Generally, all social systems are conceived as stratification systems based on the division of labor and differential social characteristics. Stratification is an ordering of people on some esteemed, desirable characteristic and a person's position in this ordering is his status. Contemporary sociologists consider the major status characteristics of societies as wealth (or privilege), power, and prestige; a person's wealth, power, and prestige comprise his statuses, and in combination they measure his total status-his rank-in society. As previously discussed, along with class these three dimensions (components) define our sociological space.

Upon this definitional base, and assuming individuals or nations wish to improve their status, two basic behavioral propositions have been argued and tested extensively. The first is that individual interactions increase as a positive function of rank. High status individuals or nations interact more with others than do low status ones, and those in low status direct behavior upward in the hierarchy.

The second proposition is that status disequilibrated individuals--those high on some statuses and low on others--will be frustrated and under stress, potentially leading to internal or external conflict. The group of disequilibrated individuals is a pool of potential suicides, radicals, aggressors, or innovators.

Although many elaborations of status-theory exist,⁴ the above propositions and definitions constitute the empirically tested core to be imbedded in the social field. For this purpose, six status-assumptions are necessary.

(1)Society comprises a stratified social system.

(2)Some behavioral components are linearly dependent on status.

(3)Status behavior is directed towards higher-ranking persons, and the greater a person's rank the more his status behavior.

(4)High-rank persons support the current social order.

(5)People emphasize their dominant status and the other's subordinate status in interaction.

(6)The more similar in wealth, the more people are mutually cooperative.

Marx, however, more restrictedly defined class by property ownership, where the bourgeoisie constitute those owning the means of production. Hence, people can have similar wealth (a status variable) and still have different property relationships to production and be in different classes. For Weber also " 'property' and 'lack of property' are the basic categories of all class situations" (Weber, 1966, p. 22). These categories determine class interest. For modem sociology to generalize "class" to be "equal rank groups" loses Marx and Weber's important meaning (e.g., that equal rank groups can have different economic interests), without providing a substitute concept.

As to why societies are universally stratified, sociologists provide no clear answer. One functional view is that stratification represents the distribution of abilities and rewards, where those able to make the most contributions to society in its terms are most rewarded and the status dimensions reflect these benefits.⁶ Sorokin (1969, especially p. 278) presents a different explanation in terms of the hierarchization of authority or of rights and duties and, ultimately, the heterogeneity of individuals.⁷ Both these explanations account for stratification by specialization. Another view is that stratification results from a power struggle.⁸

There is a difference in perspective on status between anthropologists and sociologists. According to Smith (1966, pp. 141-76), while

Further, according to Smith, not all social structures are stratified. As I understand his argument, those societies which are politically decentralized have coincident political and status structures. The "units of public order and regulation are ... related by the same principles that regulate the distribution of status" (pp. 173-74). These are headless societies resting "on general normative consensus." While Smith agrees that all social systems can be status systems, he prefers to consider stratification as uniquely social. Thus, where political and status systems coincide, there is no unique social ordering and thus no stratification.

Smith would consider international relations as a status system, but not stratified since (as will be argued throughout this chapter) political and status systems do overlap considerably and international relations is acephalous. This is a difference that makes a difference, since it is the very fact that international social status and political structures overlap that enables us to make political observations and generalizations about nations on the basis of a social status theory. However, sociologists generally use "stratification" only to mean the presence of a status system, and this is what I have done here.

To observe that all societies are stratified is to note that they are social spaces spanned by status components. What characterizes these components? Above all, as components-as latent functions underlying manifest social reality-they define the patterning or clustering of social relationships, the social order. And status comprises such a pattern.

