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book2021

The Status Game

Disciplines:
psychology
evolutionary biology/evolution
sociology
status

Summary

Will Storr's 2021 argument — that status-seeking is the fundamental human motivation, operating through three types of games (dominance, virtue, and success), and that understanding this explains tribalism, extremism, cancel culture, and everyday social behavior.

Core Contribution

Creates the status game framework — The Status Game synthesizes evolutionary psychology, social psychology, and historical examples to argue that all human groups are status games with rules determining who gets respect; moral outrage, political extremism, and online shaming are all explained as status moves within virtue games.

Historical Influences

Joseph Henrich Jonathan Haidt Erving Goffman

Intellectual Lineage

Will Storr HarperCollins

Allied Works

The Righteous Mind The Secret of Our Success

Contemporaries & Peers

No recorded contemporaries.

Minds Influenced

Status psychology popular understanding

Intellectual Posterity

The Status Game Virtue/dominance/success games

Discussing

The Status Game

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