Stats and Curiosities: From Harvard Business Review

high status gives people delusions of approval

Research subjects who had been primed to think of themselves as having elevated status reported seeing 19% more smiles on the faces of people who had judged their work than subjects who considered themselves to have low status, say Nathan C. Pettit of NYU and Niro Sivanathan of London Business School. That’s because a person’s status colors his or her perceptions of others’ approval. Thus it seems evident that of all the rewards for achievement—recognition, income, promotion—the most valuable is the high-status mind-set, the researchers say.