The Emotional Underpinnings of Social Status

J. T. Cheng et al. (eds.), The Psychology of Social Status, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-0867-7_10, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 C. M. Steckler () · J. L. Tracy Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada e-mail: [email protected] Emotions are critically important for navigating the social hierarchy. Emotions motivate people to seek and retain high status, and the nonverbal expressions that are typically displayed as part of an emotional experience communicate important status-related information to others. In this chapter, we examine the ways in which a number of distinct emotions influence status-related behaviors and outcomes. Throughout this chapter, we use the terms status and rank interchangeably, to describe one’s relative position on the social ladder (i.e., the social hierarchy), regardless of how he or she got there. In all human societies examined thus far, there are individual differences in social rank, such that some individuals have greater opportunities for resource and mate acquisition than others, or receive greater deference than others (Brown 1991; c.f. Ellis 1995). This hierarchical social structure results in clear benefits for those at the top of the hierarchy, but those at the bottom also benefit from the hierarchical system, more so than they would from abandoning social living all together (see Alexander 1974; Williams 1966). As a result, differences in social rank are a reliably occurring part of human social life.