Hi Sander, I don't think either Dan, David, or I would claim that status-seeking is the only driver of human motivation. I suspect we might all agree that the desire for self-realisation, freedom, and power may act as genuine proximate motivations in human psychology. Understanding the evolutionary mechanisms behind these motivations may help us better understand their features. All the best with your new Substack!
Hi Lionel, thanks for the response and the support! I understand, but I'm not sure whether we need to posit a 'ultimate' status motivation, if we have a 'proximate' empowerment motivation as proxy for 'ultimate' fitness. Status concerns would then be emergent. It wouldn't diminish its importance in driving behavior, but it would self-organize in social settings rather than being innate. In any case, the sociocultural organization may strongly modulate status signaling, in the sense that individualistic cultures need it more, but also in the sense that in other cultures, people may derive their sense of empowerment from non-status-related means more. I may show my lack of knowledge on the topic here —I only know the literature through following the excellent writings on this by yourself, Dan and David. For example, are there experiments in which status signaling is shown to be reduced by doing tasks that increase empowerment in some way? If so, status would seem to be more of a means than a goal as such? It's probably a bit of both, but I tend to prefer a parsimonious view that does not presuppose too many specialized systems if things can emerge in development (especially when computation/implementation isn't clear yet to me). That's behind this post's exercise of trying to reduce a multiplicity of goals/needs to a root motivation.
Hi Sander, I don't think either Dan, David, or I would claim that status-seeking is the only driver of human motivation. I suspect we might all agree that the desire for self-realisation, freedom, and power may act as genuine proximate motivations in human psychology. Understanding the evolutionary mechanisms behind these motivations may help us better understand their features. All the best with your new Substack!
Hi Lionel, thanks for the response and the support! I understand, but I'm not sure whether we need to posit a 'ultimate' status motivation, if we have a 'proximate' empowerment motivation as proxy for 'ultimate' fitness. Status concerns would then be emergent. It wouldn't diminish its importance in driving behavior, but it would self-organize in social settings rather than being innate. In any case, the sociocultural organization may strongly modulate status signaling, in the sense that individualistic cultures need it more, but also in the sense that in other cultures, people may derive their sense of empowerment from non-status-related means more. I may show my lack of knowledge on the topic here —I only know the literature through following the excellent writings on this by yourself, Dan and David. For example, are there experiments in which status signaling is shown to be reduced by doing tasks that increase empowerment in some way? If so, status would seem to be more of a means than a goal as such? It's probably a bit of both, but I tend to prefer a parsimonious view that does not presuppose too many specialized systems if things can emerge in development (especially when computation/implementation isn't clear yet to me). That's behind this post's exercise of trying to reduce a multiplicity of goals/needs to a root motivation.