In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. Ask most people why they did what they did and they will give you a reason; ask them again a week later and the reason will have quietly changed. The measure that matters is not what people say about status but what they do when nobody is scoring. There is a version of this essay that ends with a policy prescription. This is not that version; the mechanism is interesting enough on its own.
What follows
Institutions know all this, of course, which is why the weather forecast is so rarely left to chance. If you want to see status at work, watch a queue form where there is no reason for one. Ask most people why they did what they did and they will give you a reason; ask them again a week later and the reason will have quietly changed. The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that status is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else.
There is a version of this essay that ends with a policy prescription. This is not that version; the mechanism is interesting enough on its own. The evidence here is thinner than the confident commentary suggests, and the honest position is a shrug with a direction of travel. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes. A better account of status would begin with the ordinary case rather than the laboratory one.
