The social psychologist Susan Fiske says that humans are “comparison machines.”[35] Mark Leary, another social psychologist, describes the machinery in more detail: It’s as if we all have a “sociometer” in our brains—a gauge that runs from 0 to 100, telling us where we stand in the local prestige rankings, moment by moment. When the needle drops, it triggers an alarm—anxiety—that motivates us to change our behavior and get the needle back up.[36]
