What binds low status members to the group?

How do interpersonal status hierarchies draw their low status members into the group and maintain their involvement despite casting them as relatively less valued, influential, and esteemed than others in the group?  If status hierarchies are a reward system that helps people solve the collective action problem they face when they are interdependent with respect to a shared and valued goal, then maintaining the commitment of low status members is part of this collective action problem.  I propose a theoretical account of how status hierarchies provide partially compensating rewards for the deference of low status members, despite the other costs they endure.  This account begins by developing an improved understanding of the nature of the working consensus about each member’s relative value that creates and coordinates the status hierarchy.  Drawing on this, I further argue that a low status member, by deferring to a high status member rather than resisting,  appears (regardless of actual intent) to others as if he or she recognizes and endorses the group’s shared standard of value about what is “better” and “reasonable.”  Other members, even those who are not direct recipients of the deference, react by offering a level of approval and baseline respect for the low status member.  Anticipation of such respect provides the low status member with a positive temptation to defer despite the egoistic costs of doing so.  I describe possible tests of this account.