This is the 4th lecture of [[Rob Henderson]]'s [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] from [[Peterson Academy]]. This is about the psychology of social comparison. An interesting compliment to all this would be Rene Girard's Mimetic Theory. >[!quote] Do you not think it is a matter for sorrow that while Alexander [the Great] at my age was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success? —Julius Caesar --- ## Social Comparison Orientation Scale These are scored on a scale from 0 to 7 from "Extremely Disagree" to "Extremely Agree," some examples are: - "I often compare myself with others with respect to what I have accomplished in life." - "I often compare how I'm doing socially, the social skills and popularity with other people." ### Subjective vs Objective Rewards A: "I get two weeks of holiday, my coworkers gets one week" vs B:"I get four weeks of holiday, my coworker gets eight" People who choose A score high on social comparison orientation, as well as psychopathy, utilitarian reasoning, narcissism, fear of failure, interest in status displays, fear of missing out, malicious and benign envy. #### Development psychology variation A: "I get 7 candies, the other person gets 0." B: "We both get 8 candies." Children between 0-7 tend to pick A. It is only until after 9 that children lean more towards B as they start caring about their social image, hence care about fairness and equality. --- ## Envy Envy is defined as the emotional consequence of upward social comparison. Researchers quoted explaining: "envy is born out of the perceived danger to lose respect and social influence in the eyes of others. Envy's function may be to foster the motivations to regain status or harm the superior position of others." There are two kinds of envy: benign envy and malicious envy. ### Benign Envy The goal of benign envy is to improve yourself. It is not necessarily a negative emotion. It stirs up a longing for self-improvement. Closer or equivalent to admiration. ### Malicious Envy The goal of malicious envy is to tear somebody else down. This invokes hostile thoughts and intentions to sabotage or subvert another person's successes or goods in general—not restricted to material ones. People who score high on malicious envy are more likely to agree to coercive distribution of resources. >[!quote] It is the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered. —Aeschylus >[!quote] Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little —Gore Vidal ### Test for Envy Arthur Schopenhauer has this idea that you can test for other people's envy by observing their facial expressions when you tell them a piece of good news, and a piece of bad news about yourself. Their face will show a brief moment of envy in the former, but a moment of joy or Schadenfreude in the latter. ### Relation to Age Younger people score higher on the dispositional envy scale, meaning younger people on average experience more dispositional envy in their everyday lives compared to older people. --- ### Tall Puppy Syndrome People rising too high in status will be resented for, criticized for, and attract people's attempts to sabotage or undercut. It's a formal name for the idea that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, or the metaphor of the crab that climbs up will be pulled down, or the tallest grass gets cut. >[!quote] It takes great talent and skill to conceal one's talent and skill. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld ### Jante Law These fictional laws are from Denmark. The 10 laws are: 1. You're not to think _you_ are anything special. 2. You're not to think _you_ are as good as _we_ are. 3. You're not to think _you_ are smarter than _we_ are. 4. You're not to imagine yourself better than _we_ are. 5. You're not to think _you_ know more than _we_ do. 6. You're not to think _you_ are more important than _we_ are. 7. You're not to think _you_ are good at anything. 8. You're not to laugh at _us_. 9. You're not to think anyone cares about _you_. 10. You're not to think _you_ can teach _us_ anything. --- ## Status Leveling Hunter gatherer societies, as documented in the book Hierarchies in the Forest by Christopher Boehm, have this practice of arrow swapping where the men take turns taking the credit for bringing back meat, regardless of who actually killed the animal. They take turns in handing out that meat, which is considered a prestigious act. People of inferior status (hunting ability) would mock or undercut the superior one, not giving credit or downplaying his worth to prevent him from boasting. People of superior status would exhibit self-effacing behavior, especially in situations that draw attention. ### Evil Eye In small scale societies, there is this common belief termed the evil eye which states that an individual has the power to cause harm to another by simply looking at or praising their property. This is connected to envy. These communities also make the connection between the evil eye and property damage, or sickness leading to accusations or witchcraft and curses. To defend against the evil eye, people in these communities tend to conceal their wealth and property, and for physically attractive traits, they resort to temporary disfigurement like such as piercings or body paint. >[!quote] The man who has had large and sudden success will realize envy makes it difficult for others to share in his joy. The successful man will mute his trumpeting of his good fortune. He will affect humility, probably unsuccessfully, but he will at least try. —Adam Smith >[!quote] Never outshine the master. —Robert Greene --- ## Nature Envy seems to be natural and universal. ### Naturalistic fallacy It is fallacious to think that everything natural is necessarily good. Apart from that, societies constraints on our own nature can also be called nature. Not everything natural is everything that should be. **Connections:** [[Jordan Peterson]] would describing this naturalistic fallacy as mistaking nature for the benevolent mother and forgetting the devouring mother, which leads to the formation of an ideology stemming from a partial, incomplete understanding of nature; This seems to be a great argument for how Science alone is incapable of making normative statements, as it is the study of nature—of what is. OK, Hume said that too. As of now, I can't recall what have been said that counters the is/ought distinction. --- ## Targets of Envy Helmut Schoeck argues that "Envy is a phenomenon of social proximity." We tend to feel envy towards those who are similar to us. Besides similarity, another thing that determines who we envy is domain relevance, meaning the people that are in pursuit of similar objects or goals that I am in pursuit of. Often one would incur cost to gain relative advantage over said targets. Much of this is in line with Rene Girard's idea of mimetic rivalry. Schoeck also argued that envy operates between people who are at similar levels. We don't tend to (maliciously) envy those who are too far ahead of us. --- ## Other status-related emotions ### Schadenfreude Schadenfreude is the feeling of pleasure at the misfortune of others, or "shame joy" when translated literally. College students are more likely to direct Schadenfreude towards people of the same sex. Schadenfreude is the largest predictor of moral outrage. ### Gluckshmerz Gluckshmerz is the feeling of pain when seeing somebody you dislike experience good fortune, or "luck joy" when translated literally. ### Anger Aaron Sell argues that anger is a bargaining emotion. Anger is for asking for better treatment by incurring cost on the other. ### Shame and humiliation Shame and humiliatoin is a tracker of social reputation. Being accused of wrongdoing is enough for one to experience shame, regardless of the facticity of wrongdoing. Social pain—including shame and humiliation—seem to linger longer than physical pain. Conversely, Alain de Boton in Status Anxiety argued that soldiers' intense suffering "not accompanied by humiliation, discomfort can be endured without complaint" because of the expected praise and status accorded to them. ### Pride Pride is an adaptive emotion in response to receiving status. There is authentic pride which seems to be pride well deserved, stemming from acquiring status. Hubristic pride, on the other hand, is related to hostility and manipulation. It is pride with no foundation. --- >[!quote] You may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander envied Hercules, who never existed. You can get away from envy by avoiding comparisons with those you imagine, perhaps falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself. —Bertrand Russell --- Back to: [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] Previous Lecture: [[Status Evolution]] Next Lecture: [[Status and Stories]]