KEY POINTS
- Giving credit to others after a group effort may seem like a sure way to lose your own well-deserved status.
- New research on the vicious cycle of status insecurity shows how these natural feelings can backfire.
- By developing the right mindset toward sharing the spotlight with others, your own status will only grow.
You’ve just completed your share of a huge group project, feeling proud of your significant contributions to the team. When it comes time to take a bow for all this hard work, you’re anxious to be recognized for your efforts. Like the large groups of movie producers who scramble to the microphone after winning an Academy Award, someone needs to serve as the spokesperson for the group. Having been chosen to do the honor, you of course wish to receive the accolades. However, you wonder if you should assume a position of modesty and specifically thank everyone else rather than focus on yourself.
Giving credit to other people for a shared effort is a strategy that itself can take some effort. The natural tendency is to see “credit” as a limited resource; if you give credit to someone else, doesn’t that detract from your value as a contributor? A comprehensive new study provides surprising answers.
Status and Insecurity
According to Columbia University’s Maren Hoff and colleagues (2024), the “Vicious Cycle of Status Insecurity” leads people who feel uncertain about their own regard in the eyes of others, or status, to hoard the credit when congratulations are in order. Believing in a “zero sum” of status, those who worry about their own status think it’s better to edge other people out so that they receive the majority of praise. Unfortunately, what this can do is make the status-hungry seem small and petty. This is why the process takes on a vicious cycle.
Putting this in the words of the authors, “The irony is that because status insecurity reduces the likelihood of sharing one’s status with others, the insecure deprive themselves of opportunities to acquire the respect and admiration they so desperately seek, potentially reinforcing their insecurity and perpetuating the vicious cycle.”
Now, thinking back on your own inner conflict about sharing credit for your project, be honest and ask whether you’ve fallen prey to this vicious cycle mentality. Although being insecure about your status is, according to Hoff et al., a prerequisite for this kind of thinking, it seems as though it would be a natural enough tendency. However, it’s even more likely to occur if you meet the criteria for status insecurity, which the authors define as being in a state of “uncertainty and self-doubt,” about the ability to be “respected and admired in the eyes of others.”
Testing the Vicious Cycle of Status Insecurity
Starting with the premise that the insecure should be particularly prey to zero-sum thinking, the authors embarked on a series of 17 studies ranging from recollections of study participants to speeches from the reality show Survivor, including a set of experiments designed to manipulate situations that would threaten an individual’s status. In all, the key dependent measure was whether a participant would share or not share credit. If people feeling insecure operate according to the zero-sum model, then they should be less likely to acknowledge the role of someone else.
To understand what it means to experience status insecurity, see which type of situation might apply to you when you’re deciding whether to share the spotlight:
Upward social comparison: View yourself in relation to people you perceive as superior.
Competence concerns: Worry about your own abilities and performance levels.
Social disconnection: Feeling that you don’t belong in a group.
Public failure: Having your inadequacies exposed to others.
Prejudice concerns: Belief that you’re being judged or discriminated against based on inherent features of yourself (age, race, gender, ethnicity, social class, appearance, and health).
Status advancement concerns: Uncertainty about your ability to improve your social or professional status.
Infuriating environment: Being treated in ways that make you feel threatened.
Situation involving high stakes/under pressure: Having the outcome of a situation significantly affect your well-being, especially when placed under stress.
Status maintenance concerns: Uncertainty about losing your status.
Decisional concerns: Worry about making the wrong choices that will lead others to criticize you.
As you can see from this list, there are plenty of reasons for people to worry that giving credit to others will weaken their position. However, in study after study, Hoff et al. found that status sharing enhanced, rather than detracted from, an individual’s own status while also improving the status of those who are acknowledged. As the authors note, the “status pie” expands when both status giver and recipient are given recognition.
How to Be a Spotlight Sharer
Now that you know it’s better to give, while also receiving, the question is how to enact this strategy. First, take a look again at all those conditions that can create fear and insecurity about acknowledging someone else. How many times did you lose sleep over a competitive situation that you believed would lead to your loss of face, if not employment? Go back and check off the various sources of insecurity that drove you to that cyclical mentality. Is there a way, in the future, you could let those feelings go?
The authors suggest that what’s needed to overcome the zero-sum mentality is to adopt a “growth pie mindset.” They cite the example of Sir Dave Brailsford, knighted for his role in the United Kingdom’s accomplishments in team cycling. Rather than pretend that he was the “me” in “team,” he generously shared credit with all of his fellow cyclers. As the authors noted, “Like this cycling legend, we can create a virtuous cycle of status security by acknowledging the unique contributions of each team member.”
After you catalog all your own sources of status insecurity, don’t stop there. The next time something good happens to you as part of a group effort, try congratulating the others on your own team, even if every so slightly. To your surprise, you might find the other person returning the favor. That’s your growth pie.
To sum up, feeling worried about getting credit for your hard work is a natural experience. Turning that worry to generosity can only serve to benefit your own fulfillment, and those of the others equally deserving of that credit.
