Humans, however, are the only species who establish status almost completely by psychological methods. In people, status is made up of three things.
1) How you perceive yourself
2) How others perceive you
And
3) Your perception of how others perceive you.
In the first example, we give ourselves a personal status. We view ourselves as better or worse than someone else sitting in the same room.
This self-inflicted pecking order is often seen by who dominates the conversation, and who makes the activity suggestions. This person is the circumstantial alpha.
Often times the status we have given ourselves is sensed by others in the room. This and other factors effects the second factor in social status, how others perceive you.
When feeling out the elements of a social gathering, we assign the people around us to a status either above or below our own. This status can change as the social situation develops, this is why human hierarchy is so difficult to gauge.
The status that we perceive in others determines who we sit next to, who we allow to go before us in line, whose opinion is given the most recognition etc. All of these factors are interacting simultaneously, the phycological undercurrent in a social situation is just as important as what is happening on the surface.
The third factor in determining status is how we believe others are perceiving us. If we feel well liked in a social circle, we are more likely to assign ourself to a higher social rung. In the same way, if we are uncertain of how we are being perceived we are likely going to feel inferior to the others around us.
All of this I say as an observation of a social gathering I found myself in the middle of today. A group of my peers and I met for a lunch, and I realized that I felt very equal to them. I felt very different, as I suppose a zebra would feel in a group of horses, but I still felt equal. It's so strange how the smallest of factors can make you perceive yourself as an equal one day, and an inferior the next one.
