Increased status is a primary reward for people.

Status is the sense of having value to a group and is derived from a few types of behaviors. People/groups will do whatever they can to increase status, and where that doesn’t work, can fall back to negative dominance behaviors. Steps should be taken to avoid that, and social media is not one of them. Positive behaviors can also produce status. Ego is the shadow side of status pursuit.rM1


  1. Brett & Kate McKay, “Podcast #756: How the Desire for Status Explains (Pretty Much) Everything,” The Art of Manliness (blog), November 15, 2021, https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/behavior/podcast-756-how-the-desire-for-status-explains-pretty-much-everything/. (See notes.)