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loretta breuning

loretta breuning

status games slides

david krieger

January 14, 2022
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  1. Loretta G. Breuning PhD
    Inner Mammal Institute
    innermammalinstitute.org
    by Loretta Breuning, PhD
    Rowman Littlefield
    Status Games
    Why We Play and How to Stop

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  2. Sept. 8
    Rowman Littlefield
    SBN-10 : 1538144190
    ISBN-13 : 978-1538144190

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  3. People care about status because
    animals care about status

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  4. human cortex
    animal brain
    We’ve inherited the limbic
    brain that motivates this

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  5. Your mammal brain rewards
    you with a drip of serotonin
    when you raise your status

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  6. Serotonin
    is not
    aggression.
    It’s the calm
    sense that
    “ I will get
    the banana ”

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  7. Serotonin is soon metabolized,
    so you have to keep seeking the
    one-up position to keep feeling it

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  8. The good feeling motivates you
    to repeat behaviors that
    raise your status

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  9. I’m not saying we should
    think this way, but we do

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  10. Natural selection built a brain
    that makes social comparisons
    to promote its own survival

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  11. It rewards you with serotonin
    when you gain
    a position of strength

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  12. It alarms you with cortisol when
    you see a potential threat to
    your relative position

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  13. You don’t think this in words
    because the animal brain
    cannot process language

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  14. These facts were revealed by a century
    of research on mammalian social
    behavior, but now they are taboo

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  15. It’s easy to see the mammalian
    urge for status in others,
    especially those you don’t like

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  16. It’s easy to see the one-up impulse
    throughout human history

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  17. It’s hard to see it in yourself, your
    friends, and cute furry creatures

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  18. But getting real about
    these feelings gives you
    power over them

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  19. Neurons connect when serotonin flows,
    so whatever raised your status in the past
    wired you to expect good feelings from that

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  20. We all see the world through the
    lens of our old neural pathways

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  21. We all keep striving to stimulate
    serotonin and avoid cortisol in
    ways that worked before

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  22. We all create one-down feelings
    and one-up feelings despite our
    best intentions

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  23. We all keep making social
    comparisons because it’s a core
    mammalian survival impulse

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  24. What’s a
    big-brained
    mammal
    to do?

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  25. Status Games
    shows you healthy ways to give your
    inner mammal what it needs to feel good

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  26. It helps you put yourself up
    without putting others down

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  27. It helps you spark serotonin
    without junk status

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  28. It helps you manage the
    cortisol of one-down moments

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  29. Repetition will build new
    pathways so it feels normal

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  30. You will always be a
    mammal among mammals

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  31. You have
    power over
    your brain
    but not
    the brains
    of others

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  32. You can wire yourself to
    enjoy nature’s serotonin

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  33. You’ll be glad you did!

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  34. Your questions are invited:
    [email protected]

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