Social status
Part of a series on |
Sociology |
---|
![]() |
Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess.[1][2] Such social value includes respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference.[3] On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members who treat others well and take initiative.[4] This is one explanation for its apparent cross-cultural universality.[2] On the other hand, while people with higher status experience a litany of benefits—such as greater health, admiration, resources, influence, and freedom—those with lower status experience poorer outcomes across all of those metrics.[2]
Importantly, status is based in widely shared
Definition
The sociologist Max Weber outlined three central aspects of stratification in a society: class, status, and power. In his scheme, which remains influential today, people possess status in the sense of honor because they belong to specific groups with unique lifestyles and privileges.[6] Modern sociologists and social psychologists broadened this understanding of status to refer to one's relative level of respectability and honor more generally.[7]
Some writers have also referred to a socially valued role or category a person occupies as a "status" (e.g.,
Determination
Status

Because status is always relative to others, a person may enter many situations throughout their life or even a single day in which they hold high, equal, or low status depending on who is around them. For instance, a doctor holds high status when interacting with a patient, equal status in a meeting with fellow doctors, and low status when meeting with their hospital's chief of medicine. A person can also be a 'big fish in a small pond' such that they have higher status than everyone else in their organization, but low or equal status relative to professionals in their entire field.[16]
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.[17] 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, like possessing a mental illness.[18][19]
However, the concept of a master status is controversial.
Uses of status
Although a person's status does not always correspond to merit or actual ability, it does allow the members of a group to coordinate their actions and quickly agree on who among them should be listened to. When actual ability does correspond to status, then status hierarchies can be especially useful. They allow leaders to emerge who set informed precedents and influence less knowledgeable group members, allowing groups to use the shared information of their group to make more correct decisions.[25] This can be especially helpful in novel situations where group members must determine who is best equipped to complete a task.
In addition, groups accord more respect and esteem to members who help them succeed, which encourages highly capable members to contribute in the first place.[26] This helps groups motivate members to contribute to a collective good by offering respect and esteem as a kind of compensation for helping everyone in the group succeed. For instance, people recognized as achieving great feats for their group or society are sometimes accorded legendary status as heroes.
Finally—for good or ill—status maintains social inequality. Because status is based on beliefs about social worth and esteem, sociologists argue it can then appear only natural that higher-status people have more material resources and power.[7] Status makes it appear that a person's rank or position in society is due to their relative merit, and therefore deserved. For instance, if a society holds that the homeless are unworthy of respect or dignity, then their poor material conditions are not evaluated as unjust by members of that society, and therefore are not subject to change.
In different societies
Whether formal or informal, status hierarchies are present in all societies.[2] In a society, the relative honor and prestige accorded to individuals depends on how well an individual is perceived to match a society's values and ideals (e.g., being pious in a religious society or wealthy in a capitalist society). Status often comes with attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle practices.[6]
In modern societies,
In pre-modern societies, status differentiation is widely varied. In some cases it can be quite rigid, such as with the
Status maintains and stabilizes social stratification. Mere inequality in resources and privileges is perceived as unfair and thus prompts retaliation and resistance from those of lower status, but if some individuals are seen as better than others (i.e., have higher status), then it seems natural and fair that high-status people receive more resources and privileges.[7] Historically, Max Weber distinguished status from social class,[6] 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,
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 (respect, prestige) which increases their status but may earn little money, which simultaneously decreases their status. In task-focused interpersonal encounters, people unconsciously combine this information to develop impressions of their own and others' relative rank.[20] At one time, researchers thought status inconsistency would be a source of stress, though evidence for this hypothesis proved inconsistent, leaving some to conclude conflicting expectations through occupying incompatible roles may be the true stressor.[39]
Social stratification
Status is one of the major components of social stratification, the way people are hierarchically placed in a society. The members of a group with similar status 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.[40] Although the determinants of status are specific to different cultures, some of the more common bases for status-based stratification include:
- Wealth/Income
- Gender
- Race/Ethnicity
- Social class
- Occupation
- Popularity (also called sociometric status)
Social status is often associated with clothing and possessions. Compare the foreman with a horse and high hat with the inquilino in picture. Image from 19th century rural Chile.
Max Weber's three dimensions of stratification
The German sociologist
- Property refers to one's material possessions. If someone has control of property, that person has power over others and can use the property to his or her own benefit.
- Status refers to a person's relative level of respectability and social honor. Weber's interest was particularly in status groups, which have distinct cultural dispositions and privileges, and whose members mostly socialize with one another.
- Power is the ability to do what one wants, regardless of the will of others. (Domination, a closely related concept, is the power to make others' behavior conform to one's commands).
Status group
Max Weber developed the idea of "status group" which is a translation of the German Stand (pl. Stände). 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. 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 in some societies include professions, club-like organizations, ethnicity, race, and any other socially (de)valued group that organizes interaction among relative equals.[42]
See also
- Achieved status
- Ascribed status
- Belongingness
- Dominance hierarchy
- Economic mobility
- Expressions of dominance
- Identity performance
- In-group and out-group
- Occupational prestige
- Positional good
- Power (social and political)
- Ranked society
- Social class
- Social inequality
- Social stratification
- Socioeconomic status
- Sociometric status
- Status attainment
- Status set
- Status symbol
References
- ^ S2CID 73700406.
- ^ S2CID 17129083.
- .
- ^ Ridgeway, Cecilia (2019). Status: Why Is It Everywhere? Why Does It Matter?: Why Is It Everywhere? Why Does It Matter?. Russell Sage Foundation.
- ^ S2CID 145216264.
- ^ a b c Weber, Max. 1946. "Class, Status, Party." pp. 180–195 in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds.). New York: Oxford University.
- ^ (PDF) from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2019-01-02.
- PMID 26855471.
- ISBN 978-0521387071.
- ISBN 978-3319126968.
- ^ Veblen, Thornstein (1899). The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. MacMillan.
- ISBN 978-3319126968
- PMID 11195894.
- doi:10.15195/v3.a12.
- S2CID 144789481.
- OCLC 11089364.
- ^ Linton, Ralph (1936). The Study of Man. Appleton Century Crofts.
- ISBN 978-0495598930.
- ^ Ferris, Kelly, and Jill Stein. "The Self and Interaction." Chapter 4 of The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology. W. W. Norton & Company Inc, Dec. 2011. Accessed 20 September 2014.
- ^ JSTOR 2096127.
- PMID 25473142.
- JSTOR 2786778.
- JSTOR 2096136.
- JSTOR 2787020.
- from the original on 2024-08-27. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
- S2CID 15074581.
- from the original on 2024-08-27. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
- ^ Chimpanzee Politics (1982, 2007) deWaal, Frans, Johns Hopkins University Press
- S2CID 23895155.
- ^ "Accessed 10 September 2012". freewebs.com. Archived from the original on 6 May 2014. Retrieved 8 May 2018.
- .
- ^ Schjelderup-Ebbe, T. 1922. Beitrage zurSozialpsycholgie des Haushuhns. Zeitschrift Psychologie 88: 225–252. Reprinted in Benchmark Papers in Animal Behaviour/3. Ed. M.W.Schein. 1975
- ^ Natalie Angier (1991-11-12). "In Fish, Social Status Goes Right to the Brain". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2014-05-06. Retrieved 2014-05-24.
- ^ Wilson, E.O, The Insect Societies (1971) Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
- ^ Wilson, E.O, Sociobiology (1975, 2000) Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
- ISBN 978-0395877432.
- ISBN 0226767159
- S2CID 38842663.
- from the original on 2022-12-05. Retrieved 2021-02-25.
- S2CID 2341021.
- ^ Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters, translators and eds., (2015). Weber's Rationalism and Modern Society. Palgrave Macmillan.
- ^ Weber 48–56
Further reading
- Botton, Alain De (2004), Status Anxiety, Hamish Hamilton
- Michael Marmot (2004), The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity, Times Books
- "Social status". (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 17, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
- ISBN 978-0495093442.
- Gould, Roger (2002). "The Origins of Status Hierarchy: A Formal Theory and Empirical Test". American Journal of Sociology. 107 (5): 1143–1178. S2CID 142599569.
- MacDonald, Paul K.; Parent, Joseph M. (2021). "The Status of Status in World Politics". World Politics 73(2): 358–391.
- McPherson, Miller; Smith-Lovin, Lynn; Cook, James M (2001). "Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks". Annual Review of Sociology. 27: 415–444. S2CID 2341021.
- Bolender, Ronald Keith (2006). "Max Weber 1864–1920". LLC: Bolender Initiatives. Archived from the original on 2016-04-27. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
- Chernoff, Seth David (2015). "What is Success".
- Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. [ISBN missing]
- Ridgeway, Cecilia (2014). "Why Status Matters for Inequality". American Sociological Review. 79 (1): 1–16. S2CID 17880907.
- Weber, Max (2015) "Classes, Stände, Parties," pp. 37–58 in Weber's Rationalism and Modern Society: New Translations on Politics, Bureaucracy, and Social Stratification Edited and Translated by Tony Waters and Dagmar Waters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.