Author Will Storr: Status Impacts Our Choice Of Sexual Partner! FOMO Can Cause Early Death?!

0:00At Sierra, discover top workout gear at incredible prices, which might lead to another discovery. Your headphones haven't been connected this whole time. Awkward. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. I'm NFL linebacker TJ Watt, and this is my personal best. YPB by Abercrombie is the activewear I'm always wearing. That's why I reached out to co-design their latest drop. I work with designers to create high-performance activewear that holds up to my toughest workouts. shop YPB by Abercrombie in store online and in the app because your personal best is greater than anything will store is a master storyteller and deep thinker whose work has captivated audiences worldwide his insights into the human mind particularly the role of status feel like he's offered a cheat code to our lives.

0:58He's written six books, and his research spans 17 years, focusing on the neuroscience behind what drives a human on a day-to-day basis. He understands what leads to our deep insecurities and what it really takes to build a long-lasting relationship. In this discussion, Will peels back the layers of our innate drive for status and connection, revealing how these fundamental needs shape our identities, relationships, and our own sense of self. This conversation promises to challenge your assumptions and provide a roadmap to a fulfilling life. Before we get into it, I want to ask you for a favor.

1:41We want to make sure these impactful conversations get to as many people as possible. By following this show and leaving a review, you help these conversations reach the people they need to. If you send a screenshot of your follow and review to the We Need to Talk Instagram page, I'll pick 10 of you to come down here to the studio to meet me, the guests, and let us know who you'd like to see on the show. Thank you. Okay, let's get into the conversation. So how would you define status? Yeah, so status has a very bad reputation for various evolutionary reasons. I think the useful way to see it is that we, status is our reward for being of value to the human family.

2:27So when we prove ourselves as being a valuable person, people see us as better, that we raise in status in their eyes. And so that's really all it is. And I think when people think of status, especially in this capitalist world we live in, they think of the Kardashians and, you know, or Logan Paul or, you know, people who are show-offs and, you know, gaudy and loud. And that really isn't what status is about. Status is literally being of value, you know, feeling like I'm valuable to other people, being respected by other people. Nobody likes to be disrespected. Nobody likes to be called a rude name.

3:00Right. That's really all it is. We all like to feel that we are valuable in some important way. And I've seen in your writing that you've suggested that it's about feeling valuable with those nearest and dearest to us. Yeah, that's right. Right. So we play status games with the people around us. So we worry most about our reputation in the eyes of people that are sort of close to us in our lives and are kind of relatively near in status to us. So somebody in a low socioeconomic job won't necessarily care what some Wall Street banker thinks of them because they're irrelevant to them. They care what the person over the road thinks about them.

3:36So that tends to be how we compete for status is those nearest to us. Now, this bit that we're about to get into blows me away. I've always read that our happiness as a human being is based on our connection with other human beings. I'm sure you've heard the same thing. But this is not what Will says. Will says that it is impossible to be happy if we lack a connection in addition to lacking status. Not just psychologically unhappy, we also become physically unwell. so it's quite well known these days that a lack of connection feeling of loneliness is extremely bad for your health by some estimates it's worse than smoking which is just an extraordinary finding but it's also the same a lack of status so if you have a lack of status you're more likely to die early you've got you've got a higher chance of of dying early because your your subconscious brain your human brain decides there's something wrong there's something wrong with your life if there's something going badly wrong with your existence.

4:37So it switches you into this kind of high stress state, which is very bad for the body long term. So we can become very physically unwell and die sooner if we are chronically lacking in status and also chronically lacking in connection. It's evolution wanting us to be a successful member of a collaborative group. They're both essential. We've got to connect into that group and serve that group. This is such a simple question, but I'm trying to understand why. yeah like you so you go back to say a clan of 50 you know uh out on the serengeti and high status in in that type of clan would be what um maybe what's what's a great storyteller a great sorcerer a great um finder of honey honey was that you know like some people really get to finding honey and getting it off the bees you know so it's so you're you're offering value but also virtuous you know you could be courageous you could be uh somebody that knows the rules of the tribe knows the sacred laws of the tribe and follows them and enforces them that's you know so that's a virtue route to status so let's say that i was the best in the clan yeah i'm grabbing honey out the tree i could go in there snatch that honey from the bees how does that then equate to me having more sexual partners or options because it's the same thing it's like it's like being a great footballer or it's like being taylor swift like people look up to you they go god that person's amazing do you See how the honey he's got.

