Status: Means to an End Or An End in Itself?

Why is status so important to us? Do we consider it a tool to obtain power or a goal in and of itself? To answer these questions, Bernardo A. Huberman and Professors Christoph Loch and Ayse Onculer ran a human experiment, using a rent-seeking game to examine status and behavior in the US, Hong Kong, Turkey and Germany. Their results may surprise you.