Threat-Driven Worth Sorting
How nervous system regulation patterns scale into worth hierarchies through the Three Capitals
"Worth-seeking is a nervous system regulation strategy, not a character flaw."
When love, protection, or belonging were conditional early in life, the nervous system learns a functional equation: being valued often equals being safer. Being powerless often equals being exposed. In adulthood, this logic doesn't disappear. It scales.
The Core Reframe
Power becomes compelling not because humans are shallow, but because power reduces vulnerability.
Power increases control over access, consequences, and protection. Systems sort people through safety signals because threat creates uncertainty, and uncertainty is destabilizing.
Hierarchy is not treated as a moral failure or ideological choice. It is described as a socio-regulatory outcome of systems that route safety through position rather than relationship.
The Core Question
"How do nervous system regulation patterns scale into worth hierarchies, and what mechanisms produce systematic invisibility?"
Framework 5 explains how threat-stabilized rule systems naturally generate worth sorting — the process by which safety signals become filters that determine who is believed, protected, and resourced.
Scientific Grounding
This framework integrates Bourdieu's capital theory, social dominance theory, network science, intersectionality research, and polyvagal theory — recognizing they observe the same mechanism from different angles.See full research anchors →
Part 1 — The Mechanism of Worth Sorting
Framework 5 identifies a five-step loop that operates simultaneously at individual and institutional levels:
Threat Increases Dependency Sensitivity
Heightened vigilance to status and belonging cues; increased sensitivity to rejection
Heightened in-group/out-group sensitivity; preference for familiar signals
Research: Social rank theory (Gilbert, Price); Rejection sensitivity (Downey); In-group preference under threat (Brewer, Tajfel)
Validation Becomes a Stabilizer
Approval equals relief; rejection triggers threat response
Reward familiar signals; filter disruption; prefer predictability
Research: Social baseline theory (Coan); Contingent self-worth (Crocker); Uncertainty reduction (Berger)
Power Becomes the Highest Safety Proxy
Power-seeking becomes a regulation strategy; powerlessness feels threatening
Power concentrates upward; power protects power; status becomes self-reinforcing
Research: Power and approach/inhibition (Keltner); Social dominance orientation (Sidanius); Matthew effect (Merton)
Proxies Become Sorting Rules
Learn which signals must be displayed to be treated as credible
Codify signals into hiring, funding, promotion, and legitimacy rules
Research: Institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio); Credentialism (Collins); Gatekeeping research (Lewin)
The Filter Becomes Internalized as Self-Worth
Success reinforces worth narratives; invisibility leads to self-blame
Outcomes appear to justify original sorting; cycle reinforces
Research: System justification (Jost); Internalized oppression (David); Self-blame and attribution (Weiner)
The Mechanism Loop Summary
- 1. Threat activates dependency sensitivity
- 2. Validation becomes regulatory
- 3. Power becomes the highest-value safety proxy
- 4. Proxies formalize into sorting rules
- 5. The filter internalizes as worth/worthlessness
- 6. Outcomes appear to justify the original sorting
- 7. The cycle reinforces
Framework 5 names this process threat-driven worth sorting.
Part 2 — Safety Proxies
A safety proxy is a marker that signals reduced threat and increased protection within a given environment.
Safety proxies function by reducing perceived uncertainty about a person, signaling alliance with existing power structures, indicating predictability, and conveying independence from dependency risks.
| Proxy Channel | What It Signals |
|---|---|
| Economic resources | Independence; reduced dependency risk |
| Network connections | Alliance; vouched-for status; insulation |
| Credentials/education | Predictability; cultural fluency; gatekeeping passage |
| Presentation/aesthetics | Familiarity with dominant norms; "fit" |
| Proximity to power | Borrowed credibility; reduced risk to associate with |
| Institutional endorsement | Pre-filtered; verified by existing authority |
Critical Insight
Safety proxies are not inherently harmful. They become harmful when they function as shortcuts for deciding who is credible, who deserves investment, who is protected, who is ignored, and who can be punished.
