Социальный статус: структура и динамика

Position within social structure

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.

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. 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 uses the term 'status' in a way that is identical to our use of the term "position".

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. 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, 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 (e. g., race or gender) determines influence in small groups, but so does a person's known ability on the task (e. g., mechanical ability when a car breaks down). 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 (e. g., mental illness) are, in fact, attenuated by known ability. Moreover, status affects group members' assertiveness only when characteristics differentiate group members (i. e., groups are mixed race or mixed gender). 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.

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. but other memberships or affiliations (such as ethnic group, religion, gender, voluntary associations, fandom, hobby) can have an influence. 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.

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 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.

The German sociologist Max Weber argued stratification is based on three factors: property, status, and power. He claimed that social stratification is a result of the interaction of wealth (class), prestige status (or in German Stand) and power (party). 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).

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.