Status is not one attribute or position, such as a person's education or his being a judge. It is a generalized evaluation underlying a cluster of manifest attributes and positions (Zelditch and Anderson, 1966), what some call a halo effect (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch, 1966), adhering to social manifestations. Indeed, in Zetterberg's words (1966, p. 130), "ranks become convenient bundles of evaluations of their occupant."⁹

Clearly, status so conceived is a latent function, as described in Chapter 10. It is a component of a space of status manifestations. For example, wealth is a status-component for a cluster of beliefs and characteristics, such as a person's politics, residence, income, education, and manner.¹⁰ The status-components of wealth, power, and prestige imply that three distinct "bundles" of attributes reflect status evaluations. To be more specific, a status-component of the dyadic field is a continuum involving societal consensus as to which end is better or more desirable. An ascribed status-component is one on which we cannot alter significantly his relative status; an achieved status-component is one on which we can so alter his location. A person's rank is his total status on the components.

Status is esteemed, wanted. The status literature shows consensus on this, although authors place different emphases. For example, status is: superiority, equality, or an inferiority relationship (Wright, 1942, p. 1443; Svalastoga, 1965, p. 2); a "favorable evaluations" reward pattern (Zetterberg, 1966); an "evaluation" that one person is better or worse than another (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch, 1966); and "a matter of perception, and of perception that puts stimuli in rank order" (Homans, 1961, p. 149). As status is defined, Veblen's leisure class theory is fundamentally a status interpretation of behavior. His famous "invidious comparison" concept is used in "a technical sense as describing a comparison of persons with a view to rating and grading them in respect of relative worth or value" (Veblen, 1966, p. 38). To have status is to put it in evidence. Thus arises Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption.

Status as a component reflects what is generally esteemed or desired in a society. And as previously postulated, there are three such components. One delineates the scarce and most desired resources of society at our personal disposal, his wealth. What represents wealth may differ from one society to another, as, say, between an abundance of wives, horses, cattle, material possessions, land, money. The common ingredient, however, in all such differential possessions is that they are prized by a society in which members differentially own or command them for their personal use.

The second status, power, is productive of effects. It is manifesting a desired behavior or state, whether for personal, paternalistic, altruistic, or idealistic goals, and whether intentionally or not. ¹¹ Clearly there is a relationship between wealth, or command over resources for personal use, and power, or being effective. To control scarce resources is to have the power to produce effects to some degree. However, wealth and power are separable and distinct, as can be seen when a wealthy person receives a parking violation from a poor metermaid; when the President of the United States with instant power over millions, has an income and personal wealth less than that of a professional football player or when a wealthy corporation president is unable to prevent his employees from going on strike or stop several expensive consumer court suits.

The third status-component, prestige, reflects the esteem of others, the degree to which they look to you for help, advice, or as a model of what they want to be. Wealth commands an abundance of desirable possessions. Power produces effects. Prestige generates favorable feelings, emotions, or interests. It is neither command nor producing effects, but emotive projection.

Prestige partially results from having power and wealth. Lenski, for example, notes that "with respect to occupational prestige, the chief determinants are variables which are normally subsumed under the categories of power and privilege."¹² (1966, p. 431, italics omitted). As another example, a cross-sectional study by Hodge and colleagues (1966) found prestige hierarchies very similar, and concluded that cross-societal structural uniformities account for prestige. They speculate that these uniformities involve the pattern of economic development (wealth).

In some societies, such as the international, prestige is almost wholly determined by wealth and power. Evidence supports that prestige for nations is dependent on economic development and power. For example, Schwartzman (1966) asked respondents to rank Latin American countries by their "prestige or importance." The ranking was highly correlated (.93) with economic development and size (a power base) rank. Similar results were obtained by Alcock and Newcombe (1970) for Latin America and by Shimbori (1963) for the world's major nations.

Nonetheless, some individuals of low wealth and power have high prestige, as the winner of a gold medal in the Olympics or a much decorated war hero. Charles Lindberg's cross-Atlantic flight in 1927 is a dramatic case in point. Because one can have high prestige without wealth or power, or as in the case of a person disgraced in office, lose it although powerful or wealthy, prestige is surely an independent component of social space.

However, there is usually a close relationship between a person's prestige, wealth, and power.¹³ Indeed, prestige is often a basis for developing wealth and power, as for an astronaut who becomes a politician, or a high executive in a large corporation.

Because prestige is so related to wealth and power and for simplicity in the following analysis, I will henceforth treat it as a component largely subsumed by these two. Prestige is still considered distinguishable, still a latent function underlying social manifestations, however.

