind of fun talking to a camera, but But really, if I was doing it, if I was like, talking to people, and then hitting Delete, rather than hitting publish, suddenly that changes the equation and so okay, what what's going on there? Yeah, but what do you think about that, that like, when, I guess when we think or when we point out the status thing, it's feels like a negative. Will Storr 9:41 It does feel like a negative. And that was a journey I went on, because it isn't, I mean, it can be a negative. There's lots of negative in the book about about the bad sides of the status game, but it's also what was made civilization is what is what makes us good people. And you know that the history of the status game, again goes back to those tribes, the tribes in which we evolved, and so You know, nature has to find a way of incentivizing us to be valuable people, you know, we humans, can be very selfish and self interested and delusional. And we know that all those things. So how do you get these creatures, they have a tendency towards selfishness to be selfless and to work for the benefit of the tribe, where you incentivize them with status, and status is this reward. So So So what happened was, you know, we were playing status games with our reputation, we had a reputation the tribe was, you know, and you'd get a good reputation, you'd go up in the Status game if you prove yourself to be valuable to the tribe. And there's two ways of being valuable to the tribe, you can be virtuous, so you can be generous, courageous in battle, a follower of rules, and an enforcer of rules, or you can be successful. So you can be valuable to try by being a really great honey finder, a really great hunter, a really great storyteller, a really great sorcerer. And so So it's this reward that you get for being valuable for being useful for being kind, generous. And so so that was true 2000 years ago is to still true today. If you think about, like, we're not, we're not used to seeing people like candy. And you know, Malala is superstars or celebrities, but they are, you know, that they are moral superstars. And that's good. It's good. That's, that's good. That's humanity at its best, I think is when we see valuable people like, like Ghandi, or like, the people who invented the AstraZeneca vaccine, you know, and we make celebrities have them, we celebrating the moves, we're making the heroic. And so you know, without that, we wouldn't have civilization, we wouldn't have the moral world as we know it. Because, you know, you can feel it with the moral status thing, when you do something good, unkind, you feel it in your body, you go, you feel up, you literally feel physically up, you know, and when other people find out even a nice thing they go is amazing. And they and that's an automatic response. And that's brilliant is that that's the best of the human animal. So So I do think it's, I completely agree with you, that we that we are used to, we are conditioned to seeing status as a negative thing. And it can be a very negative thing. But it's also the very, very best of who we are as a species. In the book I talk about like things like the origin of the iPhone, for example, in our Steve Jobs, kept meeting this guy from Microsoft at these parties, because his wife was friends with his wife. And this guy will be well, we've solved computing, we're gonna kill Apple, we've got this new touchscreen device with a stylus. And Steve Jobs was just livid. Because because he was like, hey, you know, I didn't talk to me like that. Microsoft solved computing. And he came in and it apparently there was a set of expletives. And he said, right, we're going to show him how it's really done. And it's not started with your finger, make the thing with the finger. And they made it and that was the iPhone and then became the iPad. He started off as the art Yeah. So So you know, that's a great example of somebody very Steve Jobs, very interested in status, unusually, you know, obsessed with status. And, you know, the iPhone for good, for better or for worse, has changed the world. And it began with just somebody feeling a little barbecue in California. Ali Abdaal 13:15 I guess, if we think of our own our own motivations, kind of on an on an individual level, the way I the way I kind of think of it is that there is always some kind of status game that I'm that I'm playing in basically everything I do, but there's nothing I can do about it. And so it's actually kind of fine. And so similar to you know, why why do I go to the gym? Well, I can pretend it's for health reasons. Really. Everyone knows what the whatever the real reason people go to the gym. Yeah, but that's not the end of the world. It's, you know, we don't need to have fully pure altruistic motives for the things we do to still actually be good. Will Storr 13:47 Yes. Right. It's like men's health isn't really a Health magazine. It's a sexy body magazine. Isn't I want to look good naked magazine, you know, and that's, yeah, that's right. And that, yeah. I think the health version of that wouldn't, I don't think we'd celebrate. Yeah, you can't, you can't get away from it. It's in your kind of body. It's in your brain. You know, as soon as you're out. In the world mixing with people. It's automatic. You're judging them. They're judging you. The game is on. Ali Abdaal 14:21 So one thing that they talked about in the book is when status is taken away, that can often be like a really, really terrible thing. I wonder if you can kind of elaborate that on on that a little bit. Will Storr 14:35 So status is this kind of social nutrient, it's like it's an essential kind of thing that we need. We need to feel respected and valued by the people around us. And when we don't we become unwell. We become psychologically unwell. We know become depressed, become stressed, become anxious. We also can become physically unwell when we're kind of repeatedly robbed of status. At its most Extreme, you know, in the book I write about humiliation, humiliation, and humiliation is a we've all been there as it's a horrific kind of experience and humiliation is this is not just that you've been robbed of all your status within a group, you've been robbed of the ability to claim it ever again in the future like you're so it's been it's gone so wrong, yeah, that people are like leave you know anything to do with you anymore and you're kind of forbidden from the group. And that's I mean, you know, that's a fearsome thing it subconsciously that's that's the, you know, in the back in the tribal days, if we, if we were if we were that lacking in status within the group, it would have been probably a death sentence, either were kicked out of the group, and that's