5:55And then you bring the honey in and everybody goes, oh, wow. Look at the honey we've got. Thank you. And, you know, it's no different. It would have been no different then to it is today. We've got this automatic status reward system built into us that when we offer value to other people, other people, unless there's some sort of envy or some toxic competition going on, other people generally, guys, that's great, amazing, well done, you know, congratulations. And they reward you with status. um or and also you feel better in yourself you know you've got this self-signaling system where you feel better about yourself so everything just feels better when you offer value to the group i see it i see it so so we have evolved yeah to believe that our identity is wrapped into our status yeah absolutely yeah yeah and so without having status then how do we view our identity Well, your identity is partly based on the group you're connected with, but also the status that you've earned within that group.

7:00I mean, you know, when I'm talking about how humans compete with reputation, another way of saying that is humans compete with identity. When we're being dominant, we're fighting in the physical realm. It's body against body, flesh against flesh. But when we're competing in the kind of prestige realm for competence and virtue, that's our identities. So that's an identity thing. We all want to have a healthy, connected, high status identity. That's how we measure the health of our identities. How connected am I and how much status do I have? It's those two things. And even on the connection, is it more so about meaningful connection?

7:43because I've wondered about this when you look at, you know, unfortunately we look at suicide rates, you look at the mass increase in the number of suicides, especially in the West, namely in the UK and the United States. And we do operate in a loneliness epidemic. But I often look and say, okay, well, you know, these are people who have lots of quote-unquote friends on social media. They're interacting with people in real life. but I feel as if they're missing meaningful connection. So do you feel like there's a distinction between connection and meaningful connection? I think one of the major problems we have in modern societies is the size of our groups.

8:24So we've evolved to play status games in the context of a group of around 30 to 50 people. That was the size of the group that we would have evolved for hundreds of generations within. So when you're a member of a group of between 30 to 50 people, it wouldn't have been an unusual experience for you to feel invaluable, you know, because you were invaluable. There's not many people around to figure out, to try and solve the problems of the business for the group, to get the food, to get the security, to get the camps up, to get the fire lit, all that stuff. You were essential. So we've evolved to want to feel indispensable.

8:59But how often these days do we feel indispensable? Almost never. I mean, in the business world, it's a cliche. No one's indispensable. It's always a badge of honour. But the bigger the human group gets, the more diffuse it gets, the harder it is to feel gender in connection, certainly the harder it is to feel any status within a group. I mean, you know, most corporations, I mean, how big are they? You know, like enormous. So I think that's part of the fundamental problem we've got of modern advanced societies is our status games are just massive. um and so our identities constantly feel um you know i think of it i call it identity stress we feel identity stress so identity stress is when we feel that our connection is in is under stress or our sense of status is under stress and so you're so on social media for example you're constantly feeling identity stress because one person says a nice little comment about you doesn't matter who you are oh god you know that's an attack you feel you feel it um And, you know, you talk, you know, quite rightly about the quality of our connection.

10:04You know, a relationship over social media is not the same as a relationship in real life. It's certainly not the same as the deep relationship you would have had with a tribal, you know, partner who you're living side by side with in this relatively small group in the Serengeti or wherever it may have been. Yes. So I think that's part of the problem. And then there's another more fundamental issue, which is the brain doesn't really want us to be happy. That's one of the terrible things. The brain wants us to keep pursuing status. It wants to keep us pushing, pushing, pushing. Because it doesn't want us to be just completely happy because then we're just going to stop trying to exist.

