Yes - though this isn't my theory so much as settled science. There are no substantial counter-theories to the concept that status desire is a fundamental and universal human motive.
As for falsification: you'd need evidence like subjects showing no well-being drop (self-esteem, cortisol) from lab-induced status demotions, or entire cultures genuinely indifferent to respect. Neither holds up in the data: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25774679/
John Adams put it well in Discourses on Davila (1790): "The desire of the esteem of others is as real a want of nature as hunger — and the neglect and contempt of the world as severe a pain as the gout or stone."
As for falsification: you'd need evidence like subjects showing no well-being drop (self-esteem, cortisol) from lab-induced status demotions, or entire cultures genuinely indifferent to respect. Neither holds up in the data: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25774679/
John Adams put it well in Discourses on Davila (1790): "The desire of the esteem of others is as real a want of nature as hunger — and the neglect and contempt of the world as severe a pain as the gout or stone."