Scientists say we are 'hard-wired' to care about class

Scientists have found that we are hard-wired to care about social status.

There is a particular zone in the brain which "lights up" when we are asked to think about a person's class, or when we are confronted with someone higher in the pecking order.

Scroll down for more...

While most will not take social climbing as seriously as Mrs Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) from the BBC's Keeping Up Appearances, we are born to worry about it.

The teams who studied the zone believe it will shed light on why social standing has such an impact on behaviour and health - and why it is just as important to us as money.

The relationship between social rank and health has already been noted.

A study of civil servants found that as their position in the office rose their chances of developing heart disease and dying early fell.

The latest results come from two studies reported in the journal Neuron.

Scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the activity in subjects' brains.

The first team, at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, created artificial social pecking orders. Each of 72 volunteers was told they were playing a game with two other participants, one of whom was more skilled and the other less.

Just viewing a player ranked as "superior" activated a region at the front of the brain that appeared to specialise in sizing others up and assessing social status.

In the second study, Japanese researchers scanned brains of volunteers either winning money at a card game, or when they believed their personality was being assessed by strangers.

The scientists found the same part of the brain lit up when people won money at cards as when they were ranked as having a good reputation.