This is the 2nd lecture of [[Rob Henderson]]'s [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] course on [[Peterson Academy]]. This lecture looks at the individual differences is desire for status, relating to personality models like Big Five, Dark Triad and Light Triad. --- ## Intelligence ### Definition Psychologist Arthur Jensen described intelligence as "assimilation of experience, learning, into cognitive structures which organize what has been learned in various ways or in ways that subsequently permit quick and adequate retrieval and broad transfer of the learning in new relevant situations. "Stated in simplest terms… the process of understanding what one has learned, getting an idea, catching on, having the aha experience that may accompany or follow experiencing or learning something, and the relating of new material to past learning and vice versa." ### Intelligence, status, and education Intelligence has a high correlation to status, as people confer intelligence with competence. Intelligence also predicts leadership emergence. Relating to education, high intelligence is correlated to high education. High education is also correlated with higher desire of status. Education raises your expectations of yourself. Education has no correlation with happiness. People expect to get more free time, downtime, and vacations as they achieve higher education, which is often not the case as these high achievers take on more responsibilities. ### Smart but not too smart Psychologist Dean Simonton suggested that social influence peaks at a high IQ, but that acts as a threshold as social influence drops after a certain IQ. "You want to be smart, but not too smart." 119 IQ is the number, which is higher than the average uni grad, but lower than the average elite uni grad. The same happens for romantic partners as well. 120 IQ, which is 90th percentile intelligence, is what people usually want in their ideal potential romantic partner. --- ## Personality There is the classic Big Five model, but a new addition to personality models I know of here is called HEXACO, which the one trait of note being humility. Agreeableness is willingness to be exploited, whereas humility is (un-)willingness to exploit others. ### What predicts status Before moving on to how personality predicts status, there is this interesting bit of information that has to be communicated first. The two factors that predict status are: 1. Your own motivation, desire, and ability to attain it 2. The group's judgement of what you've done to attain it ### Status pursuit as mostly unconscious Another thing of note is that status pursuit is mostly done unconsciously, but we speak of it as if it is done consciously. Here comes the quote: >[!quote]  A single-celled organism doesn't know the reason why it swims toward nutrients. —Daniel Dennett Probably due to our natural tendencies to anthropomorphize, we confer to people and things and everything in between agency regardless of whether or not the object in question is agentic or has internal awareness. like the single-celled organism example. The same is true for status pursuit. --- ## Big Five Personality Traits vs Status ### Extraversion Extraverted people are more likely to acquire status, simply because they talk more especially among strangers. They are often leaders, although extraversion is a poor predictor for actual leadership skills. However, extraversion does predict significantly higher income over a lifetime. There is a high link between extraversion and the desire for status. ### Agreeableness Mostly inverse correlation, meaning disagreeable people are more likely to acquire status. In a certain longitudinal study, agreeable people tend to report lower desire for status, but does not seem any less likely in engaging in status pursuing activity. Disagreeable are more likely to negotiate salaries, and more likely to prioritize getting ahead vs getting along which is why they are more likely to attain status. ### Conscientiousness High conscientiousness does predict higher status, but only in task-focused context (reaching goals, meeting deadlines etc). Conscientiousness is correlated with one standard deviation (7.2%) increase in wages across occupational fields. The effect would be greater if we are comparing low and high conscientiousness individuals in a task-focused environment. In socially-oriented environments like fraternities and sororities, conscientiousness does not predict status. ### Neuroticism High neuroticism, or low emotional stability, predicts lower status. This impacts men more than women. Men with higher neuroticism is less likely to get leadership roles, but this does not apply to women. Men are expected to be emotionally stable. ### Openness to Experience Probably largely context dependent. There is no link between openness and peer-rated influence. Findings are inconsistent at best. --- ## Self-monitoring Self-monitoring is a social psychology concept. It is a trait that captures how sensitive and aware you are to other people's behavior and the way that they interact in a given