Reputation: Research Psychology
Brain Studies Link Social Status and Monetary Reward
The latest brain studies reveal why reputation is so important.
Social standing and a good reputation are important behavioral drives. It's not only protective mothers who caution their daughters to guard their good reputation. Image, social standing, and a good reputation are coveted accomplishments. Consider the well known tag line of a camera company, "Image is Everything." Reputation and reward are processed by the same area of the brain, suggesting that good reputation is, itself, a reward.
Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never mended well. ~Benjamin Franklin
Behavior Studies: Tall People Earn More
It's a research-confirmed fact that tall people have higher social standing and higher income. In Short Changed, Why do tall people make more money?,March 2002, Steven E. Landsburg wrote, "an extra inch of height can be worth an extra $1,000 a year or so in wages, after controlling for education and experience." Landsburg goes on to say, "Of 43 American presidents, only five have been more than a smidgeon below average height, and the last of those was Benjamin Harrison, elected in 1888."
Brain Research
Now scientists have a better understanding of why social standing is so important. It turns out that humans process social standing choices and reward choices in the same area of the brain, the striatum. Both are rewards to the mind's way of thinking, reports Scientific American writer Nikhil Swaminathan in an April 24th, 2008 article.
Scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland and counterparts at Japan's National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS) used different methods to determine that we process social values in the striatum, which had previously been tapped as our brain's monetary reward center.
"Our study shows that both behaviorally and in the brain, people place an importance on social status," says Caroline Zink, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at NIMH and co-author of one of the studies. "It's hugely influential even [when we're not] in direct competition with someone else."
A good reputation is more valuable than money. ~Publilius Syrus
Brain Studies
These brain studies provide evidence that our brains consider a good reputation to be rewarding and worth considering as we mull our options. Scientists believe people probably weigh the benefits of reputation and reward against one another as they make up their minds.
Swaminathan reports that in other areas of the studies, researchers found brain areas that process emotional pain (the amygdala and posterior cingulate) are active when people believe they've been out shined by those with inferior social standing.
Psychology Today writer Lauren Storck (October, 1999) reports that research studies show socioeconomic status also impacts physical health. Scientists believe that psychological factors such as stress, shame, depression, poor social support and pessimism - all burdens of low social class - make the body vulnerable to poor health.
Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one. ~Lord Jeffrey