a death sentence itself or we were executed execution, capital punishment is thought to have once been a human universal. So so we really fear it. And you know, we need to so we need to datas it's, it's this kind of fundamental, you know, psychological nutrients. And and I think when, in the book I write about people who have been who are kind of humiliated again and again and again and again. And these are the people that become very unwell and often extremely violent in knowing that there's a chapter in the book on mass murderers, you know, serial killers, spree killers, terrorists, honour killers. And humiliation is deeply implicated in all of those phenomena. Ali Abdaal 16:22 Given that it kind of if we, if we accept that we're all sort of playing status games, is there? Is there anything that we can say should do differently as we're going about our lives? In keeping keeping that in the back of our minds? Will Storr 16:37 Yeah, I think I think it's useful to be aware of the game is, you know, when the game is in, in process, it's often very easy to become irritated and frustrated by little slights that people might make to us. And, you know, anybody's seen Curb Your Enthusiasm that's all about a guy who is highly attuned to kind of status slides, in the book are about to study were about orange glasses of orange juice, and this thing if you if you pour lots of lots of oranges for people, but you get slightly less orange juice, and everybody else is really, like, get really upset about it, you know? And that's because it's not, it's not actually just a mouthful of orange juice, you've been rubbed off. Yeah, it's, it's, your brain has gone, it's gone. That's symbolic of your status. So that's how insanely obsessed the brain is, the subconscious brain is with our, our relative status, and we're all used to every day we'd have an experience where we feel a bit slighted. And I think once you understand that, that's just your brain. Being a completely idiot about your status. It's much easier to you don't start feeling the feeling. Yeah, but you can, I think you can separate yourself from the much easier and just almost like a Buddhist look upon yourself and go, Oh, that's my brain being Yeah, a bit. But I think one of the big takeaways for me as well as it is that is that I think we often forget that, you know, we have status to give, like, this prestigious forms of status, virtue and success. There's two forms of prestige. We get them from other people, other people voluntarily give them to us when we do good thing. Yeah. And we so we have status to give like unlimited reserves of status to give other people. And we're often quite bad at giving it we often quite jealously kind of jealously hoard our kind of stores of status, I think. No, I think just life for ourselves would be it gets much better when we're more generous with status. Yeah, you know, even for selfish reason that people want to be around us more if we're giving, if we're giving out that stuff. As long as you're not completely authentic about it. I think there's a risk that you go. It's like Hollywood, and you know, like the LA thing. Oh, my God, you look amazing. Yeah. And nobody believes it. Right. You're saying, you know, as long as it doesn't sort of lapse into that, I think understanding that great gift that you have, yeah, and that you can give it to people and really make their day. Ali Abdaal 18:50 So what does that look like in practice? Like, is it like laughing at someone's joke? Even if it's borderline funny, and oh, Will Storr 18:56 I don't think it's being I don't think I have to be inauthentic about it. I think I think there's always something nice you can find to say about somebody. And yeah, it's just saying it. Yeah, like somebody can go wrong. I was just as like the reason I stopped that was because I was slightly uncomfortable. I was doing interview to promote the status game with this woman and I'm on the radio, she had a really beautiful speaking voice and after the after the interview, I said she's got such a beautiful speaking voice. And I think I made her a bit uncomfortable. I think she thought I was coming on to you gotta be careful about that. I really wasn't, you know, like, I was just trying to be nice, but it's things like that, you know, there's always something nice. Something nice. I mean, I might she might not have I was worried that she thought that it came out bad. But yeah, so as long as as long as it doesn't come off as creepy or sincere. You know, I think that there's always this sort of gifts that we can give other people. Ali Abdaal 19:49 Yeah, that makes total sense. Um, you said in another podcast that you're on I think on Jordan Harbinger show. Yes. He said that. The whole you were talking About this whole idea of when people say, Oh, I don't care what people think of me. Yeah, I wonder if we can like elaborate on that a little bit. What's What's the deal with that we are going to take a little quick break from the podcast introduce the sponsor of this podcast, which is curiosity stream. If you haven't heard by now, curiosity streams is the world's leading documentary streaming subscription platform, founded by John Hendricks is the founder of the Discovery Channel. And on Curiosity stream, they've got hundreds of really high quality high budget documentaries, covering all sorts of things from science and technology to history and ancient civilizations to food and medicine and meditation. And like all of the stuff in between Now the really cool thing about curiosity stream is that they support independent creators. 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You know, we're a social animal that we are wired, you know, to our core to care about what other people think of us. It's in the human machine is part of our human nature to care about what other people think of us. And I think, as I said before, it always makes me laugh when people say that because they were set in a certain way. I don't care what people think of me. Yeah. And they're like, you're just shut? You know, that's just another way of claiming status, you're claiming that you're better than everybody else. Yeah. Like, you know, it's so ironic, cuz it's obviously very important to them, that other people think that they don't care what other people think about them. So it's just, you know, it's just, it's just, it's just never true. I think if it is true, if it ever was true about somebody that that's going to be a person who is extremely badly, socially adjusted, and will likely end up either in prison or in some sort of institution, you know, if you don't care what other people think about you, you're you're not going to be a functional person. Yeah. Ali