10:44We're going to stop trying to earn status and be valuable. So it wants to keep us in a slight state of dissatisfaction. So we're constantly pushing, constantly pushing, constantly pushing. But I certainly think in the West, one of the big problems is the size of our groups, how hard it is to earn status in the modern market economies. What I find so interesting about identity stress, as Will mentions, is that it's something that we all face, but we don't need to. You know, one of the best researchers on connection, in my opinion, is Dr. Robin Dunbar. I've read all of his books, in particular Friends is one of my favorites.

11:20And Robin Dunbar has created something that's called the 150 rule or the Dunbar number. And this is, in essence, how many people we can sustain in our lives and have a meaningful connection with. And he says that it's roughly 150. We have our inner circle of our BFFs. You know, maybe there's five or ten of those. And we have our next rung of people, maybe 50. You know, you have the people that you work with that you have a strong connection with maybe you don't like, right? but you still have a connection with, you have a meaningful connection. These are the people that, in essence, we should suffer or not suffer identity stress with.

11:59But the challenge is when we go out to the 151st, to the 200th person, these are the people who are following us on social media. These are the people who we are interacting with, who we truly have no true connection with. This is something that we have to pay close attention to, because the more emphasis we place on the people outside of that Dunbar rule, the more doom and gloom we will bring to our lives. It's always going to be really hard for us to feel invaluable. It's always going to be hard for us to feel securely connected. It's always going to be hard for us to feel, I mean, status is never really secure, but it's always going to be very easy for us to be very insecure about our sense of status because, you know, modern market economies work against those.

12:47They kind of work with them in a way because modern market kind of rewards status with money, you know, and all that stuff. But it becomes ever harder to really feel any kind of security in your level of status, especially with the advent of social media. I mean, one of the things I do in my spare time is I volunteer with the Samaritans, which is the hotline for people who are often feeling suicidal. So I spend a lot of time speaking to people who are actively suicidal. And in my experience at Samaritans, there are three main reasons why people want to end their lives. And the first reason is they're in chronic pain.

13:27So people are suffering from chronic pain. Understandably, they just find it very hard to carry on. Recently bereaved people I speak very often to. Recent bereavement is obviously psychological torture. but by far the main reason is is you know to work identity stress i could tell you as an failure yes people who are chronically lacking in either connection or status usually both and not only are they lacking in connection status they feel they're trapped they feel that their life has got to a place where it's impossible for them to restore any sense of connection or any sense of status and this i mean my experience as a samaritan this is by far the most common reason like people want to choose to end their lives is because identity failure.

14:08I'm unloved and I'm worthless. You hear it again and again and again and again. Right. This is a major concern too for one area of work that I'm in because I do a lot of reality television. Yes. And I see this all the time on these shows, Married at First Sight, Love Island, et cetera, is that you have someone who's unknown. They go on this massive show, build up a significant platform, hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. They're on television every night, and then it's taken away. And you could see that their status has now, they've been humiliated, to your point. Status has been removed.

14:45And how do they combat that? I mean, how do, because I've also seen you write that you can't maintain status forever. So all status has a time limit to it. So what does someone do in that position? Actually, all of us, we know that there is a time limit to our status. How do we manage the loss of our status? Well, I think the first thing is recognizing is exactly your point. The sudden accrual of massive status is really dangerous. We haven't evolved to be a celebrity. I mean, that's why most celebrities are a bit mad. Because our brains are designed to crave status without limit really you know people always want more and more and more and more um when psychologists try to find the place where our need for desire for status levels out they can't find it it doesn't level out other things like our need for power levels out but not status we always want more and more and more we're never satisfied i think it was carl young that talked about making the unconscious conscious and that's what i'm trying to do with this with the book like the status game it's like saying look all this is this is you this is your life You know, a part of it is the pursuit of status.

15:59And a lot of it is just illusionary. You know, like a lot of the things, a lot of the problems that you have in your day-to-day life are imagined assaults on your status. So if you lose your, like if you get annoyed on the road behind a car because someone's cut you up, nothing's happened. You know, they've been a bit rude to you. The reason you're reacting in a negative way, if you are reacting in a negative way, is because your brain is going, that's an assault on my status and I will not have it. So there's great power in being able to see that in yourself and go, oh, this is just ego. You know, just forget about it.

