Psych-Out

It’s in our animal heritage to size each other up – the guy down the street with the new BMW;  the co-worker who just received the promotion.   Then, there’s your friend who’s wife suddenly up and left.  What’s up with that?

We watch.  We listen.  We exchange stories.  Then, we spin it inside our heads.  Morning, noon, and night our thoughts are abuzz with people. What will he do if I don’t get my report in on time?   How could they pass me over for that ditz, Sara?  What did Michael mean by that remark about me?  The storyline behind it all – how do I measure up?  And why?

We are endowed with a craving for status.  It shows itself in our need to be seen as attractive, successful, well-connected, and smart.  And if we fall short — what’s gone wrong and how do we get there.

Cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga observed, “When you get up in the morning, you do not think about triangles and squares…You think about status.  You think about where you are in relation to your peers.  You’re thinking about your spouse, about your kids, about your boss.  Ninety-nine percent of your time is spent thinking about other people’s thoughts about you, their intentions…” (1)

In his play No Exit, Sartre wrote, “hell is other people.”  No.  Hell is our continual need to compare ourselves with other people.  Compare down, we feel better.  (Poor Joe.  Three kids.  Lost his job.)  Compare up, we feel worse.  (Lakefront property, a new girlfriend half his age, AND a new boat?!)  And unfortunately, most of the time, we compare up.

Animals raise their status by exaggerating their size.  They balloon, bristle, bellow, ruff, and rear. We have symbols of status.  Cars.  Jewelry.  Clothing.  Name-dropping.  Suntans.  Tell the right story, you improve your reputation, or tear down that of a rival.   “Try to look like the people above you;  if your at the top, try to look different from the people below you.”  (Quenton Bell, On Human finery.)  Our versions of ruffs, balloons, and bellows. (2)

“Look at me!  Not only is mine bigger, but I’m just plain better!”

There’s a cost, however.  Think of the peacock’s tail.  It may impresses the peahen, yes.  But, that great fan consumes nutrients, hinders movements, and attracts predators.  Some theorists propose that the display evolved precisely because of its cost.  Only the healthiest animals can afford them.  Like the peacock, our drive for status and reputation consumes energy – emotional energy, financial energy, and psychological energy.

For we humans, just because something’s part of some biological heritage doesn’t mean we have to play the game. Just because Jack down the hall is expending precious energy bellowing, doesn’t mean I have to.  We can ask ourselves is that big truck really worth it?  Does that story the guy is telling about himself have any real meaning to my life? Look around.  Most of our worry about status happens between our ears inside our own heads.   We can often choose not to play certain games that are part of our evolutionary heritage.   As psychologists Richard Gregory and Vilayanur Ramachandran have pointed out, “our conscious mind may not have free will, but it does certainly have free won’t.”

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(1) Seed. “The Seed Salon: Tom Wolfe & Michael Gazzaniga,” Seed 17 (2008): pgs 41-46.

(2)Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works. New York: W.W. Norton & C., Inc, 1997.