context, and how likely you are to use them as an example yourself. Low self-monitoring people act the same in every social context. This can be called the ability to read the room, or social adaptability(?). High self-monitoring predicts higher peer-rated influence, and are more likely to be promoted. --- ## Dark Triad Encompasses three traits: (grandiose) narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These three traits have very high correlation with disagreeableness, which predicts higher status, but the individual traits' relationship with status deserves nuance. >[!aware] Dark Triad is designed not for clinical diagnosis but for the general public. ### Narcissism There are two types of narcissism: grandiose and vulnerable. They are united by a sense of superiority over others, but maybe in different dimensions. Grandiose narcissism is like putting on a wolf's clothing—it's loud and clear. Vulnerable narcissism is like wolf in sheep's clothing—it's often concealed. Grandiose narcissist are low in neuroticism, have an inflated self-esteem, doesn't care what others think of them, and thinks they are right all the time. Vulnerable narcissist are high in neuroticism and will erupt in narcissistic rage when being insulted or humiliated. The Dark Triad only captures grandiose narcissism. They are very interested in status attainment, not always successful in doing so. They tend to get good first impressions, but people's evaluation of them declines rapidly after getting to know them. Narcissist are not more likely to gain high status, but high status people are more likely to be narcissist. ### Psychopathy Characterized by callousness, disregard for others, and low conscientiousness. They are constantly comparing themselves to others and are less happy. They have low impulse control. Hervey Cleckley's book The Mask of Sanity in the 1940s documents her encounters with these people who he found really odd, having no sympathy towards others, and is obsessed with getting ahead. Very status driven. Highest among the dark triad in their correlation with status-driven risk-taking. Psychopaths are not likely to gain high status, but high status people are more likely to be psychopaths. ### Machiavellianism Often cynical, suspicious of others' motives, and hidden agendas. Characterized by strategic exploitation and duplicity of others. Because they themselves always have hidden motives, they assume everybody else have them too. Shallow affect, and low ability to experience joy. High impulse control, more careful with their behavior. More likely to make last minute cancellations for better opportunities. Better at predicting success and status compared to psychopathy due to its relatively high impulse control. High in Machiavellianism and high intelligence leads to higher earnings, but high in Machiavellianism paired with low intelligence leads to lower earnings than average. ### Conclusion on Dark Triad Psychopathy is either useless or even detrimental for status pursuit. Grandiose narcissism may be helpful but only in small to moderate doses, and largely context dependent. Machiavellianism probably beneficial for status pursuit when paired with intelligence. Grandiose narcissism is the best for status attainment out of the three as it is prestige-oriented, and attains pleasure from getting ahead, but they also want to get along. But too much of it and it becomes obnoxious and backfires. ## Age Old people attain higher status, because they had more time. Young people score higher on pursuing status. Dark Triad traits are highest in teens and 20s. This coincides with Young Male Syndrome where cross cultural males in their 20s commit the most amount of crimes. The assumption is that this is biological, with males at that age being biological fit to put themselves in dangerous situations. Nancy McWilliams calls the dying down of crime-committing tendencies following biological changes the burnout effect. --- ## Light Triad Scott Barry Kaufman and his colleagues developed this framework that is not inversely correlated to the Dark Triad, and it is comprised of: 1. Humanism 2. Kantinism 3. Faith in Humanity ### Humanism Appreciation of success and creation of others ### Kantianism Behaving with integrity and honesty, rather than deceit and charm. Supposedly a mirror image of Machiavellianism. ### Faith in Humanity Believing that people are generally good and trustworthy ### Effects High predictor of self-esteem. Dark Triad also predicts high self-esteem, but Light Triad even more so. Inversely correlated with age, the older the better. Positive correlation with self-awareness, in contrast to Dark Triad that has null correlation to self-awareness. >[!quote] Those who love this Machiavellian part of our nature and revel in it can get pretty far, but they are eventually tripped up. They don't understand that there's a whole other side of the game which requires empathy and cooperation. —Robert Greene --- Back to: [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] Previous Lecture: [[Status Psychology]] Next Lecture: [[Status Evolution]]