Turning to the status-components of wealth and power, they cut across all cultures and help define what is the social apart from the cultural. Within the social space delineated by these components we are located relative to each other. The origin of this space, its center, so to speak, is an ever-changing focus dependent upon our shifting interests, capabilities, and expectations. As these change, so alters the origin of social space. It describes a societal path through history, providing at any one time an anchor point for status evaluations. Thus, the poor person of today would be wealthy in his possessions by thirteenth-century standards; the powerful person of today whose authority is based on the legitimacy of an election process would be bereft of power in ninth-century Christian Europe. And as for the prestige of today's successful hard-rock singer....

Thus, a person's status is ever changing, relative to a time and place, and to the distribution of statuses of others. One who begins with a comfortable middle-class wealth may find that in spite of constant income and solid possession like an automobile, two-bedroom home, and television set, that in time his status deteriorates as an increasing standard of living and inflation makes commonplace his wealth.

The difference in status between two people therefore cannot be an absolute measurement, like the miles between two landmarks. Rather, two people differ by virtue of not only their own wealth and power, but also as a function of the distribution of these statuses in society. We cannot gauge the similarity and differences without considering the standards, desires, distribution of resources of society as a whole.

But this relativity is in the nature of a-component or latent function which reflects the underlying, contextually bound patterns in society. As a coordinate of social space, encompassing the common interrelationships among such social manifestations, the status-component reflects this relative and subjective nature of status. Our location in this social space, his status position, is thus relative to societal context, standards, and desires.

Most important, status as a need is a force towards upward status-mobility. That we desire to improve our status is a commonplace of everyday observation, introspection, and sociology.¹⁴ The why of this universal urge is explained by its nature as a fundamental psychological need.

What is not so clear is that people with unbalanced statuses prefer to balance them, indeed, prefer to equilibrate (balance) their statuses before further upward mobility on the highest status.¹⁵ The psychological explanation for this is that unbalanced statuses create an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.

I will deal with dissonance later. To be more specific about this, we can adopt a simple way of illustrating status propositions. Call the high status person an alpha (A); the middle status one a mu (M); and the low status one the omega ().¹⁶ Throughout this chapter, the first status noted will be always wealth, the second, power. Then, a person high on wealth and low on power can be described as an A. Such is a wealthy used-car salesman. A person high on both is an AA, such as the Vice President of the United States.

Adopting this simple notation does not imply that status is trichotomous. Status is a continuous variable. However, the development can be simplified and pencil and paper tests of its internal logic conducted by considering just high, medium, and low statuses (or only high and low). For a deduction true for a continuous variable also holds for trichotomous and dichotomous cases. The simplification spotlights logical error, contra-intuitive constraints, and predictions without a full-scale empirical test.

Now, an AA person is balanced, as are MM and ones. Such combinations as A, A, MA are unbalanced. The desire to equilibrate status means that an M person, for example, will try to raise the status to an M. His need for status rules out equilibration by decreasing M to an . Jointly, the need for equilibration and for upward mobility imply that an unbalanced person, such as an M, will prefer elevating to M before increasing M.

Rank is the simplest aspect. It is a person's total status, the sum of his wealth and power (and implicitly, his prestige). That is, if R_I is the rank of a person i, then

Equation 17.1:

R_i = ₁s_i1 + ₂s_i2,

where s_i1 and s_i2 are the statuses of person i on wealth and power, respectively, and ₁ and ₂ are positive parameters.

This departs from the usual definition¹⁷ of rank or total status which is conventionally s_i1 + s_i2, where each status-component is usually accorded equal weight, that is ₁ = ₂ = 1.0. Although status theory traditionally employs the "rank" concept to explain behavior, no theoretical rationale or empirical basis is furnished for thus equally weighting statuses. Lacking such direction, therefore, a more sensible approach is differentially weighting positively a person's statuses depending on the behavior. Geometrically, the statuses then bound a vector space containing all rank dependent behaviors, and not all such behaviors have similar space-time locations. Thus, the definition I propose treats rank as a two-dimensional plane produced by wealth and power dimensions. This plane will contain rank dependent behaviors.