When proxy-signaling is mistaken for worth, structural invisibility becomes systematic.
Part 3 — The Three Capitals
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu identified three primary forms of capital that determine social position. Framework 5 integrates these through a nervous system lens.
Economic Capital
The Currency of Independence
Definition: Money, assets, material resources, and access to financial security.
Regulatory Function: Signals independence — reduced dependency on others for survival; ability to absorb risk.
When someone has it:
- • Can afford to wait for opportunities
- • Can absorb failures without catastrophe
- • Assumed to be competent and stable
When someone lacks it:
- • Scarcity consumes cognitive resources
- • Judged as "unprofessional" when under-resourced
- • Poverty misread as personal failure
| Pattern | Economic Capital Expression |
|---|---|
| Pattern A (Connection) | Resources shared; worth not tied to wealth |
| Pattern B (Protection) | Wealth-seeking as safety strategy; scarcity as threat |
| Pattern C (Control) | Wealth as control mechanism; resources as leverage |
| Pattern D (Domination) | Wealth as entitlement; poverty as moral failure |
Social Capital
The Currency of Connection
Definition: Networks, relationships, endorsements, and proximity to those already visible.
Regulatory Function: Signals alliance — vouched-for status; insulation through connection; borrowed credibility.
When someone has it:
- • Trusted introduction transfers credibility
- • Network provides information and access
- • Alliance signals reduce perceived risk
When someone lacks it:
- • Must prove credibility repeatedly
- • Excluded from information flows
- • Isolation compounds disadvantage
Eigenvector Centrality
In network theory, eigenvector centrality ranks nodes based on the importance of their connections, not just the number. This explains why proximity to power determines worth independently of contribution.
The algorithm fails when applied to humans because emotional intelligence isn't counted, manipulation is invisible to the metric, and the system rewards proximity to power, not wisdom or care.
| Pattern | Social Capital Expression |
|---|---|
| Pattern A (Connection) | Networks as mutual support; connections shared |
| Pattern B (Protection) | Network-building as safety strategy; isolation as threat |
| Pattern C (Control) | Network as strategic asset; connections as leverage |
| Pattern D (Domination) | Network as power base; exclusion as punishment |
Cultural Capital
The Currency of Familiarity
Definition: Education, credentials, language, presentation, aesthetic fluency, and alignment with dominant cultural norms.
Regulatory Function: Signals predictability — that this person will behave in ways the system already understands; cultural "fit."
When someone has it:
- • They "fit" without effort
- • Credentials pre-filter; institutions vouched
- • Language and aesthetics signal familiarity
When someone lacks it:
- • Must constantly translate or code-switch
- • Authentic presentation triggers dismissal
- • Filtered out before content evaluated
| Pattern | Cultural Capital Expression |
|---|---|
| Pattern A (Connection) | Cultural diversity valued; multiple expressions welcome |
| Pattern B (Protection) | Cultural conformity as safety; difference as risk |
| Pattern C (Control) | Cultural capital as gatekeeping tool; credentials as leverage |
| Pattern D (Domination) | Cultural hegemony enforced; deviation punished |
How the Three Capitals Interact
The three capitals form a mutually reinforcing system:
- • Economic capital buys access to cultural capital (education, credentials)
- • Cultural capital opens doors to social capital (networks, opportunities)
- • Social capital provides access to economic capital (jobs, funding, investment)
Early advantage in any form tends to compound across all three. Early disadvantage similarly compounds — creating structural gaps that appear to justify themselves.
