哲人
近几十年来，有越来越多的证据表明，一个人的社会地位会深深影响到他的健康与幸福。这一曾经令人惊讶的理论现已得到广泛认可，迈克尔•马尔莫(Michael Marmot)以及《精神层面》(The Spirit Level)一书的两位作者——理查德•威尔金森(Richard Wilkinson)和凯特•皮克特(Kate Pickett)等社会流行病学家，为此做出了极大贡献。
社会地位影响福祉的理论也有很多批评者。但即使这一理论是正确的，我们也不清楚自己该如何应对。我们常常认为，如果有证据证实社会地位真的会影响人类的感受，那么我们不得不承认这是一个不可改变的事实。但是，正常或典型的现象并非总是可取或不可改变的。
举例来说，所有的跨文化分析都会发现，在抚育子女方面，母亲要比父亲付出的多得多。但如果我们就此得出结论，认为这种现象永远都不可能改变，那瑞典的父亲们就不可能像今天这样成为引领时代的楷模。即使一种行为模式是近乎普世的，我们也无法预先知道它究竟是一个我们不能改变的自然法则，还是只是一种我们能够并且应该改变的原始陋习。
按照“社会地位重要论”的主张，就连该理论本身就存在内在可变性。所有认真的人类学分析均表明：社会地位的内涵随地域与时代的不同而不同。比方说，在许多正统犹太社区里，人们更加推崇的是教育，而非财富。而40年前，教师对自己社会地位的自评分为4.3分（满分为5分），如今这个自评分降至2.7分左右。
因此，应对地位重要论这一“事实”的方式，不应是简单的接受我们的经济实力地位是不可避免的。更理想的策略也许是，试图改变我们对于什么应当受到珍视的假定。地位的内涵并非天赐，而是我们赋予的。
精神科医师
人们常常对自己实现不了自我期望耿耿于怀。自感事业无成、同时念念不忘同行所取得的成就，这种心境可能毁掉即便是最成功的人生。这种现象不足为怪：我们所处的社会看重竞争，鼓励人们根据社会地位的物质标准做出自我评价。
如果世界由成功者与失败者组成，那么把自己列入后者行列，会让你感到现实与期望之间存在令人不快的差距。我们经常认为，要化解这一心结，只能是取得更多成就：如果我们通过打拼获得了更丰厚的薪水、更漂亮的住房，以及更强健的体魄，那么我们就能摆脱这种攀比游戏，感到满足。
但如此一来，我们就可能走上一台永不停下的“跑步机”而不得脱身。在我们眼中，总有一些人的成就超过我们，而我们会不断“跑步”，试图赶上他们。有些研究人员把渐趋增多的精神健康问题归咎于这种追求竞争的个人主义。
追求功名是人类经过进化的工具包的重要组成部分。但不能据此就认为，我们应当穷其一生，奴隶般的追求最基本的本能欲望。我们可以运用自己拥有的反省能力，帮助自己判定：哪些真的值得去做，哪些真的会让人生富有意义。
我们不必一窝蜂式的唾弃尘世，去追求冥想式的生活（虽然有些人可能想这么做）。但是，对生活做些调整或许会有所裨益。
心理学家保罗•吉尔伯特(Paul Gilbert)对追求功名是缘于威胁还是缘于价值观做了区分，我觉得这颇有价值。我们全力以赴的做事，应该是缘于我们看重它们，而不是为了逃避对自身所处社会地位的焦虑感。
即便某种程度的攀比是自然而不可避免的，我们也能够通过专注于自己满意的事、充分品味“小事”的乐趣、出于兴趣参与某些活动、以及寻找非竞争性的社交活动，来创造更多平衡。我们不必从幸福生活中彻底排斥社会地位，但我们应该把它放在合适的位置。
精神科医师与哲人一起居住在英格兰西南部。
译者/何黎
The Sage
In recent decades, evidence has piled up that human health and happiness is significantly affected by our place in the pecking order. Social epidemiologists such as Michael Marmot and the authors of The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, have done the most to convert what was once a surprising theory into something now widely accepted as fact.
The theory that status influences well-being has plenty of critics. But even if it is true, it is not clear what we should do in response. Too often it is assumed that if status is shown to affect how people feel across the globe, then we have to accept that as an immutable fact. What is normal or typical, however, is not always desirable or unchangeable.
For instance, any cross-cultural analysis would have found that mothers do much more child-rearing than men. But had we concluded from that that things can never be any different, Swedish fathers would not have become the progressive role models they are today. Even if a pattern of behaviour is almost universal, we can’t know in advance if it is a law of nature we cannot change or simply a remnant of our primitive past that we can and should modify.
Even on its own terms, the idea that status matters has its own internal mutability. Any careful anthropological analysis would show that what confers status varies from place to place, and time to time. In many orthodox Jewish communities, for example, learning is more highly prized than wealth. Whereas four decades ago teachers perceived their status to be 4.3 on a five-point scale, now that figure is around 2.7.
The way to deal with the “fact” that status matters is not therefore simply to accept as inevitable the importance of our position on the economic league table. A better approach might be to try to change the assumptions we have about what should be valued. Status is not simply a given of nature: it is something that we confer.
The Shrink
A nagging sense that one does not quite measure up is common. Feelings of underachievement and obsessing about what our peers have achieved that we haven’t can blight even the most successful life. This is not too surprising: our society privileges competition and encourages self-evaluation based on material markers of social status.
If the world is made up of winners and losers, counting ourselves among the latter can open an uncomfortable gap between the way things are and the way we’d like them to be. Frequently we think the solution simply lies in achieving more: if we managed to secure a better salary, house, body, then we’d be able to drop the comparing game and feel contented.
But this strategy risks landing us on a treadmill off which we can never step. There will always be people who in our eyes have achieved more than us, and we’d constantly be running to try and catch up with them. Some researchers have linked this competitive individualism with an increase in mental health problems.
A drive towards achieving is an important part of our evolved toolkit. But it doesn’t follow that it is a good idea to spend our lives slavishly following the most basic of our instinctual drives. We can use our capacity for reflection to help us to decide for ourselves what is truly worth doing and what actually gives meaning to our life.
We don’t all have to renounce the world in favour of the contemplative life (although some of us might want to). But some adjustments might be beneficial.
I have found useful the psychologist Paul Gilbert’s distinction between threat-based and value-based achievement striving. We should endeavour to do things because we value them, not in order to escape feelings of anxiety about our place on the social ladder.
Even if a certain amount of comparison is natural and unavoidable, we can create more balance by focusing on what we are content with, savouring small things, engaging in activities we enjoy for their own sake, and seeking non-competitive social interactions. We don’t have to banish status from the good life, but we should put it in its proper place.
The Shrink & The Sage live together in south-west England.
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