Individuals as Status-Occupants

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?] Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values, Motivations and Attitudes Interests [Conflict is built-in society.] Social Capital [Access to Opportunities and Resources] [Inequality is built-in society] Power & Authority

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities What am I supposed to do? Where do these come from? How do they change over historical time? - ie., fathers and parenting Individuals who occupy a given status must take these into account. The extent to which individuals who occupy a given status live up to the responsibilities and obligations that are called for varies.

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?]

Social Status Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed to do all this? Guidelines, rules for social conduct. They indicate how one “ought” to act or behave in social settings: Prescribe - Proscribe Permitted - Preferred Norms vary from one culture to another. Norms vary from one sub-culture to another. Norms vary over historical time.

Social Status Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed to do all this? Do not confuse “norms” with actual action or behavior. The extent to which people consider norms legitimate varies. The extent to which people comply with norms varies. Norms vary in their importance: Folkways - norms for routine or casual interactions Mores - norms that are derived from moral values Taboos - norms that place behavior out of bounds Laws - norms that are codified and are sanctioned

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?] Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values, Motivations and Attitudes STABILITYSTABILITY Whether we recognize it or not, we possess a vast storehouse of “social knowledge” and, to varying degrees, know what is expected of us & know what to expect of others. Mutually reinforcing and reciprocal expectations

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?] Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values, Motivations and Attitudes Interests [Conflict is built-in society.] STABILITYSTABILITY

Social Status Interests Conflict is built-in society. Conflict is built-in to the very fabric of society. It is as normal - and healthy - as the air we breathe and most often occurs in socially patterned ways. People who occupy different social positions - by virtue of occupying different positions - will have different sets of LEGITIMATE interests, values and attitudes. The a great deal of conflict in society is structured: the result of people - status-occupants – trying to live up to the expectations placed upon them.

Social Status Interests Conflict is built-in society. If conflict is built-in to the very fabric of society, how is it managed? How are conflicts - whether legitimate or not - resolved? What are the patterns and functions of conflict?

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?] Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values, Motivations and Attitudes Interests [Conflict is built-in society.] STABILITYSTABILITY Power & Authority

Social Status Power & Authority Power: the capacity to impose one’s will over others, even against the resistance of others; coercion. Authority: the capacity to have others comply with your wishes - even if they would prefer not to - because they recognize the legitimacy of the request. Power and authority are usually not individual attributes, they are located in the positions people occupy; i.e., the President. The extent to which power and authority are exercised by status-occupants varies; i.e., Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy.

Social Status Power & Authority Power and authority are not equally distributed in all social statuses: Employer - employee; Male - female; Professor - student; Dean - professor; Wealthy - poor; White - non-white As a result, we should expect to find different outcomes in society; for example: racial disparities in sentencing; unequal pay for men and women

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?] Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values, Motivations and Attitudes Interests [Conflict is built-in society.] Social Capital [Access to Opportunities and Resources] [Inequality is built-in society] STABILITYSTABILITY Power & Authority

Social Status Social Capital Access to Opportunities and Resources Inequality is built-in society “Central or Controlling Statuses” Different statuses provide occupants different degrees of access to resources and opportunities - some more, some less. For example: “the double standard” the opportunity structure “the glass ceiling”

Social Status Obligations and Responsibilities [What am I supposed to do?] Normative Expectations (Rules) [How am I supposed to do all this?] Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values, Motivations and Attitudes Interests [Conflict is built-in society.] Social Capital [Access to Opportunities and Resources] [Inequality is built-in society] STABILITYSTABILITY Power & Authority

Status-sets

Age: 54 HusbandFather Race: “White” ProfessorFriend Status-sets “identities” Executive Director Since individuals occupy multiple statuses, which specific status becomes activated at any given time? How is this “socially negotiated” by partners in interactions? How are discrepant activations resolved? Status-Activation & “Salient Statuses”

Age: 54 HusbandFather Race: “White” ProfessorFriend Status-sets “identities” Executive Director Since individuals occupy multiple statuses they are subject to “cross-pressures”- expectations to comply with contending expectations “Status-consistency” - to what extent are the beliefs, values attitudes, interests and social standing attached to different statuses in an individual’s status-set consistent? …and then how are the inevitable inconsistencies that arise managed?

Status-sets

Master and Dominant Statuses Master status: that status within an individual’s status-set that has special importance for social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life. Dominant status: that status within an individual’s status-set that is given priority when the behavioral expectations associated with two or more statuses come into conflict.

Age 52 HusbandFather Race: “White” ProfessorFriend Status-conflict; Status-strain Executive Director Conflict: living up to the demands and obligations of one status precludes fulfilling the demands and obligations of another status. Strain: fulfilling all of the various status demands and obligations, but at less than peak efficiency; having to “prioritize”and cut corners.

Social Status and corresponding Role-Set

Professor StudentsColleaguesDeans Support Staff Community Role-set corresponding to the status of “Professor”

Role-conflict or Role-strain Status-conflict or Status-strain

Merton’s General Paradigm of Sociological / Structural Ambivalence: Structurally created Strain “opposing normative tendencies in the social definition of a role or status”

Generally: a) Most extended: incompatible normative expectations of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior assigned to a status or to a set of statuses. b) Most restricted: incompatible normative expectations incorporated within a single role of a single status.

Specific Conflicts & Contradictions Conflict among statuses within a status-set; a pattern of conflict of interests or of values within the status-set. Conflict between several roles associated with a particular status. Contradictory among general cultural values held by all members of society, i.e., not specific to a particular status.

Specific Conflicts & Contradictions continued Conflict or disjunction between culturally prescribed aspirations and socially structured avenues for realizing these aspirations (the opportunity structure). Contradiction or conflict between cross- cultural statuses. Contradiction or conflict between reference group anchors or identifications.