Status Games in a High School Setting

Abstract

Have you ever felt superior to someone because you scored higher than them on a test? Or maybe you placed higher than someone in the last competition you did? If you say no to any of these questions, you’re one of the few who haven’t been exposed to status games – which is extremely rare in today’s world. You might be wondering: what is a status game? Chances are, you participate in them every single day. Status games are exactly what they sound like: they’re ‘games’ where you compete for status with other people – whether that be through grades, extracurriculars, moral standing, or even a physical fight. This paper explores differing perspectives on these games and aims to provide a deeper understanding of how they affect us daily and the benefits and drawbacks of them – specifically in a high school setting. It explores status throughout the high school experience – from the first day till graduation – using ideas from the Status Game by Will Storr, and from different articles, while drawing on personal experiences to illustrate these ideas.

Introduction

The life-long status games we see begin the second we enter schools: it’s the first time we’re in a group setting where we truly have people to compete with. In elementary school, it can be for stickers that give us a reward at the end of the year, in middle school that turns into grades and in high school it turns into who is going to get into the most prestigious college. Not only with grades, but schools typically are the first time we are publicly humiliated in front of other people; a teacher sends you in the hallway if you are rude to another student or you get a question wrong in class and your peers make fun of you for it.

Ever since I’ve entered the school system, I’ve been exposed to status games. In Kindergarten, everyone took a standardized test to determine whether or not we were a fit for TAG – a program that literally stood for Talented and Gifted. If we passed the test, for the rest of elementary school all of the TAG kids were taken for special field trips, given Thursdays off from regular learning, instead given a pass to participate in funner and more exciting activities, like building paper airplanes to ‘expand our creativity’. But TAG didn’t just end in elementary school: it determined our placement for middle school and if we were capable of being in an advanced math class, or an advanced science class, compared to the on-level classes. From there, it determined our placement for high school: if you were in the TAG program, you were more likely to be in Algebra 2 versus Geometry freshman year; this went on every year of high school until senior year, where you’re given cords that deem if you were in the top 5% or not or tell you how many clubs you were a member of compared to other people. Those who were in the top of their class or were in more clubs go to more prestigious colleges; yet another form of status which can either boost you above other people or place you below them. What we didn’t realize was happening throughout this program was the countless status games – which Will Storr details in his book, The Status Game.

Overview of the Status Game

In Will Storr’s Status Game, he talks about three main types of status games that are most commonly seen: competence, virtue and dominance games. Competence games would be something like sports or grades, where you only gain status by becoming better at them or getting higher grades. Virtue games would be being the ‘bigger person’ in an argument, or being seen as good in the eyes of other people, something important nowadays in schools. And dominance games are the most classic form of status that we see in schools: bullying and putting other people down to make yourself higher in the game of status. All have a considerable place in the school system.

Competence games are fairly simple when you first look at them: whoever gets the higher grades has more status and whoever is better at an extracurricular has more status. But, that’s only a part of it. Grades are only considered status-boosting relative to other people’s grades – for example if you score 100 on a quiz, you’d feel good for a while, until you realize that everyone around you also scored 100, so you didn’t really accomplish anything or gain any status from that quiz. But if you scored 100 on a quiz where nobody else had gotten 100, then you’d be up the status chain because you’ve achieved something nobody else has. This applies in sports and other extracurriculars as well: being skilled isn’t enough if everyone else is just as skilled.

Of course, all of this is dependent on the person – some people take this game more to heart than others do, and some people take the other status games more seriously. However, competence games are so complex and really can end up controlling some people’s lives if they get too caught up in this game.

Competence games are constantly present in the classroom – one teacher even said “The converse of the negative self-talk issue also exists. If a student defends an idea only on the basis of his or her high status, this is a problem. Arguments should rest on mathematical justification, not social position. ‘Come on! Listen to me, I got an A on the last test’ is not a valid warrant and should not be treated as one.” Students will try to use their rank in the competence status game to validate themselves and make them feel superior to other students, which is clearly a common occurrence in the classroom (Teachmathculture 2014).

