Anxious aspirations: Attachment anxiety fuels status strivings through intrasexual competition.

Striving for social status is a fundamental human motive, yet individuals vary considerably in their status-seeking tendencies. Drawing on attachment literature and life history theory, we propose that attachment anxiety drives status pursuit through heightened intrasexual competition. Across six preregistered studies (N = 4,456) spanning five countries, we find that attachment anxiety, rather than attachment avoidance, predicts status strivings. This relationship is mediated by intrasexu