Specifically, the positive parameters weighting the two statuses imply that a person's rank lies in the quadrant bounded by his wealth and power. Figure 17.1 may clarify this. Figure 17.1a shows i as above average in wealth (W) and power (P), and because ₁ and ₂ are positive parameters, the rank vectors (₁s_i1 + ₂s_i2) are restricted to the first quadrant. The other figures show to what quadrant total status is limited as i is above or below the two status averages (the origin).

The parameters are necessarily restricted to positive values. Were negative parameters also possible, then the parameters would have the following sign combinations: + + (case 1), + ­ (case 2), ­ + (case 3), and ­ ­ (case 4). Case 1 is the definition of rank. Case 4 also could define rank parameters, but then "rank" would mean joint low status. Both cases 1 and 4 cannot be allowed simultaneously, but status-theory permits defining rank using either case.

If cases 2 and 3 were admitted, the definition of rank would depart from the conventional meaning. Statuses could cancel out, then, and "rank" would not reflect a person's over-all high or low status. For instance, AA, MM, and persons could have similar rank values.¹⁸

Also, my definition of rank (17.1) delimits a single person's rank. Now, the sociological literature often limits status-theory definitionally to a person's rank (or status-disequilibrium, as discussed below), to which behavioral consequences are linked. However, in theoretical discussion, this behavior often and confusingly appears to be dyadic and dependent upon two persons' joint status.¹⁹ Even Homans (1961), one of the few who have considered status in an explicitly dyadic context, does not clearly differentiate monadic and dyadic (interpersonal) rank dependent behavior.²⁰ Since I will relate dyadic behavior and status-components, monadic and dyadic rank dependent behavior must be differentiated.

To extend to dyads the definition of rank (Equation 17.1) consistent with this definition, for persons i and j:

Equation 17.2:

Dyadic Rank = ₁(s_i1 + s_j1) + ₂(s_i2 + s_j2),

where ₁ and ₂ are the same positive parameters in (Equation 17.1). This definition simply extends to the dyad the definition of a person's rank: joint rank equals ₁s_i1 + ₁s_j1 + ₂s_i2 + ₂s_j2 = ₁(s_i1 + s_j1) + ₂(s_i2 + s_j2).

Status-theory uses rank as a key concept explaining behavior. Another such concept is status-disequilibrium, synonymously called status-incongruence (Malewski, 1966), disafflne status (Sorokin, 1969), status-inconsistency (Kimberly, 1966), and status-imbalance (Zelditch and Anderson, 1966). The antonym of status-disequilibrium is status-equilibrium or crystallization (Lenski, 1954), which means that a person's statuses are equal.

As with rank, status-disequilibrium will be considered first for the person, then the dyad. When we say that a person's status is disequilibrated, we mean that his statuses are unequal: at the extreme, he is high on one and low on the other, as is the wealthy merchant without political power in a socialist society, or a colonel of poor peasant background who through a coup d'état assumes presidential power. More specifically,

Equation 17.3:

Disequilibration = (+ or ­) ₁s_i1 (­ or +) ₂s_i2,

where ₁ and ₂ have different signs.

This extends our definition of rank to signs ­+ or +­ for the parameters, which are cases 2 and 3 discussed above. Consequently, the rank (Equation 17.1) and status-disequilibrium (Equation 17.3) definitions entail our total possible variation on the status plane delimited by the wealth and power components. Any status dependent behavior is dependent on either a person's rank or status-disequillbrium. No other (linear) possibilities exist.

This notwithstanding, does status-disequilibriurn as defined accord with practice? Usually, such disequilibrium is defined as the absolute, and not the arithmetic status-differences. Lenski (1954), for example, measures status crystallization as the positive square root of the squared differences of an individual's statuses from the mean, which produces an absolute difference. Jackson (1962) categorized individuals as to their status-crystallization, which also equals ranking on absolute differences.²¹

Defining status-disequilibrium by absolute differences does not differentiate, for example, A and A statuses. Distinguishing them is important, however. Assume that the first status (wealth) is achieved and the second (power) is ascribed,²² then A and A statuses will not equally affect behavior. The frustrations and psychological stress of the black doctor with high achievement and low ascribed status (race) will be different in nature and intensity than the white laborer's.

