People who fear rejection are more likely to pursue social status

"It has long been known that materialism, or the desire for nice things, explains the pursuit of status. We found that competition with others of the same sex is at least as important", says Tobias Otterbring.

He is a professor at the University of Agder's School of Business and Law.

Together with two colleagues, he has published a study on the pursuit of status.

In it, they present a new explanation for why some of us are more concerned with status symbols than others. 

The study includes over 4,000 participants from five countries.

The roots lie in childhood

The researchers base their work on psychological theories about how we form attachments to other people. 

The bonds we form with our parents during childhood shape our attachment patterns.

If parents are loving and attentive, the child develops a secure attachment. If they are unpredictable or absent, the child may develop what researchers call attachment anxiety.

The latter is a persistent fear of being rejected or abandoned by the people you love.

This group shows the strongest tendency to chase status

"Such anxiety stems from a fundamental relational insecurity. The question we asked ourselves was whether this insecurity can lead people to seek status as a form of compensation," says Otterbring.

The study distinguishes between two forms of insecure attachment: avoidance and anxiety.

Those who score high on avoidance keep others at a distance and suppress their need for closeness.

Those who score high on anxiety want to connect with others, but are constantly anxious in their relationships and unsure of their own worth. 

It is this latter group that, in the study, shows the strongest tendency to chase after status.

Competition is the key

The most surprising finding in the study is how the link between anxiety and the pursuit of status actually arises. 

Previous research has pointed to materialism as the main explanation: the desire to own things that signal status. The new study paints a different picture.

"We find that it's the urge to compare oneself with and outdo same-sex rivals that drives the pursuit of status. In other words, competition with others of the same sex is just as important as owning nice things," says Otterbring.

The researchers expected materialism to play an important role, based on previous studies on this topic.

"But the data consistently pointed to competition with same-sex rivals as another key driving force," he says.

Status replaces close relationships

The interpretation is that people with attachment anxiety use status as a substitute: they win the competition for visible success, and high status compensates for the loss of secure and close relationships.

To reinforce their findings, the researchers conducted experiments in which they induced attachment anxiety in the participants.

The results showed a measurable increase in the desire for status symbols such as expensive cars and homes among those who simultaneously displayed increased competition with their own gender.

"The effects were present in both women and men, although men generally had a stronger drive for status," says Otterbring.

A vicious cycle that may intensify

A key question that this study does not address is what the pursuit of status leads to over time.

"There is much to suggest that chasing high social status rarely resolves the underlying relational insecurity. In the worst case, it can become a self-reinforcing and painful cycle where one is never recognised and accepted for who one is," says Otterbring.

Reference: 

Gasiorowska et al. Anxious aspirations: Attachment anxiety fuels status strivings through intrasexual competition, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2026. DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/t94gx_v2

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