Abdaal 22:44 So there was an interesting chapter, we talked about sort of the, the sort of the, the real life cues that we give off when we are higher status or lower status. And I wonder, like, often, you know, we did a survey for the podcast, and people said that they like getting actionable tips that they can apply in their work life. Yeah, I was kind of thinking about like, Are there actionable tips that you can apply in your work life? For example, knowing knowing that the status game exists? In every, every relationship you're gonna have at work, for example? Will Storr 23:13 Yeah I think so. You know, one of the things I think is really important is is in the business context, is to always have the understanding that you're never the hero in other people's stories. They're always the hero, they're always the one on this great pursuit of status, which their brain remixes as this kind of heroic, you know, pursuit. And so it's much better in a business context to come across as the kind of like it, you're a helpful person in their story. Yeah. So there's a story scholar, who I think was really smart guy called Christopher Booker, who wrote a book called The seven basic plots, a huge like, 2000 word, 2000 page thing, I think, is a huge tome. But but he writes about this archetypal figure in storage with a light figure. And the exact and the light figure is like, the light doesn't light. Yeah, exactly. The light figure and the light figures come into the story. And they're like, the ghosts in the Christmas Carol. Yeah, that their job is there to help Scrooge become heroic to see the Earth do. And so I think in the business context, if you go in there boast boasting, I'm amazing. Want to work with me? I'm fantastic. You're going to put people off because you're not the hero. They're the hero. Yeah. So you're much better off being the light figure. And your story is, this is I'm going to help you gain status. I'm going to do these things to help you. And so that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, is about impression management. So there's lots of sciences looked at looked at how do we how socially do we give a good impression to other to other people. And for a long time? They talked about two domains warmth and competence. And more recently, it's been argued that there's a there should be a third domain that is that which is morality. And when I was reading about this, it really struck me because in the book I write about this three status games as dominance, which is the aggressive animalistic status game There's virtue in their success. And those three, they call them warmth, competence and morality, but I call it warmth, competence, and sincerity. Okay, you map on perfectly to those three status games. Yeah. So I don't I don't know. But I don't think that's a coincidence. You know, I think that that is interesting that those map onto those three status games so well, and the logic is, when you approach somebody with warmth, what you're subconsciously signalling to that person is that I'm not going to compete for status for dominance with you're not going to threaten you, I'm not going to coerce you, I'm not going to use physical violence against you, you know, so we're going to have a healthy, normal, aggressive status game. When you're signalling with sincerity. You're saying I'm going to play a good virtue game with you, which is I'm going to be in a morally respectable, that does not mean I'm going to let the suck up to you, I'm going to give you bullshit, I'm going to tell you the truth. And when I'm not happy, I'm going to tell you I'm not happy. So I'm going to be sincere, you know, always going to be honest with you. And then finally, competence. If you if you come across as a competent person, you are, you're signalling, not only am I going to be useful to work out. Not only am I going to be useful to our, our, our group, our game, but you know, you also might learn some stuff from me. So there are there are things that I can do. And if you learn how to do that, for me, you're also going to raise in status. Yeah. So I think if you if you can, it's obviously easier said than done. But if you can, if you can manifest in those three ways, warmth, sincerity and competence, it's very hard to know how you're going to fail in life. You know, and you know, you can't just come across in those ways. You've got to actually live those ideals. You've got to be sincere. You've got to be non aggressive. Yeah. And you've got to be competent. You've got to be good at your you know, you got to be good at the thing that you're doing. So yeah, that I think those that sort of have a practical Ali Abdaal 26:46 Oh, so there's this. It's a lawyer show. And this is guy, Harvey Spectre. He's like the Big Shot lawyer. And the way he comes across to his clients is very warm, sincere and, and competent. Okay. When he comes across to his, his opposition is very, like dominant, like this full on alpha male, like that kind of stuff going on. Yeah. Do you think in non work context, like in social contexts, the stress, it strikes me that maybe the competence matters less than it's actually about warmth? And sincerity? Will Storr 27:18 Yeah, I think, you know, there is all the those two things going on connection and status getting along and getting ahead. And I think when it comes to connection, belongingness warmth and sincerity are obviously really important. Yeah. And yeah, I was thinking anything more important. I mean, you know, you know, yeah, virtue, I guess, matters for status and for connection. Yeah. But but but I think yes, but status, but competencies is very much a kind of status. Yeah, you're attracted to competent people, because you're impressed by them, not because you're you feel like you want to. Ali Abdaal 27:55 Yeah, I remember I was reading Happy by Darren Brown. He talks about stoicism and stuff. And one of the lines that really stuck with me and from that book was that we think people are attracted or people, we we sometimes think people are attracted to competence, but in fact, they're attracted to warmth. And like, I think, definitely, when I was younger, I thought the way to make friends was to signal how competent I was, like a, b, and c. And then over time, I realised that actually, no one actually cares. You know, Friends context, yeah, in a business networking type. Fine, but in a friend's context, actually wanting sincerity. Will Storr 28:30 Yeah, they I think I think that's true. I think that's true. But I also think there's a I don't think I think you can get school people who want to be friends with the best footballer, you know, so that element I do that there is that stuff going on as well. I don't