This is the 5.1 lecture of [[Rob Henderson]]'s [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] on [[Peterson Academy]]. There are two halves to this lecture: exploring status (1) and its relation to stories, and (2) as games. This note contains the first half. ## Hero Stories [[Brian Boyd]] in his book [[On the Origin of Stories]] suggests looking at the hero story a pursuit, hence a transformation of status of the hero. Looking at [[Joseph Campbell]]'s classic work [[Hero with a Thousand Faces]], as well as its condensed version by [[Christopher Booke]] in his book [[The Seven Basic Plots]], the hero goes from being one of low status, to that of high status. ### Identifying with the hero Q: What arouses sympathy and empathy towards a protagonist?[^1] 1. **Low status** Low status is appealing cross-culturally, because everybody feels themselves to be in lower status than they should.[^2] Typically, the hero is somebody that has less status than they should; the antagonist is somebody that has more status than they should—AND they desire to dominate others. 2. **Doer of good, or victim of misfortune**[^3] This is the virtuous victim effect, where people are more likely to positively evaluate with people that have been mistreated. 3. **Agency of the hero** We seem to be attracted to heroes that make things happen actively instead of passively have things happen to them. The relevant study showed that bestsellers have more active words than non-bestsellers. --- ### Q: Are we biologically predetermined to root for the underdog? #### Underdog vs Overdog Yes, we root for the underdogs—but only when there is nothing at stake. When material or physical interests are at stake, people bet on the overdogs. The published study show that people _root_ for underdogs when outcomes aren’t self-relevant, but switch to _supporting/investing in_ the favorites when their money or physical well-being is at stake.[^4] #### Virtuous Victim Effect The virtuous victim effect states that we tend accord people with victim status—shown by signs or descriptions of suffering and mistreatment—positive moral evaluations. This effect is used to invoke audience sympathy usually during the beginning of hero stories. --- ### Sympathetic Plot Anthropologist [[Manvir Singh]] developed this idea of the sympathetic plot which argues that human minds are configured to learn and cooperate and sympathize, which echoes our biological wiring to get along as well as get ahead. He argues that hero stories seem to be exploiting these mechanisms. Not only are heroes people we identify with, they are also people we want to associate with, as we look for both moral character and status in conferring status to others. --- ### Parasocial Relationships There is a study done on people's loneliness during lockdown. Both people who stayed in contact with others online, and people who watched a lot of TV shows felt less lonely than people who did not do either of those things.[^5] This suggests that parasocial relationships—where only one party is engaged in the relationship—do help mitigate loneliness. --- ### Evolutionary Motive for Writing Stories [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] said that while writers may have fantasies that would repel others when said out loud, they express them in a medium that can be digested by others—by writing stories. In doing so, the writers "achieved through his fantasy what originally he had achieved only in his fantasy—honor, power, and the love of women."[^6] Recent studies have shown that writers who publish more get more sexual partners, supporting Freud's idea.[^7] The love for creativity is the proximate (immediate) end, but the reason why the pursuit of creativity evolved at all could be tied with it being a signal for attractiveness towards evolutionary ends, making sexual success its ultimate end. --- ### Language as Status Signaling [[Jean-Louise Desalles]] argues that one of the many purposes of language is to signal one's intelligence, their willingness to get along, to say impressive things, and to show one's level of knowledge. The listeners evaluate the speaker, and reward them with status for useful, or entertaining things they hear. [[Robin Dunbar]] argues that language is the equivalent of grooming behavior among primates. Grooming is not about removing insects, it is a social mechanism for social bonding and for identifying who's where in a hierarchy—the one being groomed higher status than the one grooming. Language—specifically ordinary language that contains no useful information—is to test social bonds and build relationships. #### Yerkes-Dodsan Law Public speaking is anxiety-inducing. The explanation for this is that in the ancestral hunter-gathering environment people who stand out are cut down, so speaking in public becomes a magnet for judgement. The Yerkes-Dodsan Law suggests that there is an optimal level of stress when it comes to public speaking. Too little stress also means low effort, low energy and generally bad performance. Too much stress is self-defeating. [^1]: Bruno Bettelheim—who wrote *The Uses of Enchantment*—states that invoking sympathy is the biggest challenge of any fairy story based on his analysis. [^2]: Will Storr, *Science of Storytelling*. [^3]: Blake Snyder, *Save the Cat*. [^4]: Jong Han Kim, Scott T. Allison, Dafna Eylon, George R. Goethals, Michael J. Markus, Heather A. McGuire, and Sheila M. Hindle, “Rooting for (and then Abandoning) the Underdog,” _Journal of Applied Social Psychology_ 38, no. 10 (2008): 2550–2573. [^5]: Samantha C. Jarzyna, “Parasocial Interaction, the COVID-19 Quarantine, and Digital Age Media,” _Human Arenas_ 3, no. 4 (2020): 624–639. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-020-00148-8. [^6]: [[Sigmund Freud]], "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming." [^7]: Daniel Nettle and Helen Clegg, “Schizotypy, Creativity and Mating Success in Humans,” _Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences_ 273, no. 1586 (March 22, 2006): 611–615, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2005.3349. --- Back to: [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] Previous Lecture: [[Envy Explored]] Next Note: [[Status Games]]