Moreover, regarding dyadic behavior, the absolute difference would predict the same behavior of a A to a A and A. This is contra-intuitive, and contra-status theory itself. For the theory is that those having the same disequilibrium, as do people with A statuses, will behave differently towards each other (like two black doctors) than do those having distinctly different disequilibria, such as a A and A (like a black doctor and white laborer).

Considering all this, the absolute difference measure does not conform with status theory, nor with its empirical propositions. Another reason for rejecting this measure is that it does not cover all the variation on the status plane remaining after rank is accounted for: there are linear status combinations which have no behavioral consequences. Either this variation must be covered by another status concept or postulated as behaviorally irrelevant. Thus, my definition of status-disequilibrium appears to be sound on theoretical and logical grounds.²³ Is it intuitively sound? Does this definition order us on his behavior as status theory would predict? Yes, as will be shown in Chapter 18.

The definition of disequilibrium can be now extended dyadically. The status incongruence between two people i and j is defined as:

Equation 17.4:

Incongruence = (+ or ­) ₁(s_i1 ­ s_ji) (­ or +) ₂(s_i2 ­ s_j2),

where ₁ and ₂ have different signs.

The term "incongruence" is used because disequilibrium is a monadic concept, seldom applied to status imbalance between people. Even where dyadic behavior is concerned, disequilibrium usually defines a person's status imbalance and its effect on his behavior towards another. Moreover, "incongruence" reflects my concern about two people's difference in status profile and status magnitudes. The more alike in profile and magnitude, the more congruent their statuses.²⁴

The previous definitions of rank, disequilibrium, and incongruence concern the status aspects of social space. They and the attendant discussion explicate the logic and substantive interpretations relating status-theory in sociology to my field orientation. Along this fine, the following corollary will couple the incongruence concept to interpersonal distances in social space.

Status-incongruience between persons i and j is the distance vector between their status-vectors on a status-component.

Now, just focusing on i, his statuses on wealth (s_i1) and power (s_i2) are vectors as shown in Figure 17.2a. His location in the space is the resolution of vectors s_i2 and s_i1, as shown in the figure by vector i. Another person, j, can have a location in this space as shown in Figure 17.2b. Figure 17.2c then displays the distance vectors between these two people on the status dimensions and the joint distance vector. It is the separate weighted status-distance vectors--the vector distances on wealth and power weighted by specific parameters--that define status-incongruence.

This unites the two fundamental concepts of status and field theories: status and distance. Substantively, however, should these concepts be connected? Have what sociologists kept apart been artificially joined? Recalling from Chapter 16 that the distance vector within the status space is also a status-distance, the answer is no. In fact, status-distance unifies a number of other concepts in sociology:

Other examples combining status and social distance can be given. Lundberg, in his classic (and controversial) 1939 sociological foundations work, says. (pp. 312-13) that the "phenomenon of status is ... an aspect of every societal situation. Since it is always relative, and since relative status is expressed in spatial terms in most, if not all, modern languages, the term social distance has been adopted to denote degrees of separation in status." And considering more contemporary literature, "The central concept to be used here is that of distance as a mechanism of stratification" (Van Den Berghe, 1960, p. 156).²⁵

Now, keeping this relationship between status and distance in mind, it follows from the nature of our psychological and social fields that status-distances are forces acting upon our mutual social behavior. Why should this be so? First, we perceive others relative to ourselves in our psychological space. This relationship comprises a variety of distances vectors between himself and another person on his psychological components, and which relevant to my purposes here consist in part of the motivational needs. One of them is self-assertion, the need for status.

Thus, one perceives another as partially relevant to his need for status. This relevance, this projection of one's perceived distance from another on this psychological status-component, generates motivational tension and activates associated interests.²⁶ These interests are forces towards manifesting one's dispositions. What these dispositions are will be discussed in Chapter 18.