The second game is virtue games. They may not seem like they’d be in schools – how would you classify yourself as a better person compared to other people when you’re in classes the whole day? – but school is much more than just the class aspect. People form friend groups in school, and then that leads to group chats, which inevitably leads to disagreements. Whoever does the more ‘moral’ thing in an argument (being the bigger person, standing up for someone) thus has more points in the virtue game than everyone else. Even in class, virtue games take place. How you act in class – whether you disrupt the teacher, answer questions – determines your place in this game and how you react to issues going on around you. When fights break out in school, which is fairly common at school, whoever steps in to break up the fight vs. who is encouraging the people to keep fighting can also determine the number of points one gains in this game.

However, while these virtue games definitely exist, how much status you gain overall from them is all dependent on your environment and the person. Some people admire these people who are extremely good people, but others think it’s less appealing and inconsequential. This makes virtue the most confusing game, and perhaps the hardest to participate in. People who may not even know you will judge you based on your virtue, which determines their perception of if you’re a nice person or not – but it’s all based on the person.

Virtue games are generally more present in subtle ways, such as a teacher telling someone off for saying something rude, or having a general reputation, and are slightly less present in high schools than competence and dominance games.

The final game is the dominance game: while most are seen in physical forms, many can also be seen verbally or simply through your actions. Bullying and picking on someone tends to be the easiest way to win points in this game – it sends a message to everyone surrounding the person to not mess with them or the same thing will happen to you. In a class one time, two boys who were ‘friends’ with someone constantly picked on him and teased him for something as simple as asking questions in class. It even turned slightly physical at times (played off in a joking way, of course). This is the perfect example of a dominance game. Whoever dared to stand up to these guys had the exact same thing happen to them. They didn’t gain status from getting good grades, and definitely not from being good people, but they did from showing they were stronger with their words than other people. Even something as simple as being taller than someone can show dominance: they are literally physically more dominant, which then becomes very easily to translate to more dominant in the status game.

As one teacher noted, “One of the most important and tangible status assessments teachers can do is ask who speaks and who is silent. Some students might dominate a conversation, never soliciting or listening to others’ ideas. These are probably high-status students.” Dominance games can differ in how they appear: whether it’s a student who talks the most or someone who physically harms others to display their dominance, they both can alienate lower status students (Teachmathculture 14).

School is also one of the first places where we form groups: in Chapter 2 in The Status Game by Will Storr, he talks about how “we have instincts that compel us to seek connection with coalitions of others” and how “before we can be rewarded with status, we must first be accepted into the group as a player.” School is the perfect example of this: people have numerous different interests, joining an endless amount of groups, but some tend to be ‘ranked higher’ than others. For example, some groups are labeled the popular kids, some named the theater kids and some named the nerds. What group you’re in places you in a tier and thus indirectly allows other people to form their opinions of you. While having a sense of identity and a group you belong to can be great and allows you to form connections with people, rejection from a group or ejection from the game is extremely detrimental on mental health and in some cases, can form resentment towards other people for rejecting them from the game and lowering their status. This same idea can be applied to schools: ejection from the game would be an established group bullying someone who isn’t a part of any group yet – and this is true according to statistics which show bullying is linked to depression (Kaltiala-Heino 11).

School is a mini status game in itself: it starts our perspective of status and makes us invested in several status games at a time, whether it’s for grades, social standing, clubs or anything else.

Differing Views

However, Will Storr’s book doesn’t take into account a lot of factors that can affect people’s lives and it also doesn’t place status games in the context of real life. His views are overly cynical and are very closed minded – meaning he doesn’t consider people’s life conditions in these status games.

Some reviews say that the views in this book are very cynical. For example, Beaudoin writes that he doesn’t view “story telling outside of status games,” which is true in the sense that he views status games as the one factor that drives all of our actions (Cogzest). Have all of your actions, whether they played into status games or not, been driven because of your need for more status? For most people, the answer is no. Life is so much more than these games, and Storr’s book doesn’t account for the fact that people have lives and things that they care about outside of status games.

