Status is a concept that can be applied to a huge number of areas of human life. Well, let's look at some of the meanings of this term to form the most complete concept about this abstract, but at the same time significant thing for us. We constantly encounter this concept in our lives. As soon as we go to work, we can immediately see who has the better social status. Let's look into the phone, and there is a huge number of statuses, applications, battery charge and other characteristics. In fact, day and night are also a certain status. What kind of versatility is this? Here we will look at it.
General meaning of this word
Status is a concept that describes the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the phenomenon or object under consideration at a certain moment. Everything’s status can change; this is a dynamic characteristic. However, when we talk about status, we are almost always talking about what is happening now. For example, when they talk about a person now, they can say something like this: “He is rich.” This is a characteristic of a person’s social status.
If a person is described in the past, then this characteristic may sound slightly different when applied to the same person: “He was a poor student at twenty years old.” The same can be said about the future. Only in this case will the description of the status take on the character of assumptions. For example: “This student has such prospects that I am sure he will be a rich man.”
Wealth is good, but there are also bad statuses. For example, if a person repays a bank loan poorly, then he has a negative status as a debtor. If a person commits delinquent acts, then in this case we are talking about him as a criminal. That is, it acquires a certain legal status. This does not characterize him well. Let's take a closer look at what statuses there are.
What is status incompatibility?
Status incompatibility is the different position of an individual in social groups. In one society he is in good standing, occupying high positions, enjoying respect and power. Among members of another social group, he is located at the lowest level of the hierarchy. An example is a banker whose social position obliges him to manage thousands of subordinates. They respect him, appreciate him and even fear him. At home, his wife humiliates him in every possible way and does not rely on his opinion. A similar attitude develops in children towards their father.
Spouse disrespect
Additional Information. If a person is stuck in an intermediate position, a prerequisite for the development of marginality arises. This happens when an individual is conditionally in a certain group, but does not accept its values, and exists on the edge. Or he left one society, refusing to obey its orders, but never chose the right one. He lives based on his own norms and rules, trying to combine them with the existing structure of society. This situation is fraught with the development of mental disorders.
Lumpens are another type of people who unsuccessfully left a social group. They lost their position and did not find a new one, finding themselves left behind in life. These are people who are outside of classes and strata of society.
Status incompatibility often arises when a person tries to move up the hierarchy created in society. He breaks away from his friends, changes his social circle, but is not necessarily accepted and appreciated, despite his achievements in the profession. A person grows up the career ladder, while the team does not respect him, but despises him in every possible way. He gets irritated, suffers from this, quarrels with his wife. The spouse, in turn, can also change her attitude towards her partner, based on his behavior: she begins to avoid him, ignores comments, and shows less attention. Thus, the high status provided by the position held is combined with a low position in the team and in the role of husband.
With status incompatibility, an individual does not enjoy the rights given to him in one society while being in another social group. They come into conflict. Deputies, called upon to represent the interests of the people, cannot engage in business and make a profit. Or a short example when a woman wants to combine work and motherhood and cannot perform equally well in both roles. The stereotypical opinion imposes on her the image of a housewife, which she tries to fight. She becomes a successful worker at the expense of time taken away from her family. Accordingly, children and husband experience a lack of attention and care, seeing a tired and exhausted mother and wife in the evenings. The assigned responsibilities cannot be fulfilled at the proper level in both areas. Increasing status in the profession leads to the infringement of household responsibilities, for which there is too little time and energy left, because you have to be at work more and more often.
Tired mom
It is considered incompatible when a person does not live up to the expectations placed on him by society. For example, a goalkeeper is seen drinking alcoholic beverages and smoking. An athlete is perceived as a person who leads a healthy lifestyle, who will not let you down and lives by training.
Note! Incompatibility of statuses causes the individual to suffer. He feels disadvantaged, unable to fully realize himself. Experiences disappointment in his own life, blaming himself or the environment for it.
A state of inadequacy and uncertainty leads to depressive thoughts and social tension that can develop into large-scale conflict. Similar problems are addressed by psychology, aimed at eliminating contradictions, intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts.
What is legal status?
Legal status is the established norms and rules applicable to certain categories of the population. Legal status is what a person is in terms of the current legislation of a particular country. There are a huge number of different legal statuses. So, a person who has a loan debt is also the legal status of a person.
Quite often, social status is combined with legal status. After all, legal norms play a very important role in the formation of public opinion, since any norms, including legal ones, are based on social values. Some become undeclared social norms.
As a rule, these are those rules of behavior in society that are not approved, but their intensity is not high enough for this to be considered a strong violation. But as for the regulation of social relations on a larger scale, we are already talking about legal norms. How a person observes them and which ones specifically apply to him forms the legal status of the individual. What about organizations?
Examples from life
Concluding the conversation about social status and social role, let's consider several situations related to a change in position in society.
Workers and peasants of the USSR
As a result of the October Revolution in Russia, the status of workers and peasants as an exploited class was replaced by the status of a ruling class.
Workers and peasants became the masters of the young state, and tsarism and the bourgeoisie lost their position as a privileged stratum and were expelled from the country or physically destroyed. But after a few decades, a new class was formed: the military, political and intellectual elite, then the creative intelligentsia and show business. They possessed financial and intellectual power, connections and other attributes of high status, unlike workers and peasants, and displaced them from the top of the social pyramid.
Megxit
Having become the wife of Prince Harry, Meghan Markle received the status of a member of the royal family and the title of Duchess of Sussex.
