This also explains why we dislike social climbers: they remind us there is a ladder to climb. In fact, the modern word “villain” derives from the status-related sin of lowly villein feudal tenants daring to seek a higher social position.

The pioneering sociologist Pitirim Sorokin declared, “Any organized social group is always a stratified social body. There has not been and does not exist any permanent social group which is ‘flat,’ and in which all members are equal. Unstratified society, with a real equality of its members, is a myth which has never been realized in the history

Emulation requires imitating the group above you, but for those at the top of the hierarchy, there should be no one to imitate. A good indication of having super-high status, then, is being able to get away with distinctive acts. The moral duty of self-actualization is actually a status duty: individuals at the top of the hierarchy must pursue

Just as microeconomics posits that markets form as self-interested individuals maximize utility for their money, a similar “invisible-hand” mechanism exists between status and culture: in seeking to maximize and stabilize status, individuals end up clustering into patterns of behavior (customs, traditions, fashion, fads, taste) that we understand

Internalization explains our strong attachments to group behaviors. Humans become very susceptible to the is-ought fallacy—defined by political scientist Russell Hardin as “a very nearly universal tendency of people to move from what is to what ought to be in the strong sense of concluding that what is right or good.”

Status is a purely social phenomenon; it manifests in the interactions between individuals.

Conventions assist humans in coordinating around certain choices.

conventions are the individual units of culture.

Every convention, then, has a differential status value, reflecting how much status can be gained through conforming to it.