Useful social situations for artificially raising yous status:

1. Attracting a good looking girl.

2. Communicating to your boss that you will not be pushed around without resorting to words. I used this a lot (maybe a bit too much). But I never had to do shit work that I didnt want to do.

3. Communicating to others who are not in your reporting hierarchy, but still senior to you, that you "get it". IF this is coupled with actual execution capability then you'll gain a lot of credibility pretty fast.

And yes I do agree that if you want to learn something from someone then you do have to assume a slightly lower status.

But the most interesting insight is that status is something that you give to someone else and not something a person can create on their own. Ie, someone elses status requires your active participation.