16:30It's ridiculous. So I think that's a big part of it. So, you know, and the brain is designed to make it feel very real and like this stuff really matters. But as I say in the book, you can't keep your status. You can't put it in a box and say, that's my status. Nobody can touch it. Now it's mine. It's mine. Because status is given to us by other people. So you've just got to understand that and have a much more kind of free and kind of loose and philosophical relationship with it, I think. And then is it important to, because you mentioned your volunteer work. Yeah. Is it important to try to then gain status in other ways and new ways?

17:09Yeah. So I think it's important to play multiple status games, especially when you get to middle age and beyond. I think in your 20s, there's a good argument for choosing one status game and just throwing everything at it. Interesting. Yeah, because, you know, I think in your 20s, you're building the rest of your life. And if you get good at something in your 20s, you're set, you know, probably, you know, the chances are you're set. But I think once you get to middle age, middle age is when you tend to peak and, you know, 40s and 50s, unfortunately, status tends to decline in various ways, you know, physically, but also, you know, professionally often.

17:44for people um so i think it's very important to play multiple status games sometimes that comes naturally if you have children i don't have children but as a parent you naturally you're designed to start playing status games through your children so your your children's status is kind of your status you're connected in that way but you know this is why hobbies are so important people sort of think hobbies are so silly and men in their sheds with their you know with their train sets or whatever but that's a status game they they they wanting to build the best train set you know like let them you know like that's great if if that's something that um someone can get joy out of and um feel like i'm really good at building train sets then build the train set that's kind of what hobbies are for there are ways that that we can add meaning to our lives and feel good about ourselves in ways that aren't about career you know well what you just said there is blowing my mind but it's it's connecting with this whole idea of in your 20s you know focus on one status yeah right because you can set yourself up yeah and i feel as if the most successful people i know in terms of monetarily in their 50s in their 60s in their 70s they have they've played one status game their entire career and they have very little connection they've they've they've no friends yeah right but they've built up the status yeah uh and i can see that they played that all the way through.

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20:58Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Yeah, I was reading on the interpersonal theory around suicide and how if you look at media, sports, entertainment, those finance these are areas with uh in particular men who have the highest rates of suicide yeah as a result of losing it all you know so so is is it is is that happening because they played that one game all the way through yeah and they've not they've not hedged they've not hedged i mean that that that that that's why i joined the samaritans i mean it was you know it wasn't a selfless act i wrote the book and realized i was not following my own advice i've been a writer since i was i'm 20s have no children I don't do anything else I have almost no friends so so I've got to do something else and I would never have been the kind of person to volunteer to be a volunteer without having written that book and and I immediately found it very rewarding even when I was being trained before I was on the phones I found it very rewarding and what I realized was I thought it was going to be a status thing where it's like it's a different way of feeling good about myself but actually ended up being a connection thing that when you're on the phone with somebody um who who's in need um even though it's part of this mountain's training you're not allowed to talk about yourself you're anonymous and you're not allowed to share about yourself if the call is successful you create a very powerful connection with the person on the other end of the phone by listening very intently to them and drawing them out of themselves and it's obviously hopefully helpful to them usually it is helpful to them but it's also So you leave a shift feeling like, or at least I leave a shift feeling like I have a very powerful connection to the human family in some way.

22:52Like I'm never going to speak to that person again, but I feel connected to people in a very profound way. So that was the surprise for me about Samaritans. It ended up not being about status. It's much more about connection for me. And it's really, I used to feel lonely a lot. And I don't feel lonely anymore. And that's because of the Samaritans. What do we do if we're in a scenario where we have a brother, a father, a friend who is male and has lost status? They feel humiliated. We know they do. What can we do to support them? I mean, it's not rocket science. You make them feel better. I mean, one of the things that's really not astonished me at this, Marins, but I find really powerful is that when I'm on the phone to somebody who is chronically lacking in status, as they're talking, I'm thinking of things I can say to them towards the end of the call that are going to build them back up again.