think it's true to say completely like that, that we're not we don't want to be friends with competent people because I don't I don't know people people are really able are very attractive people. They suck in people around them. There's a there's a there's a book called The secret of our success by Joseph Henrich, which is really good writing about that about how attractive competencies to other people and, you know, I wonder if there's a gender difference there too. I don't know. Whether it's more of a kind of male thing. I don't know. Ali Abdaal 29:15 Oh, on that note, are there any research. Did you notice any gender differences in how the different genders compete for status? Will Storr 29:20 The the I tried to get away from gender a little bit because it's dangerous. It's a dangerous area. Yeah. I kept I kept it on not quite safe ground but safe in terms of the of the research. And so so the research on this is so solid, it's basically in arguable, like it's so well evidenced. And so all over the world that there is a generalised and this report says generally it's not every woman is different from every man in this way. It's just a generalisation. But generally speaking, there are difference in interests in the kind of games that we play. So women tend to be more interested in people and men tend to be more interested in interested in things. So if you got 100 You know, people 51 or 52 men together as a step forward, those who are interested in tractors, the chances are that more men than women would step forward. And you know, what that means is that if you're in a tractor, if you've got a tractor factory is more men than women working there and more men at the top of the hierarchy, and it's not going to be because of sexism is because of predictable differences in interest. So I thought, so that's, that's as far as I went with, with gender in the book, because it's so well evidenced that like, it's, it's so clear that difference and it's so universal. The question is whether that's genetic, whether it's actually in our genes, or whether it's socialisation, but because it's universal, and I'm dubious, that it's completely socialisation, like if it was socialisation cultures are so different around the world, you'd expect quite a lot of variety expect to find this culture over here. Where it where they were, you know, the computer engineers, mostly when and yeah, yeah. You know, so So you know, that there was there. Yeah. So it's that that is very well evidence that so and I think that's, that's a mistake that's often made in the culture where you get certain industries that are male dominated, and some of the female like, you know, teaching nursing female dominated, and and there's often a kind of patriarchy argument, like an argument from conspiracy. overlaid on top of that. And often, it that's not really what's going on. It's just it's just a result of how, generally speaking, the injustice in that for me is that often those that those people centred industries that don't pay you? Well, compared to the things versus industries, and that's not that's the thing. That's not fair. Yeah, yeah. But how you fix that? Who knows? Ali Abdaal 31:49 On the topic, did you did you come across any race differences and how the status game is played at all? Will Storr 31:55 No, no, no, I'd be very sceptical. Someone who's argued that there any race differences? I think there are cultural differences. Yeah, yeah. So there are big cultural differences that the main one that we know about academically is east versus West. So West, we're individualist and so we see status pursuit more is much more about the individual needs about me and my achievements. And so it's so you know, we are kind of self aggrandizing. We know we're kind of relatively show off a rose in the east, that scene is very taboo. And East is much more communitarian cultures can Confucian versus Aristotle in a way, and that Confucian communitarian culture is much more about the group. And status view is much more about the group serving the group. And so how that how that manifests in day to day life, there was a very interesting paper that I write about in the book, by I think it was a Japanese anthropologist writes about face the concept of face. Yeah. And, and he said, is fascinating. He said that, in Japan, if an individual is picked out, one member of a group is picked up for individual praise. That seems extremely shameful, and embarrassing, because because what you've done is you've made everybody else look worse in the group. And so what they'll do that person usually is, they'll deliberately do a really terrible job at work, you know, for the next days or weeks, in order to be the worst in the group to kind of re rebalance the group, you know, so that's completely the opposite in the West, where it's like, I'm the best, you guys. That's kind of the other thing that we do. So so that's a huge cultural difference. And in, you know, I wrote about that in selfie. Susan Cain also writes about this in her book, quiet. And in the book, she writes about how in China, shyness is seen as a leadership quality, which again, is completely different way that we experienced the status game in the West, it's more about confidence, personal confidence here, but you know, whereas people will shine into high status in China, so So definitely, so no race differences, but certainly lots and lots of cultural differences. Ali Abdaal 33:57 The whole status thing is quickly been around for a very long time. But then you add the internet, and you add social media onto this thing. What are the kind of input implications? Will Storr 34:09 Well social media is just one huge status game? If you think about those three, those three games, dominance, virtue and success? Yeah, that's what social media is. It's like there's people doing dominance. You know, being aggressive to each other, you know, bullying each other Doxxing and cancelling and all that stuff. There's virtue people signalling, oh, I think this is the talk about politics is all about virtue stuff. This is this person's bad, this person's good. This law is bad. This law is good. You know, all that stuff. And there's also success games, look at my amazing gym body, look at my healthy breakfast, look at my tan knees in the Maldives. You know? So that and that, that, that sports, social media is its dominance, virtue and success. And so you know, one of the things also writes about in selfies this is this idea we have that, you know, these are kind of inventions of Silicon Valley and kind of created these things which have like, distorted the world and made us but I think I don't think that's how it works, you know, in selfie right about how