Get Along, Get Ahead

What it is

The first step is acceptance. This is the territory of the need to belong, where Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary argued in 1995 that the wish for frequent, pleasant, lasting bonds is a fundamental motivation. The second step is standing. Storr describes status as a drive that operates inside the groups that the first step attaches people to.

The two steps are ordered. A person who has no place in a group has little group in which to rise, so acceptance comes first. Storr also describes people as taking much of their standing from the groups they belong to, and as tending to adopt the views of those they admire within them.

In effect

In the article Why Do We Need to Belong?, the framework organises the argument. The experiments reviewed there, on mere belonging, affiliative imitation, the sociometer and the Need to Belong Scale, all concern the first step. The second step is outside their design.

The sociometer result is where the steps touch. Self-esteem fell with exclusion only when the reason was personal, so the gauge responds to acceptance on grounds that concern the individual. Being accepted for something about oneself is already the start of being valued for it.

What it does not say

The phrase is a framework and not a research finding, and this page does not present it as an experimental result. The belonging experiments do not test the second step, and the status literature that Storr draws on is a separate body of work.

Storr's book is a synthesis written for general readers, and its claims about status are best read as an argument informed by research in several fields.

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