23:48And they have to be authentic things. It can't be like this California thing of, oh, my God, you're amazing. You know, you know. Your California accent is good. It's LA. It's LA. Okay. But, you know, people can spot that a mile away. You know, we've got this bullshit detector humans. We're very good at spotting that stuff. I thought this was really interesting because on these Samaritan calls, Will is quite literally touching on both the fundamentals that humans need to be happy. And that's connection and status. And ultimately what Will is doing is what we all should be doing with each other.

24:18And that is being kind. And when we are kind to others, we elevate their status. So all of this got me thinking, how has finding connection and status been affected by dating apps? Yeah, I think the dating apps are, I think the dating apps are designed really for hookups. I think it's interesting to separate out sex and love. Okay. You know, I think when you're looking for sex and hookups, status tends to be the most important thing. you know there's that meme at the moment the woman wants a man in finance six five trust fund blue eyes whatever it is you know like that's you know it's that she wants a high status male yes um you know men want beautiful you know whatever the men want you know what the men want um and so so it's all about the status really it's all about you know like it's this raw competition for status and and it kind of reduces on the apps to this kind of very basic how do you get that across to people like if you meet somebody face to face um you naturally emit huge volumes this enormous cloud of social information swaps between people most of which we're completely unconscious of we just we read so much yes you know there was body language their tone that you know the smells we can't consciously smell you know like it's so much goes on between two people that and that is valuable but you don't get that on the app so you're used to having these pictures of yourself and a small amount of text and you end up doing things like you know women like if you've got a dog so i'm gonna have a dog you know like it becomes so reductive and and i i i get the sense that everyone's trying to chase the same kind of old ideal algorithm like what do you say in this bit what do you say in this bit like so i don't envy don't envy the app era at all like i like it like it's especially for men who are tend to be the ones saying pick me pick me like it's it must be so very difficult if you're not on you like an eight or an above out of ten it must be really hard yeah yeah it's it's incredibly hard it's interesting a lot of the guys are walking around now yeah with dogs that are not theirs you know also you know fish has become a thing really big fish yeah god you can't be a small fish you have to hold a hold a massive like look what i caught look at this thing it's just so funny but also i just i feel sorry for these poor people like it must be yeah really hard to try and stand out from that enormous crowd of other other men holding fish yeah it is it's incredibly hard and i wonder if that then reshapes then our pursuit of status because i mean we're joking about the dog but people with dogs actually have higher click-throughs yeah right so as a result does that then, you know, then the dogs become the popular.

27:07That's the, everyone goes out and adopts the dog. Is that, do you think that our behavior in real life is being shaped by dating apps and social media in our pursuit for a partner? I would imagine that you can catfish as much as you want on the app, but when you actually meet in real life, it's like reality shows, like in the first two weeks of Big Brother or Love Island, everyone's on best behavior. But it's always after the two week, you see the real person like and that's when the fun begins like it always gets good after about two weeks those shows and i think i'm sure it's the same with dating where you can you can try and present to be the ultimate you know person or there's this kind of fake um ideal model of a person to the person you're trying to impress but it can't last it can't last no no i always say um and it's actually chris rock uh he says that uh you know when you first meet someone you meet their representative yeah yeah yeah yeah and then later two weeks later you meet the real person yeah exactly that's exactly chris rock yeah he's great all right so another one was how do displays of status differ between trying to hook up and looking for a real long-term relationship almost when you're talking about love yeah and sex well i think one of the things about status because you mentioned chris rock and i just made me think of another thing that chris rock said which is like he's brilliant and that's and he says that um when two people meet and the guy goes back to his guy friends and i've met somebody amazing and the guys say what does she look like and when the girls say i've met this guy's amazing and the girls say what does it what does he do you know and i think that that's so true and again that that speaks to the different ways that men and women tend to measure status you know and tend to value kind of the status of the opposite sex I think with love, it tends to be less about status and much more about connection.