the the selfie camera was invented as a business tool for doing you know, conferences and it was called the front facing camera when it was launched and then it was asked the people that decided to do selfies. And then the tech companies went, Okay, that's what you want to do with him, that his Instagram and he's, you know, he's you know, it's a you know, Twitter wasn't Twitter as we know, when it launched it was a free SMS text message service, you know, so, so what you've got these technologies to kind of working out by trial and instinct, what people want, and giving it to them, and what people want a status games and that's what Twitter is, that's what Instagram is, that's what tick tock is. And in the book, you know, I write about it, I call that the social media a slot machine for, for status. And I think he's quite well known by people who are interested in sort of her kind of behind the scenes interest in social media over the BJ Fogg behaviour model, which is that idea is kind of evil genius, who he wrote this book in 2003 predicting the iPhone, just extraordinary, you know, writing about this young girl who has this device that's about the size of a pack of cards and a whole life's on it. And maybe like you basically for saw the thing in 2003 is unbelievable. Not only that, if you see the iPhone, or the smartphone, he he has like this model of how to make it basically, not addictive or get like a compulsive like to to return but to make it so it was hard to put down. And, and what he wrote was that what you want to make is it's you know, it gives you rewards, and but the rewards are unpredictable. Yeah. So like a slot machine, you put that you don't know what's going to happen, you're going to get the money, you're not going to get the money. And so when it when it's unpredictable, you can't stop looking at it. And so that's quite well known. But I think the missing piece for me is that is what you're gambling with. And what you're gambling with is status. That's exactly what you're gambling with. Whenever you make a contribution social media, whether it's a comment on Twitter, or a photo on Instagram, or whatever, or something on LinkedIn about your new project. Ali Abdaal 37:04 Yeah, you always want to refresh and be like how many likes? Will Storr 37:05 Exactly. He's like, how's it done? How's it done? And you can go up, you can go down, you know, and that's what's compulsive about it. So yeah, that that's that and I think that's why social media is universally, like it's gone around the world. It's not just a Western things all around the world. And because it status status is a universally, necessary is part of the human condition. It's part of it's part of what we are as a species. So it's, it's addictive. Ali Abdaal 37:32 Yeah, yeah, I guess one of the, one of the main takeaways that I took, because I'm as as as I read stuff like this, I'm always kind of interest like, Yeah, that's cool kind of society level in terms of understanding stuff. But is there something that I can do myself to kind of apply this knowledge in an interesting way? Yeah. And I often think about status when it comes to when it when it comes to how I feel about like my own career and stuff, all the way back back in the day where my my peer group was medical students and doctors, there was a status game going on for who's getting the highest grades, who was the best looking, who was the best at sports, etc, there were all these different kinds of fields of status game being being played. But because I was doing the YouTube stuff, and business stuff at university, I'd sort of opted out of the, the status games that everyone else was playing, and was doing very well on this other thing, which, to me, what, what, yeah, I'm high status, because I'm the only one who's doing this doing this business stuff. And then, over time, as you know, as it was working for two years, as a doctor, I was one of the probably most successful YouTubers in that sphere, very easy to win that status game. Now that I am not a doctor anymore, I'm like, shit, like now the status game that I sort of find myself playing is with all of the other YouTubers. Yeah, of which there are loads of them who are more successful than I am. And so I find myself doing this weird thing where all for example, where, like, I speak a lot of startup founders, and startup founders make like stupid amounts of money, even more stupid amounts than YouTubers make, yes. This guy's like, you know, having having 2 million subscribers is cool. This guy's got 100 million pound business. And because the peer group, the comparison group has changed the way that I personally feel about my own accomplishments. And my own level of status is always kind of in flux based on who I'm speaking to, and all this kind of stuff. But when I recognise this, I kind of take take a step back, try to do that kind of thing of like, no, hang on, this is just my brain going wild because of the status stuff. I actually don't need to think this way. I can actually just try and focus on being grateful for what I have, and trying to opt out of the status game as much as possible, knowing that it's never really going to be fully possible because we're all human at the end of the day, but it is at least something to aspire to, I think. Will Storr 39:40 I think it's really valuable to understand the game that we're all playing. And then once you do, you can, yeah, you can kind of think yourself, you can sort of foster more kind of healthy habits, I think in that way and yeah, stuff. I mean, you know, the game that you're playing now as it as a YouTuber is hard, you know, is a tough one. And but but but as I said before, I think the trick is knowing this isn't the last game you're going to be playing and this is gonna have a stepping stone is a stepping stone. So yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. Ali Abdaal 40:16 Nice. Um, I posted on Instagram asking if anyone has questions for you. And so we have a bunch of a bunch of questions that people have asked through through Twitter and through Instagram. So, uh, Sarah Coway asks, How does status actually lead to longevity if it doesn't lead to happiness? She's getting some kind of link between status and longevity? Will Storr 40:38 Well there's a famous set of studies called The WhiteHall studies. There's the awkward Dr. Michael Marmot, which looked at the civils, the British civil service, which huge, huge organisation very stratified. And what he found was that the higher up the hierarchy, the better your health outcomes, and the lower your mortality. And you know, and so, you might think, okay, that's because the richer you are, the more you're eating salad and having a