Part 4 — Structural Filtering: Who Gets Sorted Out
When safety proxy systems stabilize, entire categories of people become systematically filtered — not as exceptions, but as predictable outcomes.
| Group | Primary Filtering Mechanism |
|---|---|
| Women (especially beyond "market value") | Cultural capital tied to appearance/youth; social capital networks male-dominated |
| People of color / ethnic minorities | Cultural capital defined by dominant group; social capital networks segregated |
| LGBTQIA+ communities | Cultural capital punishes non-conformity; social capital networks exclusionary |
| Neurodivergent people | Cultural capital requires neurotypical performance; "professionalism" as filter |
| Survivors of abuse | Social capital destroyed by speaking up; cultural capital devalues "rawness" |
| Disabled people | All three capitals built around able-bodied assumptions |
| Working-class / poor | Economic capital absent; cultural capital mismatched; social capital limited |
| Immigrants / refugees | All three capitals disrupted by displacement; credentials non-transferable |
| System disruptors | Filtered precisely because they challenge what capital depends on |
Key Insight
These groups are not outliers or edge cases. They represent the majority of humanity.
They are invisible inside capital systems because those systems were designed to reflect a narrow range of experience — and to treat everything else as risk.
Part 5 — The Somatic Impact of Chronic Invisibility
Structural filtering is not only social. It produces measurable physiological effects. Chronic invisibility functions as chronic social threat.
Polyvagal Integration
The nervous system interprets repeated non-response, dismissal, and exclusion as danger signals — activating defensive states that become chronic.
| State | Manifestation Under Chronic Invisibility |
|---|---|
| Sympathetic activation | Hypervigilance; anxiety when seeking help; anticipatory rejection |
| Dorsal vagal shutdown | Collapse after failed attempts to be seen; freeze states; depression |
| Compromised ventral vagal | Difficulty trusting connection; social engagement feels risky |
Somatic Manifestations
| Domain | Common Presentations |
|---|---|
| Nervous system | Chronic hypervigilance or shutdown; difficulty regulating |
| Cognitive | Self-doubt; imposter experience; difficulty accessing capacity |
| Behavioral | Understating needs; overworking to prove worth; withdrawal |
| Relational | Anticipatory rejection; difficulty trusting recognition |
| Physical | Chronic tension; fatigue; somatic symptoms of stress |
Professional Depth Note
Clients presenting with chronic self-doubt, imposter experience, or somatic stress symptoms should be assessed for structural invisibility as a contributing factor. These presentations may reflect accurate adaptation to filtering environments rather than cognitive distortion or personality pathology.
What Framework 5 Explains
| Phenomenon | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Why power attracts protection even when harmful | Power is the highest-value safety proxy |
| Why hierarchy persists without explicit ideology | Hierarchy emerges from threat-organized nervous system logic |
| Why credibility follows signal more than substance | Systems filter through proxy before evaluating content |
| Why disadvantage compounds without overt discrimination | Early signal deprivation reduces access, which reduces signal acquisition |
| Why people adapt to systems they dislike | Accommodation is regulatory; resistance is costly |
| Why merit beliefs persist despite contradictions | Merit narrative is regulatory; challenges are destabilizing |
| Why structural invisibility feels like personal failure | The filter becomes internalized through repeated rejection |
| Why addressing inequality feels threatening to those inside | Challenges to the system threaten regulatory stability |
Why Framework 5 Matters
- Makes worth sorting visible as system, not personal verdict
- Separates human value from safety signaling — worth is inherent, capital is access
- Explains hierarchy without moralizing individuals — filtering is regulatory, not evil
- Clarifies why reform fails without safety repair — threat maintains the system
- Grounds structural inequality in regulation logic — makes intervention points visible
- Removes self-blame from chronic invisibility — structural explanation enables healing
Position Within TEG-Blue
Framework 5 marks the transition from rule systems to worth hierarchies.
It translates:
- F1 — Emotional regulation (the compass distorted by worth signals)
- F2 — Identity adaptation (the Role Mask shaped by capital access)
- F3 — Cognitive coherence (the Logic Layer absorbing merit myths)
- F4 — Rule internalization (rules becoming filters)
into observable structural sorting that determines visibility, protection, and resource access.
Scientific Foundations
For ResearchersThis section provides the scientific grounding for Framework 5, demonstrating cross-theoretical convergence on worth sorting as nervous system regulation scaled to institutions.
