Many moons ago, I recovered from a seven-year bout of ‘thesis envy’ after successfully defending my PhD thesis at my viva examination and this research focused on work-related stress in the National Health Service (NHS). In my thesis, I argued for a better understanding of the role of personality in how staff viewed, and coped with, the pressures of their job and the perceptions of their NHS Trusts supporting staff in their roles. One trend that I did not get around to studying in more depth until after my oral examination was the role of rank in how NHS staff perceived their stressful job situations and their levels of job satisfaction. Around the same time when I presented these findings (1) on how rank in one’s occupation showed differences in job stress and satisfaction, ‘Status Syndrome’ was published by Professor Michael Marmot (2). In Marmot’s book, he drew from evidence in the Whitehall I and II studies (i.e. research into the health and well-being of civil servants in the United Kingdom) to show that those in the same profession were systematically different depending on which rank they held, with those more senior faring much better than the most junior civil servants in terms of physical and psychological health. Several years later, another important book on rank and inequality – ‘The Spirit Level’ – was published by Professors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (3), in which they showed, country-by-country, that the poorer health and life expectancy tended to be associated with the most unequal society in which the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest was the greatest. With the evidence of higher death rates in a population in which societal rank is most prominent, the role of status for affecting someone’s life chances could not be starker.
And, yet, there is a caveat to these alarming statistics that show a linear relationship between societal rank and levels of physical and psychological ill-health and overall mortality among the world’s population. The link between status and health is a lot more complex than there being a linear link showing lower health in relation to the lower someone is in a pecking order, or vice versa. After Wilkinson and Pickett’s book came out, a counterargument to their position had been published by Christopher Snowden (4) in which he took to task omissions of countries that could have been included in The ‘Spirit Level’ and he questioned the policy implications of their findings. In a like manner, my PhD research (1) had not shown such a linear relationship on a psychological level, with rank and stress or job satisfaction being connected to such an extent that NHS staff who were in middle-ranking roles within their profession were the most stressed and least satisfied in their jobs. Those who were in the most senior roles within their discipline were faced with moderate levels of stress but were the most satisfied. This made sense, since someone in a middle-ranking role might be more likely to face pressure from their line managers but also pressure from those whom they are managing too. However, more recent research (5) has added to the very mixed up business of trying to dissect how rank could be related to health and well-being. In this study of medical staff, the researchers compared four different job groups working in a neonatal intensive care unit and found that those in the two more prestigious roles – the doctors and nurse practitioners – were reporting the higher levels of burnout, when compared with those in the other two job roles. One way to untangle this apparent contradiction is to note that in my PhD research I looked at differences in stress and satisfaction within each occupational group, whereas this latter study involved analysing differences in burnout between occupations. Perhaps a more sophisticated approach for modelling people’s rank and their health and well-being would be to look at the interaction between and within occupations. What is it like to have a high rank within a job role that occupies low status within a work organisation or in society? What stresses and strains do they feel? By contrast, what is it like to be in a low-ranking role, but within an occupation that carries prestige by one’s employer or by society in general? To have these various interactions between occupation-specific, organisation-specific, or societally related levels of status just goes to show how difficult it can be to untangle the potential impacts that rank can have on our lives.
Rank matters in the here and now, especially in times of global uncertainty and economic recession, as we are currently experiencing such challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic. We may then focus on the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ and how those who have power and status can exert these privileges. According to Robert Fuller (6), in his book ‘Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank’, the phenomenon of ‘rankism’ is “the ‘cancer’ that underlies many of the seemingly disparate maladies that affect the body politic. Unnamed it will continue to debilitate, damage, and destroy; named, we can begin to unravel its pathology and take steps to protect ourselves” (p.3). In a previous blog (7), I referred to two pandemics – one of COVID-19 and one of racism. In a similar way in which someone may be discriminated against on the basis of their race, rank-based discrimination involves when someone suffers unfair treatment on the basis of their social rank. Robert Fuller saw rankism as an abuse of power and subtle, or even explicit at times. He then goes on to say that “power differences, themselves, are not the culprit” (p.4) but rather it is how rank is used to exploit, put down, subjugate and demean someone to make them feel lesser than someone else. Rankism, in Fuller’s view, “insults the dignity of subordinates by treating them as invisible, as nobodies” (p.5). Perhaps a key to finding a way to resisting such rankism is to note that everyone may have a fundamental need to be afforded recognition and respect. If an individual is no longer treated as invisible and someone treats them with the kindness that may often be in short supply, then that individual’s feelings of self-worth may be enhanced; this virtuous action could lead to processes of ‘paying it forward’ to others with compassion and care in a like manner and the striving for power and superiority becomes a lot less important. This is analogous to the idea put forward by psychoanalyst, Alfred Adler (8), who claimed that the route to better psychological well-being was through cultivating what he called the ‘social interest’ in which focusing on serving the needs of others was to be a way of dissolving an individual’s mental health problems. It should be noted that Adler coined the phrases, “inferiority complex” and “superiority complex”, so he was very attuned to issues of power dynamics and how these could corrode people’s mental health and well-being.