28:58And I think in a specific way. So there's a very fascinating area of psychological research, which they call shared reality. And it's quite a new area that's being looked at, but it's fascinating. And the basic idea of shared reality is that we all have this kind of weird model of the world, the idea of what the world is like that is uniquely ours because because everybody is unique they've got unique experience unique values unique status games they're playing uh unique history lived experience all of that stuff unique genes and so what we're always looking for again it goes back to us being this highly collaborative ape cooperative ape we're looking for people who experienced the world in a fundamentally similar way to us because those are the people that we can cooperate with and collaborate with in order to build a better life for ourselves okay and so that's true whether we're looking for friends, whether we're looking for people to work with side by side, but especially people who are looking to form a long-term relationship with.

30:00One of the sets of experiences I find fascinating is found that when you connect with somebody, when you subconsciously realize this person sees the world in the same way that I do, you start changing each other's reality. So your guard comes down and that person starts to change the way that you see the world and you start to change the way that that person sees the world. Like I remember when I first met Farah, my wife, one of the things that I admired about her was she was much better in social situations than I was. So I would struggle in parties and perhaps terribly play at small talk and often come across as rude just because I didn't know what to say.

30:35You know, so people would think I was standoffish and it was a problem. But Farah had this massive facility to be charming and engaging. And without even consciously wanting to do it, I found myself copying her. so i would do what she did in such situations have the same mannerisms the same laugh the same patterns of eye contact and i was writing about this recently and i realized i don't even remember what those things were that i was copying and that's because they've become part authentically part of me now so like in a very real way a part of my wife has become part of me so she's changed me and you know i'm sure that if you speak to her she would say that things that i've done have changed her in other ways so we've become this over 20 plus years of being together we've become this this deeply connected meshed kind of being like couple um i used before i before i um did this research i would feel a bit embarrassed because there are oftentimes when we say the same thing at the same time have the same thought and i was going to say that and you feel a bit embarrassed when that happens it's like that's so weird that we were about to say the same thing but now i've done this research as a shared reality that's a sign of a really solid, strong relationship.

31:43We are experiencing the world in the same way. So that's what you're looking for, I think, in a long-term relationship. Somebody who you can literally, your experience of the world meshes and starts to change each other for the better. I think that's how I would describe it. So this is a key point that Will is making. When he's discussing shared reality, I think another way to look at this is how our values lead to our emotional availability, which ultimately leads to our vulnerability, which then allows us to connect at a meaningful level, but more important than that, to display our true selves.

32:24And this is what I mean. Having shared values means that we see the world as the same as our partner, which is very important. When we see the world as our partner sees it, then we're able to connect with them, not just physically, but also emotionally to the highest degree. When we're connected emotionally to the highest degree, we feel safe. When we are safe, that's when we're most willing to be vulnerable. When we are vulnerable, we are our true selves. I think this is another way to look at shared reality. Now, in my notes for this interview, I saw that Will has written about how all of us are always in detect and connect mode.

33:06But this makes me think, do we detect and connect in the same way if we're interested in a committed relationship as we do if we're interested in just casual sex? Let's find out. Humans are constantly, because we're like these individual cells in this super organism, so we're constantly going around our lives looking for people to connect with. So I call it we're in this detect and connect mode. So we're detecting, is this person like me in any other way? And that's why humans are so obsessed with their appearance. One of the reasons why we spend so much money on our appearance and we always want to look a certain way and not just neat and tidy, but we express who we are in our dress in certain ways.

33:47Because we are broadcasting out to the human super organism. This is these are my values. This is what I stand for. This is what I believe. and and so we are not only attracting like-minded people but repelling people who are you know not like us so so so so that's why that that that's a big reason why humans are so obsessed with appearance that's why we spend so much money on clothes and cars and the house and you know whatever it might be but you know we're constantly broadcasting out facts about ourselves to up to other humans and that's because we're constantly looking you know it's this um detect and connect where we're detecting like-minded people and seeking to connect with them.

34:28And of course, when we do connect with them, we feel great. And that's especially true with our romantic partner because, as I say, that collaboration, the ultimate court. I mean, my wife and I don't have children. That's a conscious decision we've made. We've never wanted children. But the ultimate cause of us being together for 20 years is that evolution wants us to be in a collaboration in order to raise children, to have and raise children. That's what it wants us to do. And it's a hard thing, obviously, to raise kids. So you need to have a really solid shared reality, a solid relationship, a solid connection.