What Is Social Status?

I’ve always been intrigued by how the Romans had a much richer vocabulary for discussing social status. They talked of dignitas, auctoritas, and potestas. While those words are the linguistic roots for dignity, authority, and potence, that’s not really what they were and none of them has a direct translation into English. They are better understood as components of a Roman’s social status.

Another interesting concept is how status, particularly male status, is often highly context dependent. For example a competent guide will almost certainly be the highest status person for a group lost in the wilderness even if that group has members who are very wealthy or famous, but once they’re back in civilization he’ll have considerably lower relative status.

Like it or not, the overwhelming factor in female status is physical attractiveness. No doubt there are occasional exceptions, but as a general rule it’s undeniable.

I used to think social status only meant money. But now I am starting to realize it’s any perceived value that a person can provide in some group setting. For example at church the pastor or those more involved have status. At work, those making impacting decisions have status. When finding a mate, attractive (physically/confident/intelligent) people have more status.

When someone says they are not at your level, you do not have enough status to interact or compete with that person? You don’t have as much perceived valued, but what happens when a princess marries a commoner. Proving the point value is very individualized but at times shared by many.

> Evolutionary psychology doesn’t tell us what is adaptive today. Rather, it investigates what was adaptive when humans were nomadic hunter gatherers roughly spanning 300,000 years ago up until about 12,000 years ago before the agricultural revolution. This was the environment that our ancestors evolved in and where our species spent most of their time in.

This boilerplate is deceptive. Status certainly does matter to survival today. The mortality rate of the homeless is very high.

There is also authority, which seems to be status given by an institution regardless of actual competence. For example, being a prime minister confers a certain status regardless whether you're Boris Johnson.

I suspect deference to authority (first we meet is our parents) evolved because humans had to keep the wisdom of the past, regardless of current competence or dominance. People of authority are IMHO supposed to protect shared culture, which includes these past experiences.

Social status is related to how much your influence has on others.

From this lens, one can see why the untenured Yale professor is unwilling to move to an unknown university even though there is more money and security: the people you attract to work with you and invitations to fancy events are better by maximising prestige.

This point of view also explains why people are willing to take lower pay in exchange for higher prestige.

Sex, Status, and Security. The big three drivers, for most folks.

Money is merely a tool, to achieve the above three.

I have watched people drive themselves into penury, in order to display more status.

Me? I'm about as plebe as you can get. What status I have, I earned, slowly, over time. Same with my money. Folks on forums like this, love to sneer at me.

But I'm fairly happy. I think that counts for a lot.

All my life I have been fascinated by how people pursue and signal status. Interestingly though, there do not seem to be many books written on this subject. Please do recommend if you are aware of any that touch upon, conspicuous consumption, status signalling etc.

By general wealth, country of origin, education I'm a pariah. In relatively poor and primitive society I live in I wouldn't even use the term "social status" more suitable would be "pecking order". The only status I experienced in life is when using services and having high status in their royalty programs, and yeah I see the difference. The comparison with a situation when I'm a regular client is significant. Interestingly, paying for high status in dating apps is a scam - similar to how financial credit is. When you have a lot of it you will get more. When you really need it, even when you pay you get some crippled and exploitative form of it.

"When you get up in the morning, you think about status. You think about where you are in relation to your peers.”

Uhm no.... Now these people are probably right about a lot of things, but the above statement is not a thing that happens to me.

In an anthropological framework, social capital can be built up and exchanged for other forms of capital (including economic capital). There are even brokers who have the role of facilitating these transactions[0].

[0] https://bertrandlaurent.substack.com/p/monday-converting-soc...

people hate the word 'privilege' but privilege is literally what social status buys and what people spend their life chasing

This all seems very obvious?