Cross-Theoretical Validation
The phenomenon of worth sorting through safety signals has been independently identified across research traditions:
| Concept | Tradition | Researcher(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forms of Capital | Sociology | Bourdieu | Economic, social, and cultural resources as power |
| Social Reproduction | Sociology | Bourdieu, Bernstein | How class structures perpetuate across generations |
| Stigma and Spoiled Identity | Sociology | Goffman | Social marking and credibility destruction |
| Status Characteristics Theory | Social Psychology | Berger, Fisek, Norman | How status shapes influence and credibility |
| Social Dominance Theory | Social Psychology | Sidanius, Pratto | Group-based hierarchy as organizing principle |
| System Justification Theory | Social Psychology | Jost, Banaji | Motivated defense of existing hierarchies |
| Intersectionality | Critical Theory | Crenshaw | Overlapping systems of disadvantage |
| Meritocracy Critique | Political Philosophy | Young, Sandel | How merit narratives obscure structural factors |
| Social Exclusion Theory | Sociology | Silver, Sen | Mechanisms of systematic marginalization |
| Network Centrality | Network Science | Bonacich, Freeman | Value through connection to power |
| Polyvagal Social Engagement | Neuroscience | Porges | Safety through social connection |
| Chronic Stress and Allostatic Load | Health Psychology | McEwen, Sapolsky | Physiological cost of sustained threat |
The TEG-Blue Contribution
TEG-Blue recognizes that these traditions are observing the same mechanism from different angles — worth sorting as nervous system regulation scaled to institutions, producing predictable filtering patterns and compounding advantage/disadvantage. The contribution is integration, not invention.
Research Domains
Sociology — Capital and Reproduction(Bourdieu, Bernstein, Goffman, Lareau)
Key contributions:
- • Forms of capital (economic, social, cultural) determine social position
- • Class structures reproduce through educational and cultural transmission
- • Stigma marks people as discreditable, affecting all interactions
F5 integrates: The Three Capitals as safety proxy categories that filter credibility before content is evaluated
Social Psychology — Status and Justification(Berger, Sidanius, Jost, Fiske)
Key contributions:
- • Status characteristics shape influence and credibility independently of competence
- • Groups create and maintain hierarchies through social dominance orientation
- • People defend existing systems even against their own interests
F5 integrates: Worth sorting as nervous system regulation, not conscious ideology
Network Science — Centrality and Influence(Bonacich, Barabási, Granovetter, Lin)
Key contributions:
- • Value determined by connection to those already perceived as important
- • Networks follow power laws — advantage concentrates
- • Weak ties provide access; strong ties provide support
F5 integrates: Eigenvector centrality explains why proximity to power determines worth independently of contribution
Critical Theory — Intersectionality and Power(Crenshaw, Collins, Young, Sen)
Key contributions:
- • Overlapping systems of disadvantage compound (intersectionality)
- • Merit narratives obscure structural factors in outcomes
- • Social exclusion is systematic, not random
F5 integrates: Why entire categories of people are filtered — structural patterns, not individual failures
Neuroscience — Social Engagement and Stress(Porges, McEwen, Sapolsky, Gilbert)
Key contributions:
- • Social engagement depends on nervous system state (polyvagal)
- • Chronic stress produces measurable physiological costs (allostatic load)
- • Social rank affects stress physiology and health outcomes
F5 integrates: The somatic impact of chronic invisibility — why structural filtering produces health consequences
Health Psychology — Inequality and Outcomes(Wilkinson, Pickett, Krieger, Geronimus)
Key contributions:
- • Inequality itself produces health disparities beyond material factors
- • Discrimination produces measurable physiological effects
- • Weathering — cumulative stress from chronic marginalization
F5 integrates: Why worth sorting is not abstract — it produces measurable suffering and shortened lives
Bridge to Framework 6
When worth sorting becomes stable and internalized, it stops being experienced as a system. It becomes perception.
Credibility, competence, and trust begin to feel inherent to certain people — and absent in others. This is not belief alone. It is state-shaped perception.
The nervous system, calibrated to threat, starts seeing safety signals as evidence of actual worth. The filter becomes invisible because it looks like accurate assessment.