So, perhaps paying people a decent level of respect is the way forward in tearing away at the processes in which rank, status, or prestige may erode people’s senses of self-worth. Giving opportunities for someone to feel recognised, respected, and loved may help to achieve this aim, but the process of giving and receiving respect is no mean feat. Professor Richard Sennett (9) wrote in his book, ‘Respect’, of the challenges of feeling respected when the actions of those in power may result in feeling denigrated. Sennett related a story of his upbringing in the housing development of Cabrini Green in Chicago, USA and how race and class could interlink when living in a dilapidated environment and to have feelings of being neglected and unloved, along with perceptions of little prospect of getting away from such a neighbourhood. In another prescient book (10), ‘The Corrosion of Character’, Sennett wrote of how the world of work has had a corrosive element to it in which it may wear away at how someone develops their sense of morals and decency in treating others and in being treated in a humane way. This corrosion comes through employees needing to be continually flexible, able to manage risks, and to see routinised work as “inherently demeaning” (p.45). This overlaps with the ideas put forward by Matthew Crawford (11), who made the case that so-called Blue Collar and White Collar work had been degraded – the former being devalued societally in terms of rank and the latter being ‘knowledge work’ that is piecemeal and offers little prospect of having ownership of a final product. If work is wearing away at our moral fabric and our sense of happiness in our jobs, then Sennett (10) offers one solution by advocating for the building a sense of community among each other; there need to be reasons for caring about each other, having healthy conflict to solidify communal bonds, and a recognition of shared mutual needs.
Although the creation of a sense of community might work, the need to compare ourselves with others when in the workplace is perhaps a primal need and could lead to the emergence of what the popular philosopher, Alain de Botton, has called ‘Status Anxiety’ (12). He defines it as “a worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of conforming to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying a modest rung or are about to fall to a lower one” (pp.3-4). De Botton argues that status anxiety usually rears its ugly head in the context of economic instability and recession, redundancy, news of the promotions or other successes that peers may have achieved, or even in casual chats with those in the same line of work. He then goes on to propose that we all need to reflect and understand what goes on in our minds when we experience periods of status anxiety and, in so doing, we can do something about it. The problem with this approach is that there does not appear to be a great deal of empirical evidence for methods of addressing and alleviating people’s levels of status anxiety. It may be helpful to understand and explore this phenomenon, but action is also needed to resolve it too, especially in light of a recent review of the literature (13) into the relationship between self-perceptions of societal rank, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideations/self-harm tendencies. At a time when global economic opportunities and employment rates are being negatively impacted, getting a full understanding of how a person can feel valued, respected and recognised by society and can get a sense of meaning in what they do is even more pressing right now.
There are ways of shaking off the shackles of status and focusing on the things that matter most. Steve Hilton, in his book, ‘More Human’ (14) argued for a more humane approach to creating our social systems within a range of settings. In the workplace, whether physical or virtual, we may often have crude metrics of success. These could be based on numerical data to give evidence on how well an employee has sold, taught, served, initiated projects, or whatever activity is most salient in that person’s working life. An alternative, and more humane and inspiring, way of setting out a vision for each employee to help them to flourish could be with embedding systems of Appreciative Inquiry; this is an innovative approach to assist an employee to remember the times when they have performed at their best to help them imagine and plan for future instances of these peak experiences. In so doing, both employee and line manager may revel in the positive re-living of mutually agreed successes and this may open new possibilities in the employee’s mind on what they could achieve. Contrast this with conventional systems of appraisal and feedback, and it can be seen that there is mounting evidence (15) for better systems of ‘feedforward’ in which this positive visualising flattens the playing field and it is no longer the manager setting the agenda for the employee.