But after the birth of the heir, the Duke and Duchess officially refused to give him the title of prince. And a year later, they themselves renounced their titles (and, accordingly, the status of members of the royal family and pretenders to the throne), decided to leave England and work in the USA, maintaining their acquired status as professionals, parents and public figures.
GreenPeace
Animal protection and environmental movements have never been a priority, since in general humanity has not yet fully recognized the importance of the “green” movement.
Over time, the association of thousands of volunteers, due to their numbers and public resonance, gained the ability to influence producers of goods and services, consumer interest, legislative bodies and even political decisions of authorities in many countries of the world.
But it would still be wrong to consider this association prestigious, since most of its participants do not receive direct material benefits.
[media=
https://youtu.be/dcz97eGGLWI
]
Legal status of the organization
By its structure, an organization is an example of a social group. And since all personal characteristics are averaged in it, we can talk about it as a separate social group. Accordingly, the legal status may also apply to the organization. In addition, this concept has its own specific features.
Thus, the payment of taxes has a special nature for an organization. It all depends on what type of business is typical for the organization. Purely working relationships between employees or in the “superior/subordinate” model are also regulated by law. For example, there is legislative regulation of working hours. If the working day is too long, then the legal status is the same. If this norm is observed, it will be completely different.
Social network status
Status is not only what characterizes a person. For example, this could be some kind of phrase on a social network. In this case, this is the state of a specific part of a specific page located on the Internet. For example, a fairly popular category is “Life is this”. Statuses of similar content simply flooded the Internet. And there is nothing surprising here, since thinking about existential needs and essences is typical for a large number of people. Existential concepts are terms associated with human existence.
What is human status?
In fact, this term can be used to describe everything that directly concerns a person. Thus, legal status can be considered a type of human status. The same can be said about social or group status. Here we will consider in more detail the concept of a person’s social status. What is this anyway? A person’s social status is the level of compliance with his certain behavior patterns in society, income level or other characteristics that determine his position in social relations.
The social status of an individual is an important indicator that determines the self-esteem of a particular person. There is also group status, which is often associated with the concept of rank. This is the place in the hierarchy that a person occupies and which gives him the right to receive certain privileges. Thus, people with high rank may even at times experiment with group norms and violate them for the benefit of the social group. After all, norms can also become outdated.
State position
GOST status – standards that are adopted by the standardization bodies of a member state of the Eurasian Economic Union. More broadly, this is a standard that has been adopted by the national standardization body in all states; it is accessible to a huge number of people. Each country has its own special standardization bodies that approve certain products for GOST.
Mobile phone status
Ordinary items can also have status. For example, a mobile phone. It has many different statuses. For example, a mobile phone can be prestigious or budget, current or not, charged or discharged. All this shows his condition at the moment. In principle, the same can be said about other subjects. As we can see, the concept of status can indeed be considered multidimensional, and this is good. If you understand the very essence of this term and what affects the status of you or the objects that you have at your disposal, then you can improve your self-esteem quite well.
How is one’s position in society assessed?
Famous sociologists T. Parsons, M. Weber, and W. Warner studied the emergence of inequality in society.
Scientists have identified the main criteria that indicate the position of an individual in society:
- Income is the amount of regular cash receipts.
- Wealth – savings, private property.
- Education – level of training, authority of educational institutions.
- Power is the ability to impose one’s will and influence people.
- Prestige is the public assessment of a profession or other activity.
Social statuses are grouped precisely according to these indicators.
For example, income level divides people into poor, rich and middle class. The degree of influence is on directors and ordinary employees.
There are also auxiliary criteria that determine a person’s “starting” position in society. These include: socio-economic status of the family, gender, race, religion.
Importance for society
During the Russian Empire, status played a decisive role: society had a pronounced caste structure. At the same time, the groups were built in a hierarchical order: from disenfranchised peasants to respected, wealthy hereditary nobles.
The USSR supported the ideology of universal equality, but at various times it obliged Soviet citizens to indicate in their passports information about nationality, places of work and criminal records.
Today, membership in a social group is recorded to a minimum in documents, and civilized society tries to reduce the significance of prescribed statuses - race, gender, origin. A person’s personal achievements come to the fore. However, some groups are still valued more than others.
For example, the profession of a lawyer is more prestigious than the work of a plumber or handyman, and women's work is paid 30% lower than men's.
The place in such an invisible hierarchy is called rank, which can be high, medium and low. Society condemns the mixing of different categories: a striking example is unequal marriages, where one of the spouses is much richer than the other.
A group of researchers from Canada has proven that a low position in society is harmful to health. This is due not only to the habits of the “poor” - smoking, eating “junk food”, poor medical care, but also to a negative self-perception.
Social status influences social relations. The poor dislike the rich, the childfree dislike large families, and the workers dislike intellectuals. Rejection gives rise to racism, sexism, and movements that persecute sexual minorities.
Social status development system
It is also important to take into account the fact that in modern society the position occupied is very mobile (constantly changing). Today the whole world knows a person, but the next day everyone has forgotten about him. Also, the social system develops in two directions: horizontal and vertical.
In the first case, this is when a person worked as an accountant in a ventilation installation company, and moved to a gas pipeline installation company. Or I was a traveler and became a travel blogger. That is, only social groups change, but not status as such, since the influence on others remains, in essence, the same.
Naturally, the second option implies a rise or fall in position in society. For example, from an ordinary student from the Higher School of Economics to an opposition blogger and a candidate for the State Duma. Due to the fact that the scale of influence on society changes, the position in society also changes.
