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handoflixue comments on Social status hacks from The Improv Wiki - Less Wrong
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(There seems to be a sort of assumption 'round these parts that high status is better than low status and that dominance is better than submission. I think that this should not be unquestioningly assumed. There are many goals that can usually be more easily achieved by someone in a lower status position, e.g. discovering truth or learning from people. There are many exceptions, but high status tends to make people prideful, petty, unreflective, stupid, unwilling to change, unwilling to compromise, incautious, overconfident, &c. The benefits of material wealth, better mating options, better ally options, &c., are not obviously worth the costs; sometimes there are ways to get those things without risk. One would be wise to worry about slippery slopes and goal distortion.)
This feels like a cheap shot at "successful" people - a social urge to insist that someone can't "have it all". I distinctly recall a post by Eliezer at some point that he hung out with rich, intelligent, successful individuals and they did in fact manage to have fun and enjoyable lives as well - despite a common media portrayal that such lives are intrinsically "hollow."
I'd also say you're conflating "status within an interaction" and "social standing". I haven't seen anything that suggests that being well respected and looked up to by your peer group is particularly damaging, whereas being CEO of a Fortune 500 company does seem to mess one's judgment up rather badly. I routinely enjoy quite a few perks of high-status presentation, despite being relatively middle-class in actual social standing. My boss and co-workers value my opinion, and I have a lot of freedom because people trust me to act responsibly. At the same time, since I don't have a lot of formal standing, there's not a ton of attention on me, and there's not a huge amount of pressure to avoid failure.