To the extent that people get happiness from status (and it seems like a huge component of most people's psychological well-being and life satisfaction), you would expect that people in developed Western countries would have to spend much more than similar people in developing countries to get similar levels of status.

I hear this explanation mentioned a lot, but it doesn't seem to quite fit my experience (maybe I'm an atypical mind?). To be clear, I certainly do get a lot of boosts to well-being from being high status in a way which is zero-sum (e.g. people devoting more attention to me than others), but the situations where I feel most comfortable tend to be in communities and situations that feel status-flat, and where basically everyone is respected an equal amount. It is also my experience that most groups of friends will tend to become this, especially over time, and that status considerations are more relevant when interacting with "outsiders" who you aren't direct close friends with.

Since people presumably prefer to spend more time with their friends than outsiders, the notion that status is a huge component of people's well-being has always seemed a little puzzling to me. I wonder if this may be a cultural difference, since Finland has a very status-flat culture in general.