“Is Self-Regard a Sociometer or a Hierometer? Self-Esteem Tracks Status and Inclusion, Narcissism Tracks Status”, 2019 (; similar):
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 2 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.
[Keywords: social status, social inclusion, self-esteem, narcissism, hierometer theory]