What adaptive function does self-regard serve? Sociometer theory predicts that it positively tracks social inclusion. A new theory, hierometer theory, predicts that it positively tracks social status. We tested both predictions with respect to two types of self-regard: self-esteem and narcissism. Study 1 (N = 940), featuring a cross-sectional design, found that both status and inclusion covaried positively with self-esteem, but that status alone covaried positively with narcissism. These links held independently of gender, age, and the Big Five personality traits. Study 2 (N = 627), a preregistered cross-sectional study, obtained similar results with alternative measures of self-esteem and narcissism. Studies 3-4 featured experimental designs in which status and inclusion were orthogonally manipulated. Study 3 (N = 104) found that both higher status and higher inclusion promoted higher self-esteem, whereas only higher status promoted higher narcissism. Study 4 (N = 259) obtained similar results with alternative measures of self-esteem and narcissism. The findings suggest that self-esteem operates as both sociometer and hierometer, positively tracking both status and inclusion, whereas narcissism operates primarily as a hierometer, positively tracking status. (PsycINFO Database Record

What evolutionary function does self-regard serve? Hierometer theory, introduced here, provides one answer: it helps individuals navigate status hierarchies, which feature zero-sum contests that can be lost as well as won. In particular, self-regard tracks social status to regulate behavioral assertiveness, augmenting or diminishing it to optimize performance in such contests. Hierometer theory also offers a conceptual counterpoint that helps resolve ambiguities in sociometer theory, which offers a complementary account of self-regard’s evolutionary function. In two large-scale cross-sectional studies, we operationalized theoretically relevant variables at three distinct levels of analysis, namely, social (relations: status, inclusion), psychological (self-regard: self-esteem, narcissism), and behavioral (strategy: assertiveness, affiliativeness). Correlational and mediational analyses consistently supported hierometer theory, but offered only mixed support for sociometer theory, including when controlling for confounding constructs (anxiety, depression). We interpret our results in terms of a broader agency-communion framework.

Consistent with the motives to achieve social status and inclusion being fundamental, higher levels of both, actual and perceived, have been linked with better psychological health. This study (N=680) sought to extend understanding of such links by examining how individual differences in aspirations for status and inclusion correlated with psychological health (higher trait self-esteem, lower trait anxiety). Whereas perceptions of higher status and inclusion showed a positive link to psychological health, higher aspirations for status and inclusion showed a negative link. The former and latter pairs of links persisted after controlling for one another, and no evidence emerged of moderation. It is beneficial to perceive one's status and inclusion as high, but not to aspire for them to be, regardless of how such perceptions and aspirations interrelate.

According to Tears for Fears, "Everybody wants to rule the world." Yet, according to The Beatles, "All you need is love." Both songs get it partly right: The need for social statusdefined as being respected and admired-and the need for social inclusion-defined as being liked and accepted-are both regarded as fundamental human motives (Anderson,

In this paper, we scrutinize intellectual arrogance and intellectual humility through an evolutionary lens. Our basic thesis might be summarized as follows. Human cognition, though it partly transcends the natural order, remains rooted in it: it is half-emancipated, halfembodied. In particular, it bears the lowly stamp of competitive dynamics that form part of the adaptive behavioral repertoire of all complex animals. Such dynamics, transmuted to the mental realm in human beings, help to explain, in psychological terms, why argumentation and ratiocination can be sometimes motivationally biased, but sometimes dispassionately truth-oriented too. Alongside furnishing our evolutionary-epistemological account of intellectual humility, we embed the construct in a wider nomological net, and report some recent empirical findings illustrating the automaticity of the tendency towards intellectual arrogance. We conclude by considering the role spirituality and religion might play in either helpfully fostering intellectual humility or inadvertently fostering intellectual arrogance.