Will Storr
Will Storr is a British journalist and novelist and the author of The Status Game (2021). The book starts from a pairing Storr takes from the psychologist Robert Hogan: people first need to get along with a group, and then try to get ahead inside it.
Who they are
Storr writes long-form books on the psychology of the self. His titles include Selfie, The Science of Storytelling and The Status Game, and a later book, A Story Is a Deal, applies his work on storytelling to leadership and persuasion. He also teaches storytelling, through writing courses on fiction and non-fiction and a course on storytelling for persuasion. The Status Game, published in 2021, is a work of synthesis for general readers. It gathers research from several fields and sets it inside a framework of three games that people play for status, which Storr calls dominance, virtue and success.
Key papers
Storr is an author and not a research psychologist, so his key work is a book: Storr, W. (2021), The Status Game.
Key ideas
People need to get along with a group and then get ahead within it.
Status is relative, so the pursuit of it does not end.
People take much of their standing from their groups, and tend to adopt the views of those they admire within them.
Sources
- Storr, W. (2021), The Status Game.