This view is true in all settings, but can be more prevalent in high school settings, because this is the time that you find yourself and you develop into the person you will be for the rest of your life, so some of your actions aren’t necessarily fueled by this drive for status or a need to be the best: they’re fueled by trying to find yourself. However, the ideas in this book can be applied to high schoolers and they can explain why we do some of the things we do, but it’s important to approach these concepts critically and contextually, rather than view everyone as cynical for something that they may have said.

Others believe that Storr doesn’t consider that people want to win these games for different reasons: not for the rush that they get when they win but because they need the money or the grades to get a better job. For example, the News Statesman discusses a line in his book – “Money is a status symbol, power is a status symbol, so is the size of a logo on a handbag.” – and says that Storr writes this as if these two are equivalent, but one can change lives while the other is for your own pleasure (Turner 22).

His book really takes a privileged view – some people aren’t obsessed with status games as he portrays it to be. For some, life isn’t about winning the game just to win, it’s to survive. He makes it seem as if status is one end all be all, when the reality is for a lot of people, it’s not.

This article also mentions how his book contradicts itself a lot. The last line is “The meaning of life is not to win, it’s to play,” when the entire book is emphasizing how, as humans, we need to win these games for the status it provides us. The article continues, saying that most of us strive for dominance “until the moment we log out of life.” Storr isn’t consistent in his ideas, which is why it’s important to look at his entire book very critically and only take in what you believe to be true, rather than trusting his word blindly.

All of these views are valid: while the general premise of Storr’s views and thoughts can be seen in our daily lives, the specifics really aren’t detailed or thought out well. He disregards a lot of situations that people may be in, which can completely change the entire idea of a status game for them. While reading his book or the overview of the book above, think about it critically and contextually and know that not everything is set in stone, and status games are very personal to the reader of the book.

You, as the reader, can form your own opinion about these games and whether you think that they’re more helpful than harmful to us, and hopefully this paper will help you do so.

Status Games Played in High School

I believe that I have a unique take on his book and its effects in schools because I go to a public high school, which I would classify as a pretty average American high school. We have all the usual social cliques – with the ‘popular’ kids, the extremely smart kids, and the kids who have a niche, such as the theater kids, the band kids or the orchestra kids. We also have ‘the rulebreakers’ – those who skip class, act out in front of teachers, etc. We have all the social cliques that any American high school has, which is why I believe I’m qualified to examine these games in an educational setting.

And while all of these games can be harmful when not handled carefully, I’ve personally found that they can also push you to be better.

Without competence games, there would definitely be times when I wouldn’t study for a test or do my homework – especially when I’m unmotivated. This mindset also happens with peers as well: I’ve heard some of them say that they studied so they could beat someone they didn’t like or they tried especially hard at a volleyball game because the opposing team is someone they really didn’t like. Competence games are a driving force of what makes some people successful, which is why they’re important. However, if taken to the extreme, they can cause extremely low self esteem and extreme comparison. There’s friend groups where everyone may be getting all A’s or really good grades, but one or two people in that friend group may be getting slightly lower grades. Competence games can absolutely crush people and cause resentment towards other people: if you feel pride when beating other people in these, then you feel bitterness and almost depression when other people beat you.

Studies have shown that competence games can cause anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. One study has identified 3 types of comparison: upward, downward and lateral social comparison. Upward means to compare yourself to people we believe are better to make us feel worse, downward to people we believe are worse to make ourselves feel better, and lateral to people we believe are our equals (Newport Academy 24). All of these comparisons have been linked with low self-esteem or mild depression, and a study of Stanford students (Lyubomirsky 97) revealed that when we’re happy, comparison doesn’t hold as much power over us. Long term, these effects worsen and it can get to a point that can take over our lives. These are just a few of the effects that competence games have on us, showing how if we get too involved in them, it can lead to a decreased quality of life.

