How do you define yourself how hard are you working? In this one research, we try to identify if we are trying too hard or not doing enough.
It depends on how a person is trying to earn that status.
People assess others' status based on various dimensions like wealth or coolness, each linked to different beliefs about what behaviors contribute to group goals.
Whether effort increases status hinges on the ideologies used to judge if a behavior benefits the group.
Four experiments reveal that trying to become wealthy earns more status compared to being effortlessly wealthy, but trying to become cool earns less status compared to being effortlessly cool.
Effort boosts status when focused on wealth because ideologies suggest those who gain wealth through effort contribute more to society, while effort for coolness is seen as contributing less.
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What do I need to know?
People who try to be cool are seen as contributing less and thus, earn less status than people who are effortlessly cool, but people who try to be wealthy are seen as contributing more and thus, earn more status than people who are effortlessly wealthy.
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Notably, effort that clearly contributes to the group increases status, and effort that clearly disregards the group decreases status, regardless of the goal toward which the effort is directed.
