Status Is Not Power
You can now watch the first lecture from my course “The Psychology of Social Status” on the Peterson Academy YouTube channel:
This was recorded in Miami. Peterson Academy paid for travel and accommodation. That was my first time flying first class. I learned you can’t hang out in the Admirals Club or United Club or any of these airport lounges unless you’re flying international. Domestic flights don’t count. Rootless cosmopolitan global elites don’t want me to access free food or free coffee.
The lectures went well. The camera crew and staff were all extremely professional. Lots of thoughtful questions from the attendees. I noticed a lot of racial diversity as well as a gender balance among the students. I asked the staff if this was intentional. Maybe they wanted it to look good on a brochure, like colleges do with their admissions pamphlets. The staff replied that it was not intentional, this was just how it worked out. Everyone is interested in learning about psychology when the courses are not suffused with ideology.
After recording this series, I hosted a small meetup in Miami. One of the attendees was a muscular guy who was about 5’5.” He introduced himself and told me, “I thought you’d be shorter.” I guess because I sometimes post about male height studies. I post these findings because it’s one of the few prejudices that is still openly acceptable to express. It is bizarre that fat shaming is taboo but height shaming is not. Fat people have more control over their weight than short people do over their height. Especially now with Ozempic and other weight loss meds. Shaming a fat person can actually get them change their behavior and lose weight; shaming a short person will do nothing to change their height. Yet the former is bad but the latter is fine. Consistency is too much to ask for. I know. But I still find it mystifying.
Anyway. I’ve recorded 2 different courses for Peterson Academy, which you can check out here.
Yale
I’ll be speaking at Yale this Tuesday (March 31) at 12pm. The event organizers tell me it is open only to members of the university. If you are and you want to attend, reply to this email telling me who you are and I can give you the specific location.
I will speculate that fat shaming is unacceptable and height shaming is ok because the former is often directed at females by males and the later is directed at males by females. We currently live in a feminist culture where women are comfortable shaming men because it is socially acceptable or even considered funny, but men shaming women is considered toxic.
An outstanding survey to be sure. I did notice however that except in the final comments at the end regarding insults and one other brief moment earlier on (about females relatively more interested status than power), it seemed overwelmingly male oriented. Maybe not surprising given that Rob is a male.
A really interesting project would be a psychological study of Abraham Lincoln, about whose personal relationships and inner life a great deal is known, more than about any other major historical figure by a long shot. Lincoln himself was an astute psychologist. Thus for example millions of people either loved him or hated him, but nobody ever envied him. That was not by accident. I know a lot about Lincoln and would be happy to provide a reading list.
A good female subject would be Frances Perkins, whose oral history at Columbia University is priceless. She is by far the most influential woman in American history and one of the most interesting.