Status seeking
Motivation to gain or defend rank. Can be pursued via dominance or prestige.
Status seeking is the latent that dual-hormone papers try to predict. It is not aggression. Henrich and Gil-White split the strategy space: force versus freely conferred deference. Collapsing both into 'alpha' is a measurement error.
Also called dominance motivation, rank pursuit.
Connected relationships
Randomized trial · Low
DHEA-S→Status seeking
A rise in DHEA-S does not identify a change in Status seeking.
DHEA-S on an optimization panel is not a status intervention.
Theory · Moderate
Dominance strategy→Status seeking
Higher Dominance strategy increases Status seeking.
Dominance is a means. Status is the end. Folklore treats them as synonyms.
Observational · Low
Testosterone / cortisol ratio→Status seeking
A rise in Testosterone / cortisol ratio does not identify a change in Status seeking.
T/C is a derived index. Stamp it smoke unless the paper pre-registered the ratio and showed the interaction.
Observational · Contested
Testosterone→Status seeking
Higher Testosterone moves Status seeking only in some conditions. Read the mechanism.
In observational samples, testosterone tracks status-seeking mainly when cortisol is low; the interaction is small, heterogeneous, and still contested.
Cases
Sources
- E. E. Baulieu et al. (2000). Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), DHEA sulfate, and aging: contribution of the DHEAge Study to a sociobiomedical issue
- J. Henrich et al. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission
- P. H. Mehta et al. (2010). Testosterone and cortisol jointly regulate dominance: Evidence for a dual-hormone hypothesis
- P. H. Mehta et al. (2015). The dual-hormone hypothesis: a brief review and future research agenda
- S. N. Geniole et al. (2020). Evidence from meta-analyses of the facial width-to-height ratio versus the dual-hormone hypothesis as predictors of status-seeking
- RI Elahi et al. (2026). Separable, nonlinear, and interactive effects of testosterone and cortisol during status competition in humans: Evidence for the context-dependent dual hormone hypothesis.