Without virtue games, it’s unlikely that anyone would actively try to be nice. When you’re rude to people or say everything that comes to your mind, other people automatically think “Wow, that was mean” or “She’s not a good person,” and it’s our innate human instinct to have other people that like us. Thus, some people make an effort to be kind and think about other people. Virtue games push people to simply be better humans, which is priceless. On the other hand, virtue games are almost used to shame people for something that they may have done. I’ve seen someone make one comment that was too far or wasn’t nice, and people will go to the extreme to shame them and will drag it on for as long as possible. Word will spread quickly if someone says one mean thing – “She’s really mean, I heard her say ___.” In high school or school settings in general, gossip spreads so quickly and virtue games are one of the reasons for that, which is harmful because everyone has said something wrong at least once in their life — why hold that one thing against them?

And finally, without dominance games, we would be much less structured. It would be hard to know who to idolize, for example, leading to arguments and general disorder. Especially in high schools, kids tend to idolize people they respect or kids they admire. Without dominance games, it would cause social chaos. Having everyone equal hinders growth of a school or test scores, because no competition is fostered. Dominance games are important because they provide social structure; and humans thrive on structure.

Our society in general is formed around structure. We need structure to survive and to thrive. Social structure provides the framework with which we interact with others, and we would be in shambles without it (Accessdl). Status games provide this structure – and while they can be harmful it is the basis of our society. Imagine a world in which everyone on earth was in the same friend or social group – and everyone had to interact with each other. Does that sound enjoyable? Probably not, because we choose our social groups based on similar interests, which ties into status. This is another pro of these games that isn’t valued or noticed enough.

However, dominance games can easily give people too much power and people can abuse it. From highschools to governments, we see abuse of power so often. People bully each other because they see others as easy victims or power will go to an official’s head and they will abuse their power, maybe targeting other countries. Dominance games are the easiest to go wrong, no matter the benefits, which is why they should always be controlled.

For example, governments around the world have been corrupted by one person who slowly took more and more power, giving them more fuel to expand their personal agenda. Dominance games which lead to too much corruption can harm a nation, if not handled carefully.

However, these experiences can differ depending on the type of school you go to. Religious private schools, for example, may place a heavier emphasis on virtue games and not disobeying the rules they have set in place. College prep schools, on the other hand, can place an emphasis on competence games – placing students in competition with each other so that they can all be the best candidates for college possible.

Everyone has different experiences with status games, depending on where they went to school or what friend group they were part of, but the fact is that almost everyone on this planet has encountered them at least once and has been affected by them.

Personal Experience

Personally, I’ve been a participant in extreme status games my whole life. Since I was seven, I’ve entered competitive swimming, competitive music, and competitive debate tournaments. Every extracurricular I’ve ever done has caused me to compare myself to others and to place myself in certain groups or rank myself in comparison to others in my head.

In my experience, status games have crushed me and they have also pushed me to be my very best.

In 8th grade, I opened a letter that would determine whether I got accepted to an orchestra in my area that I’d been vying for since 6th grade. I opened this letter in front of 6 or 7 other people who had all opened the same one moments before – some rejected, but most of them were accepted. I didn’t get either of the letters that everyone else had got. I got alternate.

This experience shaped my mindset for the next year and a half. I placed myself below or above other people in this game that I made up in my head – which I can now classify as my own personal status game. If I got 100 on a test, that bumped me up a little. If I got a good chair in another orchestra, that also bumped me up a little. No matter what, though, there was something always telling me that the people who got accepted over me were always ahead of me – which I now realize was a status game. Either I would compare myself to those who had gotten rejected – I classified myself as ‘ahead’ because I had gotten alternate or ‘behind’ compared to those who were accepted. They would always be beating me in this one aspect of the game and I would always lose compared to them, unless I one-upped them.

