Winners, losers, insiders, and outsiders: Testing hierometer and sociometer theories of self-regard.

What evolutionary function does self-regard serve? Hierometer theory, introduced here, provides one answer: to help people navigate status hierarchies characterized by risky zero-sum contests, which can be lost as well as won. In particular, self-regard tracks social status to regulate behavioral assertiveness, augmenting or diminishing it to optimize contetxt performance. Hierometer theory also offers a conceptual counterpoint that helps resolve ambiguities in sociometer theory, a complementary account of self-regard’s evolutionary function. In three large-scale cross-sectional studies, we operationalized theoretically relevant variables at appropriate levels of analysis: social (integration: status, inclusion), psychological (self-regard: narcissism, self-esteem), and behavioral (strategy: assertiveness, affiliativeness). Correlational and mediational analyses consistently supported hierometer theory, but offered only mixed support for sociometer theory, including after controlling for confounding constructs (anxiety, depression). We interpret our results in terms of a broader agency-communion framework, and suggest that specific self-perceptions (warmth, communion) may underlie the dynamic effects of self-esteem and narcissism