Social status


Social status is a measurement of social value. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. Some writers have also referred to a socially valued role or category a person occupies as a "status". Status is based in beliefs about who members of a society believe holds comparatively more or less social value. By definition, these beliefs are broadly shared among members of a society. As such, people use status hierarchies to allocate resources, leadership positions, and other forms of power. In doing so, these shared cultural beliefs make unequal distributions of resources and power appear natural and fair, supporting systems of social stratification. Status hierarchies appear to be universal across human societies, affording valued benefits to those who occupy the higher rungs, such as better health, social approval, resources, influence, and freedom.
Status hierarchies depend primarily on the possession and use of status symbols. These are cues people use to determine how much status a person holds and how they should be treated. Such symbols can include the possession of socially valuable attributes, like being conventionally beautiful or having a prestigious degree. Other status symbols include wealth and its display through conspicuous consumption. Status in face-to-face interaction can also be conveyed through certain controllable behaviors, such as assertive speech, posture, and emotional displays.

Definition

and Katherine Faust Stanley cautioned that "there is considerable disagreement among social scientists about the definitions of the related concepts of social position, social status, and social role." They note that while many scholars differentiate those terms, they can define those terms in a way that clashes with the definitions of another scholar; for example they state that "Ralph Linton| Linton uses the term 'status' in a way that is identical to our use of the term "position".

Determination

Some perspectives on status emphasize its relatively fixed and fluid aspects. Ascribed statuses are fixed for an individual at birth, while achieved status is determined by social rewards an individual acquires during his or her lifetime as a result of the exercise of ability and/or perseverance. Examples of ascribed status include castes, race, and beauty among others. Meanwhile, achieved statuses are akin to one's educational credentials or occupation: these things require a person to exercise effort and often undergo years of training. The term master status has been used to describe the status most important for determining a person's position in a given context.
Other perspectives, like status characteristics theory, eschew the idea of a master status. Broadly, theoretical research finds that status arising from membership in social categories is attenuated by having oppositely valued task ability or group memberships. For instance, with respect to gender, experimental tests in this theoretical tradition have repeatedly found experimental evidence that women exhibit highly gendered deference behaviors only in the presence of men. Other research finds that even the interactional disadvantages suffered by possessing a mental illness are attenuated when such people are also highly skilled on whatever task faces a group of people. Although for disadvantaged groups, status disadvantage is not completely negated by positively valued information, their social status does not depend predominantly on any particular group membership. As such, research in this program has yet to identify a social characteristic that operates like a robust trans-situational master status.
Researchers in social network analysis have shown that one's affiliations can also be a source of status. Several studies document that being popular or demonstrating dominance over peers increases a person's status. Network studies of firms also find that organizations derive their own status in market contexts from the status of their affiliates, like corporate partners and investors.

In different societies

Whether formal or informal, status hierarchies are present in all societies. In a society, the relative honor and prestige accorded to individuals depends on how well an individual is perceived to match a society's goals and ideals. Status sometimes comes with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle practices.
In modern societies, occupation is usually thought of as the main determinant of status, but other memberships or affiliations can have an influence. Achieved status, when people are placed in the stratification structure based on their individual merits or achievements, is thought to be reflective of modern developed societies. This image status can be achieved, for instance, through education, occupation, and marital status. Their place within the stratification structure is determined by society's standards, which often judges them on success in matching important values, like political power, academic acumen, and financial wealth.
In pre-modern societies, status differentiation is widely varied. In some cases it can be quite rigid, such as with the Indian caste system. In other cases, status exists without class and/or informally, as is true with some Hunter-Gatherer societies such as the Khoisan, and some Indigenous Australian societies. In these cases, status is limited to specific personal relationships. For example, a Khoisan man is expected to take his wife's mother quite seriously, although the mother-in-law has no special "status" over anyone except her son-in-law—and only then in specific contexts.
Status maintains and stabilizes social stratification. Mere inequality in resources and privileges is likely to be perceived as unfair and thus prompt retaliation and resistance from those of lower status, but if some individuals are seen as better than others, then it seems natural and fair that high-status people receive more resources and privileges. Historically, Max Weber distinguished status from social class, though some contemporary empirical sociologists combine the two ideas to create socioeconomic status or SES, usually operationalized as a simple index of income, education and occupational prestige.

In nonhuman animals

Social status hierarchies have been documented in a wide range of animals: apes, baboons, wolves, cows/bulls, hens, even fish, and ants. Natural selection produces status-seeking behavior because animals tend to have more surviving offspring when they raise their status in their social group. Such behaviors vary widely because they are adaptations to a wide range of environmental niches. Some social dominance behaviors tend to increase reproductive opportunity, while others tend to raise the survival rates of an individual’s offspring. Neurochemicals, particularly serotonin, prompt social dominance behaviors without need for an organism to have abstract conceptualizations of status as a means to an end. Social dominance hierarchy emerges from individual survival-seeking behaviors.

Status inconsistency

Status inconsistency is a situation where an individual's social positions have both positive and negative influences on his or her social status. For example, a teacher may have a positive societal image which increases their status but may earn little money, which simultaneously decreases their status.

Inborn and acquired

Statuses such as those based on inborn characteristics, such as ethnicity or royal heritage, are called ascribed statuses. A stigma can also be an attribute a person has possessed since birth, but stigmas can also be acquired later in life. Either way, stigmas generally result in lower status if known to others.

Social mobility

Status can be changed through a process of social mobility wherein a person changes position within the stratification system. A move in social standing can be upward, or downward. Social mobility is more frequent in societies where achievement rather than ascription is valued.

Social stratification

Social stratification describes the way people are placed or "stratified" in society. It is associated with the ability of individuals to live up to some set of ideals or principles regarded as important by the society or a subculture within it. The members of a social group interact mainly within their own group and to a lesser degree with those of higher or lower status in a recognized system of social stratification. Some of the more common bases for such stratification include:
Groups:
The German sociologist Max Weber developed a theory proposing that stratification is based on three factors that have become known as "the three p's of stratification": property, prestige and power. He claimed that social stratification is a result of the interaction of wealth, prestige status and power.
Max Weber developed various ways that societies are organized in hierarchical systems of power. These ways are social status, class power and political power.
There has been discussion about how Weber's three dimensions of stratification are more useful for specifying social inequality than more traditional terms like Socioeconomic Status.

Status group

developed the idea of "status group" which is a translation of the German Stand. Status groups are communities that are based on ideas of lifestyles and the honor the status group both asserts, and is given by others. Status groups exist in the context of beliefs about relative prestige, privilege, and honor and can be of both a positive and negative sort. People in status groups are only supposed to engage with people of like status, and in particular, marriage inside or outside the group is discouraged. Status groups can include professions, club-like organizations, ethnicity, race, and other groups for which pattern association.