personal trainer. But that wasn't true, he was separate from from kind of lifestyle and all that stuff. And what he found was that that, you know, if the person at the very top of that hierarchy smoked, and the person one beneath that person also smoked, that one person believes were more likely to get sick as a result of their smoking than the one at the top. So so it was incredibly the brains incredibly sensitive to to our level of relative status, we sit in our status games of life. And they found that this is true for men and for women. And the health differentials were really quite extraordinary that they even found it in the virtue conditions with baboons. So they Cleese baboons, his poor plenty baboons in a lab, and they fed them a really terrible diet, like, you know, high calorie, crisps away, was pretty delicious, very, you know, really bad for them. And, and they found that the same thing was true was true for baboons, as was in social service was that the lower you would on the hierarchy, the more likely they were to get sick as a result of their bad diets. And then they change the hierarchy. They I don't know how they did it. But they conspired to change the hierarchy, the baboon troop, and the health outcomes changed in lockstep. So, so that's this extraordinary evidence that they mama causes the status syndrome, that and so you know, there's kind of speculative as to why that's true. But there's a field called Social genomic, so quite a new field called Social genomics. And social genomics is the science of how our social world impact the function of our genes. And he interviewed a guy called presser Steve Cole out in University of California, who's an expert in social dynamics. And in he he thinks it's to do with inflammation, which you obviously know all about as a medic, the idea that, that if we kind of lower and lower on the totem pole, the body's preparing you for attack and for trouble and for crisis, and we're not designed to be in information for a long period of time. And we are just being praised for a short bit of time. And if we and it also changes our antiviral response, so so so that that's what he thinks is, that's what they think is going on. So I wouldn't so I guess it wouldn't quite be true to say that having high status gets you longevity, it's probably more accurate to say that having started high status protects you from getting AI that's kind of the same thing. Yeah, but it's a pretty slightly more accurate to say like, yes, no, like a long line. We're kind of is a long life, though. But it basically it's like a it's more of a like a protective thing against against illness. Ali Abdaal 43:37 Good stuff. We have a question from Jamie. Donal, I guess, I guess we've sort of covered to this. Does everyone see status in the same way? I might not see something as high status that another person does. Will Storr 43:47 Yeah, no, they don't know. So a classic example would be cars. You know, if you're if you're a middle class person, driving a shiny Audi or shiny BMW, or you know, like a whatever, it is a high status thing. But if you're above that in the social classes, and an Aristo that seems a low status and and what then you know, I live in the country, the the, the proper posture used to drive around a nukkad old, you know, Landrover covered in dog hair in mud. And they'll actively look down is the same as you know, like, you might get somebody who's in the wellness world, for example, who drives a battered old car. And but that's their status symbol that's there. They're showing the game that they're, you know, that they're, you know, we all play different status games, and we all have different criteria for claiming status. And you know, yeah, yeah, I grew up with a graph. When I've told when I was in the record shop, I lived with a monitor, I really had kind of, I was a lodger, and another guy living in the house was Tim. He was a hippie, and he was in a very sort of anti materialistic and in his head, he wasn't playing the status game because he didn't care about positions and all that stuff. But of course, he was just that's his. That's his way of that's his criteria for claiming status looking down his nose. The people who wanted to buy big Telly is small teleios is. Ali Abdaal 45:06 Nice. So we've got a question from Kinga to underscore cool, who says How are children attracted to status as they grow up? Will Storr 45:13 That's a great question. Well, they it's almost immediate. And so I mentioned Bruce earlier, who's the guy that got me thinking about this in the first place. And he's published a very interesting book called possession, which is about the psychology of possessions. And he writes about kids who fight over toys. And so you know, toys as a status symbol there isn't they want the toy is not because they want the toy. It's because we're who has the toys on top. So that's that, that's how it got that that's the kind of one example of very early manifestation of the status game in kids. And, and so, you know, during childhood, those are the kinds of basic games we're playing. And, you know, we're demanding states, we're crying and you know, getting upset when we don't get the toy. And then what happens in earlier lessons is our brains begin to change in a very specific way. And they change such that we become much more interested in social status in the sense of what our peer groups think of us as much as much less about what we've got, I want I want I want, it's much more about what other people think about me. And so that's why, you know, teenagers are this really weird combination of risk takers, that drive too fast, and historically, they would smoke and drink, but I think the current generation got so much we did, you know, risk takers, but they're also really like self conscious and get really embarrassed, as opposed to highly, highly attuned to status. So the risk taking is all about Look at me, and, and the high self consciousness is all about, it's just that huge, sudden awareness that you're being judged by everybody that's looking at you. And that's because the brain is suddenly changed, and it's making you it's kind of making you an adult, you'll be cutting your playing adult status games. Yeah. And that's why peer group is so important. You know why? That's why parents have this experience of losing their children, adolescents, they become other people. And a peer group becomes much more important than the childhood than the parents, because the peer group is this is a status game. It's the first proper status that they play. Ali Abdaal 47:09 And I guess that need for that, that profound sensitivity to status, I guess that mellows out a bit as we get older. Will Storr 