Another way forward, to move away from the pernicious role of status and rank in the workplace and the status anxiety that could result, is in orientating around collective goals. There could be a celebration of teams and an appreciation of group-level successes, rather than having an organisation that focuses on individual-level achievements. This may seem idealistic and impractical but, working together to galvanise people’s efforts towards a shared better future, may then make the tough times more bearable. One of the most inspiring books I have read, ‘Nine Lives’ (16), gives eye-opening accounts of those people who have been spurred on to resist experiences in which power has been misused and to then create coalitions to fight back. In each of the nine lives written about, we learn more about how one person resists the sex trafficking trade in Thailand, how two people on either side of the Israel/Palestine conflict have used their experiences of bereavement to advocate for social change and to work towards peaceful living. All this activism is channelled in such a way to show that value can be crafted through touching people’s lives in a humane and empowering manner, rather than focusing on the boxes that need to be ticked to prove one’s worth.
Finally, another way in which the disabling role of rank can be incapacitated is for us to move away from comparing ourselves with others or against metrics of usefulness that may ring hollow. In the British Psychological Society’s magazine, ‘The Psychologist’, Maria Kordowicz (17) wrote a compelling piece entitled, “You are more than your productivity”. Alain de Botton had pointed out that our status rests on a fragile basis because it often relies on our achievements, which can often be superseded by someone else. And yet Kordowicz also reminds us that we are being bombarded with information on how to be resilient and this is often packaged as an individualised experience that may be deemed to be a sign of failure if someone does not have sufficient resilience. By contrast, Kordowicz argues that we could act on values of “contemplation, slow-living, and self-compassion” (p.32). As one potential balm to shake off the shackles of status, that seems as good a method as any.
If you have been affected by issues discussed in this article, support and advice are available at https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support and https://www.samaritans.org/
About the author
Dr. Glenn Williams is based at NTU Psychology. He teaches on modules including ‘Work-Based Psychology Practice’, ‘Psychological Well-Being’ and ‘Contemporary Issues in Mental Health’. He works as part of the Work, Well-Being and Performance Research Group, which is part of NTU’s Centre for Public and Psychosocial Health. But is he only about the things he does? Does this make up his identity and status? For this blog, perhaps.
For more on moving away from status and titles, Glenn recommends Robin Sharma (2010) “The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life”.
References
(1). Williams, G. & Albery, I.P. (2004). The role of occupational seniority in eustress and work-related satisfaction. In: British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference, Imperial College, London, 15-17 April 2004, London.
(2). Marmot, M. (2005). Status syndrome: How your social standing directly affects your health. A&C Black.
(3). Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2010). The spirit level. Why equality is better for everyone. Penguin.
(4). Snowdon, C. (2010). The spirit level delusion: fact-checking the left’s new theory of everything. Little Dice.
(5). Grace, M. K., & VanHeuvelen, J. S. (2019). Occupational variation in burnout among medical staff: evidence for the stress of higher status. Social Science & Medicine, 232, 199-208.
(6). Fuller, R. (2007). Somebodies and nobodies: Overcoming the abuse of rank. New Society Publishers.
(7). Williams, G. (2020) On Death and Re-birth: Navigating Two Pandemics. https://ntupsychology.blog/2020/06/29/on-death-and-re-birth-navigating-two-pandemics/
(8). Crandall, J. E. (1980). Adler’s concept of social interest: Theory, measurement, and implications for adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(3), 481–495
(9). Sennett, R. (2003). Respect. The formation of character in an age of inequality. WW Norton & Company.
(10). Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. WW Norton & Company.
(11). Crawford, M. (2010). The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or why office work is bad for us and fixing things feels good. Penguin.
(12). De Botton, A. (2008). Status anxiety. Vintage.
(13). Wetherall, K., Robb, K. A., & O’Connor, R. C. (2019). Social rank theory of depression: A systematic review of self-perceptions of social rank and their relationship with depressive symptoms and suicide risk. Journal of Affective Disorders, 246, 300-319.
(14). Hilton, S., Bade, S., & Bade, J. (2016). More Human: Designing a world where people come first. PublicAffairs.
(15). Kluger, A. N., & Nir, D. (2010). The feedforward interview. Human Resource Management Review, 20(3), 235-246.
(16). Braaksma, P. (2009). Nine lives: Making the impossible possible. New Internationalist.
(17). Kordowicz, M. (2020). You are more than your productivity. The Psychologist, November, 30-32.
Psychology at Nottingham Trent University 