So for the entire year, I pushed myself to the hardest I could, all to achieve this one goal. In this way, status games destroyed me. They took up every waking thought for a very long time, and they did damage my quality of life. Looking back, however, I think that they pushed me to be my best. There’s always two routes that we can take as humans: to stay where we are or change. And while status games can be harmful, they can also create the strongest version of yourself, depending on how you let them control you.

For me, they worked. All of that work that the status games inspired me to do paid off. A year passed and the next year came to audition for the same orchestra, and this time I was accepted. The status game may have worked, but for everyone, it comes at a different cost.

I say this to put into perspective how status games can influence a normal high schooler, and to emphasize that in a time of constant stress, a time full of the hardest classes and numerous extracurriculars, adding extreme status games can influence everyone differently – they may take over your life or they may make you a better person. It all depends on how you use them.

Conclusion

Status games shape high schoolers’ experience in almost every aspect: with friends, having status affects our enjoyment with them, with classes, whether we are doing well in the class (or, having status in the class) affects our enjoyment of them, and in our extracurriculars – whether it be a sport, club or musical pursuit – our status in them affects our enjoyment. People quit things because they solely aren’t good at them, and thus didn’t have status compared to those who were good at it. Many people have been humiliated because they were worse at something than someone else. And high schoolers also may despise classes because they don’t get good grades in them.

Ultimately, the choice to engage in status games is yours. Hopefully, reading up until this point has helped you decide your priorities and whether these games would be more helpful or harmful in your life, but if not it’s important to remember that status games aren’t all of life. As mentioned before, it’s very cynical to think of life as a big status game, as Will Storr did. It’s important to realize that while having status is nice, it’s not all there is to our lives.

Status is such a huge part of the high school – or any school – experience. As a final lesson, it’s also very heavily prevalent at the end of our educational journeys. In a time of happiness and joy, marking the end of our educational journeys, we also are ranked by status at our graduations – through graduation cords.

Graduation cords are an interesting topic – they quite literally rank students at the very end of their educational journey at an institution. This tradition arose from Catholic practices, where multi-colored chords were used to determine clergymen’s status (Tassel Depot). Most of the early universities in the United States were founded by clergymen, leading this tradition to be adopted in universities and high schools around the nation today. Today, these cords are used for a similar purpose: to give a higher status to those who have demonstrated ‘academic excellence’ – and in some universities, the higher grades you have, the more cords you receive. While most status symbols are less obvious, graduation cords are truly in your face: you’re either less or more intelligent than others, according to your school, based on what color cord you have. There are 2 different cords that most schools provide based on your grades: summa cum laude (with highest honor), magna cum laude (with great distinction), and cum laude (with distinction). Valedictorians and salutatorians (1st and 2nd highest grades out of a graduating class) even get their own special cords, on top of the ones they already received from qualifying for summa cum laude. At your graduation ceremony, people can take one look at your cords and tell if you were ‘smarter’ than them or not. Status is even present at the very end of our educational journeys.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned from this paper, hopefully it’s that by the time students graduate from high school or university, they’ve not only learned material: they’ve learned where they are in comparison to other people – they’ve learned the game of status and how to play it – from the very beginning to the very end.

Bibliography

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What’s right in and what’s missing from the status game book by Will Storr? CogZest. (n.d.). https://cogzest.com/humanism/the-status-game-by-will-storr/

2.04 social structure and its components. (n.d.). https://accessdl.state.al.us/AventaCourses/access_courses/sociology_ua_v17/02_unit/02-04/02-04_le arn1_text.htm#:~:text=Social%20structure%20provides%20the%20framework,same%20geographic %20territory%20and%20culture

Home. 100 Years of Tradition – The Meaning of the Graduation Cords. (n.d.). https://www.tasseldepot.com/100-years-of-tradition-the-meaning-of-the-graduation-cords

Turner, J. (2022, November 1). How to win the Virtue Game. New Statesman. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2021/09/the-status-game-will-storr-review

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Teachmathculture. (2014, March 10). Seeing status in the classroom. teaching/math/culture. https://teachingmathculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/seeing-status-in-the-classroom/

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