47:15 That's a really interesting question. So we definitely highly attuned to that stuff in adolescence, we know acutely in June, and we definitely mellow out. I couldn't, I'm sure there might be data out there. But I didn't come across any data that looked at our need for status across the lifespan. The reason I was interested in that, apart from adolescence, when there were there's lots of work about how a brain change in adolescence, which maps on to the status game idea. The reason I was interested in is because it seems to me that when we hit 6070, we do become a lot less interested in status. And I think possibly a lot happier, as a result, you know, but I couldn't find what I was interested in, in the science of retirement, like what happens that we happier in retirement or not. But it's really mixed. It's really mixed. The cycles, really, some people are happier, some people aren't. And a lot of it depends on whether they chose to retire or not. But I couldn't find any clear signal in that. But so so I don't know the answer to the question. But I, I have a strong suspicion that our our need for status, kind of is very high in our teens and 20s. Maybe you kind of plateaus. I kind of hope it's the 50s 60s 70s I hope it does, because it's exhausting. Ali Abdaal 48:30 I wonder is the it evolutionarily is the pursuit of status, like a sort of survival reproduction type thing? Will Storr 48:38 Yeah, it's completely connected surrounding reproduction, because it's some in the groups in which we evolved, the more status you you got, yeah, the more food you got, the better food you got, the safer your sleeping sites, the greater your choice of access to your choice of mates, the better your children were looked after. So it's, it's deeply deeply implicated in survival and reproduction. Basically, the more status we got, the better able we were to survive and reproduce. So that's why it's very basic heuristic in the brain. Go for status. Yeah. Because if you go for status, everything else gets better. And that's why it's so fundamental. That's why it's such an obsession because it is a it's a proxy for survival and reproduction. Nice. Ali Abdaal 49:15 So we've got a maximum mil xn axon who said asks, Is virtue signalling disingenuous? Will Storr 49:22 No virtue signalling everybody is virtue signalling, we all do virtue signalling, we will do success, the length of your dominance signalling, you know, when when we're crossed with somebody, you know, so it's a no it's not it's, I think it's one of those things like echo chambers. So we've got a new like fashionable phrase was something that's always existed. You know, echo chambers, we always go in to have group groups of like minded people who see the world in similar ways and come together with people who share our story of the world. And, you know, we would there wouldn't be virtue without virtue signalling, because if you don't signal it, you don't get the rewards of the virtue which is people thinking. Ali Abdaal 50:00 I suppose even like saying please and thank you is virtual signalling Will Storr 50:04 complaining about signalling is virtually. Ali Abdaal 50:10 Nice. We've got a question from Ella Louise. Oh, interesting. How would you recommend to dealing with someone who tries to humiliate you in the workplace without turning to gossip to make yourself feel better, specifically, when they're a manager would therefore have higher status than you do? Will Storr 50:23 This is a question that sounds like it's got some. Yeah. Ali Abdaal 50:27 What else has been going through? Will Storr 50:28 Yes. Well, that's really hard. I mean, you know, I think I think if somebody is humiliating you in the workplace that you should never humiliate people, you know, it's an awful thing to do. And it's also completely counterproductive. Because when you humiliate people, you make an enemy. And you don't, you know, you don't want to go through life making enemies. How do you deal with it? You know, in my experience, people like that, that, if you find you're not getting on with them, what you generally find is that other people don't like them either. And, and if you kind of tap that a bit, you'll find out that other people don't like them. How do you deal with it without without without gossiping, is really hard, because gossip is another one of those things that has a bad rap, like a social tool, isn't it, but it is so diverse. So it's how societies function. So you know, if you say that completely, literally, you would say, you can't tell anybody about it ever, which you're not going to fix. The only way you can fix it is by I mean, so the way to fix it, were by going up to that person, they're actually sitting down with him and saying, Look, I'm fine. Yeah, I'm finding it humiliating, that you're talking to me. And if that doesn't work, I would just, you know, you'd hate you have to sort of report them because you can't you can't go through your work, work. Your Christian life being humiliated. It's, it's an awful thing to be put through, there's no excuse for it. I don't think Ali Abdaal 51:49 Yeah, yeah. And I think like, speak, speaking to that point that like, everyone wants to be the good guy in their own life story. If I as a manager, if every one of my team members come up to me and said that my actions have made them feel humiliated. There is no way that can make me feel like a good guy. So I'm like, Oh, my God. Yeah. Something. Yeah, like, and I find it anytime I've been in that position. That has been what's happened? Yeah. When it's when I've been speaking to a manager or thing or things like that. So yeah, I think often there's just a case of open and honest communication. Yeah. And we hope that people have sufficient like Goodwill and like niceness and stuff to actually, Will Storr 52:20 that's right. I think that's exactly right. He says sincerity. One of the best things a boss ever said to me, was when I was when I was a Features Editor. So I was going to have a management position, if you took me to one side, and he said, keep the emotion out of it. You know, you can talk to people and tell people things are wrong. But you get too emotional. And when you get emotional, people get upset. And I thought that was such great advice. Like I was so thankful that he told me that. And so I think when you are having those difficult conversations at work, keep the emotion out of it. So he will go to that boss and say, you know, when you treat me like this, I feel really humiliated. But you don't you're not angry. You don't confront them in that way. If you're calm and not emotional about it, I think it's got a much greater chance of having success, because they're not feeling like it's a