Comments on: There are two kinds of popularity, and we are choosing the wrong one

By: John Nathan

John Nathan — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 07:28:43 +0000

The question I have is this: can we always distinguish between these two kinds of popularity? Often, especially in business where money and power trade-offs are perpetually at play, we speak of trust and likeability as factors that contribute to the charisma essential to leadership. Yet this positive likeability is often then used as a means to attain and seek status, usually by exercising popularity as a form of power for asserting superiority in skill-set, competence, or work status.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 16:37:25 +0000

The warmth-versus-competence trade-off is well known for a while. This guy’s argument makes zero sense and is a waste of time.

He argues for warmth. Great. In theory, you can be perceived to have both. In practice, we trade off.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 23:05:12 +0000

Hah!

Once again I alone suffice to confound some pop pseudo social scientific airport book’s half-baked theories.

That’s twice in just a few weeks on this site alone.

I’m like a walking antidote to half-assed social science. Maybe even whole-ass.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 16:13:57 +0000

But humans obviously strongly strive for status. Such behavior wouldn’t be so common unless it had been selected for in the past. Biological success isn’t about being happy. The interesting question about status strivers of either sex is not whether they are well-liked or happy. It’s whether or not they are reproductively more successful.

If they are less biologically successful their personality type will become less common in the future. But if the reverse is true it won’t matter if they are more depressed, anxious and live shorter lives.

It might turn out that celibates live longer lives. But evolution is not going to select for celibacy.