The value of social position

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social hierarchies are a key factor shaping social dynamics. To understand the psychology underlying social hierarchies, a key question is how people evaluate their social position. The purpose of the paper is to explore this question. Four empirical studies reveal that the subjective value attributed to social position does not depend exclusively on the current position but also on the context. Specifically, the analyses show that subjective value is higher when one is accustomed to lower social positions and an improvement in position is weighted more when one's positions have fluctuated less in the past. These observations fit with a model postulating two parameters: a reference point, in comparison to which one's position is appraised as satisfying or dissatisfying and an uncertainty parameter, which determines how much discrepancies from the reference point are weighted. Altogether, the paper offers the first empirical and theoretical investigation of how people evaluate social position.