At this point, when you start discussing "positive/negative respect", I'd need to ask what that means in even more detail. What defines the "zero point", why would you have a total order ("levels"), why is this an interesting concept. Again, I see the affect, the surface promise of meaning, but not any straightforward way of discerning what's actually meant.

One possible definition of a zero point would be signaling (or being perceived to signal) neither a raising nor a lowering of the status of the person in question. So the imperative could be reformulated as "don't make moves to lower other people's status in interactions with them".