dominance based status challenge. Yeah, yeah, Ali Abdaal 53:06 absolutely. Okay. Vith turn eigenen asks, Can you trick yourself into looking more positively at yourself? By implying online that you have a lot? I guess, like fronting online to feel better about yourself. Is sorry, can you say? Can you I guess the question is, can you trick your brain into having higher self esteem by kind of implying on the internet that you have a lot? A lot, I Will Storr 53:35 do think it's a good idea. I think that's a bad idea. Because you've got to feel authentic. I mean, there's the whole history of the self esteem movement in America, where it came out, and he went all across the West, and much of the world really, and that was his idea. I wrote about in my book selfie, that if you if you do that, if you if you love yourself and boost yourself and tell it Tell, tell everyone tell the world you're amazing. You'll just become amazing and every will believe in it'll be fantastic. And it isn't true like that. That's that's that's that's a that's a one way street to narcissism, you know, so if you if you want to get status, that's not actually connected to anything real. That's what narcissists. Do. They just say I deserve high status, and you will treat me as high status. And that is that and people don't like those people. Ali Abdaal 54:22 Yeah. Like we were very attuned to overt displays of status. Yeah, we don't like it at all. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I guess this whole like industry of like signalling status without signalling status? Yeah. has sprung up because no one's actually gonna tolerate me like I am high status. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, just a bunch of rapid fire questions. In the podcast with what advice would you give to your younger self stop worrying about everything? Nice. Who's had the biggest influence in your career? Will Storr 54:48 The biggest thing I would say the biggest impact on my career would be my agent. And it's a boring answer, but my agent will Yeah, yeah. I mean, having a good agent just choose a transformative for it for your for Mike has been my friend. Miercurea so one tip for someone looking for success, just competence. You know, what is that that sincerity in the competence? I think it's competence. But it's also under understanding that I think one of the things that I learned being a Features Editor was, you know, when I came to work at Arena, I wanted to bring all these great writers from loaded and start using because they were great writers. Yeah, but they were just obnoxious. Right? And you know, and so no matter how they said, they did really good work, but they just made my life miserable, because they were just so obnoxious. Like one guy submitted an interview without deck with no punctuation in it. Like what a dick move, like you like you say so. So so like, it's and that taught me a lesson was that you could be unbelievably good at your job. Yeah, but if you're a dick, yeah, it doesn't matter. So yeah, so be good. Yeah, Dick. No. Yeah. Ali Abdaal 55:50 I guess like a competent one for 3070. Yeah, yeah. Um, what does the first hour of your day look? Like? Will Storr 55:56 I said, the first half of my day, I've got like a secret Twitter. Oh, I've got I've got a Twitter that I use to promote things. Yeah. And I've got a secret Twitter which is locked down at an egghead, which is the people who actually want to read their tweets. There's not many people on it, but I spend the first hour a day go like reading like my real like, my personal Twitter with it with some coffee. Yeah. Yeah. What material item could you not live without? I say what one is I can't live without Yeah. There's a hot hot chocolate maker because I don't drink alcohol anymore. There's a there's a hot chocolate maker. There's a company called Noops. Okay, kn O P S, right? They do unbelievable hot chocolate. Like it will blow your mind. Okay, and they sell this hot chocolate machine that makes these hot chocolates at home cost about 80 quid I couldn't live without that thick. Yeah, yeah, they're they're incredible. Yeah, they make the it's just unbelievable. I didn't know how chocolate machines existed. Yeah, yeah, it. You put these like, it's not like powder. It's like little pellets of chocolate. And it heats them. It heats the milk and whisks one at the same time. Unbelievable. Ali Abdaal 57:05 What books what book other than your own? Would you recommend to anyone? Would I recommend Will Storr 57:09 to anyone? So I really like this book. You could do anything you want with your life Oh, Raoul moat by a guy called Andrew Hankinson. So he I really like Andrew. He's um, he's a very, very creative nonfiction writer. So very experimental. And so this book, he managed to get access to all round, it was a spree killer. It managed to get access to all these kind of personal documents and any sort of recreated his life story, just using his kind of personal documents. He's kind of psychiatric reports and stuff. So it's a really fabulous book. So I'd recommend that to anybody. Ali Abdaal 57:42 What quote or mantra do you live by? Will Storr 57:45 Oh, that's a really good question. The quote or mantra I live by is you could never expect 100% life if you get a 51. You've won. No day. You can never expect 100% day if you get a 51 You've won. Charles McCaskey said that thing that's a really good, it's a good way to live your life if you get a 51 you have one. Ali Abdaal 58:05 Nice, yeah. And finally, journey or destination. Journey every time. Nice. Love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Links to all of the books and your socials and all the things will be in the video description or in the show notes wherever people are watching this. Check out the book. It's very good an audiobook on audiobook. This looks quite intimidating in real life. But it's on audiobook I promise. It's. It's January. Very interesting. So thank you so much for coming on. Will Storr 58:27 Thanks for having me. It's been a great conversation. Thank you. Ali Abdaal 58:29 Alrighty. All right. So that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast can be linked down in the video description or in the show notes depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform and do please leave us a review on the iTunes store it really helps other people discover the podcast or if you're watching this in full HD or 4k on YouTube then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode that'd be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Do hit the subscribe button if you don't already and I'll see you next time. Unknown Speaker 59:00 Bye bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai