Social status
Social status is the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social value includes respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a "reward" for group members who treat others well and take initiative. This is one explanation for its apparent cross-cultural universality. People with higher status experience a litany of benefits—such as greater health, admiration, resources, influence, and freedom; conversely, those with lower status experience poorer outcomes across all of those metrics.
Importantly, status is based in widely shared beliefs about who members of a society judge as more competent or moral. While such beliefs can stem from an impressive performance or success, they can also arise from possessing characteristics a society has deemed meaningful like a person's race or occupation. In this way, status reflects how a society judges a person's relative social worth and merit—however accurate or inaccurate that judgement may be. Because societies use status to allocate resources, leadership positions, and other forms of power, status can make unequal distributions of resources and power appear natural and fair, supporting systems of social stratification.
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. Modern sociologists and social psychologists broadened this understanding of status to refer to one's relative level of respectability and honor more generally.Some writers have also referred to a socially valued role or category a person occupies as a "status". As social network analysts, Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust Stanley cautioned "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
Status hierarchies depend primarily on the possession and use of status symbols. These are cues or characteristics that people in a society agree indicate how much status a person holds and how they should be treated. Such symbols can include the possession of valued attributes, like being 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. Social network analysts have also 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. Analyses of private companies also find that organizations can gain status from having well-respected corporate partners or investors.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.
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 their 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, like possessing a mental illness.
However, the concept of a master status is controversial. Status characteristics theory argues members of a task group will listen to whomever they believe will most help them solve a problem. One's external status in society determines influence in small groups, but so does a person's known ability on the task. This implies that known ability would attenuate the effect of external status, implying a given external status characteristic is not a master status. The program of research finds characteristics assumed to be master statuses are, in fact, attenuated by known ability. Moreover, status affects group members' assertiveness only when characteristics differentiate group members. With respect to gender, experimental tests repeatedly found that women are highly deferential only in the presence of men. Although for disadvantaged groups, status disadvantage is not completely negated by valued characteristics, their social status does not depend predominantly on any one group membership. As such, status characteristics research has yet to identify a social characteristic that operates like a robust cross-situational master status.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Status often 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 like education or training, is thought to be reflective of modern developed societies. Consequently, achieved status implies that social mobility in a society is possible, as opposed to caste systems characterized by immobility based solely on ascribed status.
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 perceived as unfair and thus prompts 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.