Search

Two studies examined whether men’s perception of the declining value of traditional masculinity activates social status, realistic, and symbolic threat, and in turn motivates opposition to feminist social movements. In Study 1, men’s perception that their ingroup is losing value across several social spheres was associated with social status and realistic threat, both of which were associated with opposition to feminist movements. Study 2, an experiment, presented men with public opinion data showing a 30-year decline in the degree to which Americans value traditional masculinity or no decline. Information about the declining value of masculinity activated status threat, which motivated less support for feminist movements. Among men who highly identified as masculine, this same information reduced support for feminist movements through symbolic threat. In sum, perceived decline in the social value of traditional masculinity creates status anxiety about the ingroup’s future and motivates compensatory reactions against gender equality.

Subjective social status is an individual's perception of his/her position in the social stratum, and it shapes social inequality in a perceived way. By using the China Family Panel Studies and employing growth curve modeling strategies, this article examines the subjective social status trajectories of Chinese people between 2010 and 2018 and how these trajectories are shaped by objective social status. The empirical findings show that the distribution of subjective social status in each wave (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018) presents a middle-class identification, which means that the majority of people tend to position their subjective social status at the middle level, while the overall trend in average subjective social status has increased over time. The results of trajectory analysis show that different objective socioeconomic status indicators have different effects on the baseline value and rate of growth in subjective social status, which suggests that the trajectories of subjective social status are influenced by multiple determinants in China. While education, income and political capital reduce the gaps between the classes in subjective social status over time, wealth and employment status enlarge these gaps and thus enhance subjective social inequality. This article highlights the gradient effect that wealth has on the dynamics of subjective social status and helps us to better understand subjective social stratification in contemporary China.

The present study assesses the association of different socio-economic variables with children’s BMI-for-age z-scores (BAZ) and influence of children’s height on BAZ, a proxy index of nutritional status. The study was undertaken among 322 girls belonging to the Bengali Hindu Caste Population (BHCP) aged 5–13 years. These girls were the students of two schools located in Siliguri town of West Bengal, India. The prevalence of short stature, underweight and overweight was assessed using the World Health Organization’s ( WHO, 2007 , Growth Reference Data for 5–19 years) references. The statistical analyses used were St. Nicolas House Analysis (SNHA), analysis of variance (ANOVA), linear and logistic regression. The prevalence of underweight, overweight and obesity was 19.3%, 17.8% and 5.9%, respectively. The prevalence of short stature (−2.0 HAZ) was 8.7%. The range of BAZ was from −5.69 to 4.15. The variation of BAZ explained by height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) was 11.4%. The BAZ was observed to be associated with mothers’ occupation as revealed by 2% variation through SNHA analysis. The present study observed the usefulness of SNHA for non-parametric data with unequal sub-sample or categories. However, SNHA was not devised to assess the direction and magnitude of variables of interest. The finding of the present study supports the use of BAZ as a proxy adiposity measure among the overweight/obese populations and populations with normal growth in height. The study further supports the recommendations that mother empowerment can help improve nutritional status of a girl child.

According to a staple in the social sciences, pandemics particularly spread among people of lower social status. Challenging this staple, we hypothesize that it holds true in later phases of pandemics only. In the initial phases, by contrast, people of higher social status should be at the center of the spread. We tested our phase-sensitive hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1, we analyzed region-level COVID-19 infection data from 3,132 U.S. regions, 299 English regions, and 400 German regions. In Study 2, we analyzed historical data from 1,159,920 U.S. residents who witnessed the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. For both pandemics, we found that the virus initially spread more rapidly among people of higher social status. In later phases, that effect reversed; people of lower social status were most exposed. Our results provide novel insights into the center of the spread during the critical initial phases of pandemics.

How do nationalist parties attract votes? This article develops a novel supply-side explanation centered on status, arguing that nationalists succeed by combining group appeals to the nation with policy promises to improve the nation’s political and cultural status and the socio-economic status of its median member. Drawing on several original datasets, this expectation is tested on Imperial Austria in 1907, where multiple nationalist parties competed in first-time mass elections. We find that group appeals to the nation and promises to improve its political and cultural status resonate very well with agricultural workers, whose economic sector was declining, but not with industrial workers, whose sector was on the rise. By contrast, offering social policy helps nationalists among industrial workers, but less clearly so among agricultural workers. This article shows that nationalist mobilization is not a mere distraction from class politics; rather, the politics of nationalism, class, and status are closely intertwined.

Subjective social status, or one’s perceived rank within society, predicts individual health, often matching objective socioeconomic status (SES) indicators such as education or income in this capacity. While rank- or ladder-based measurement of subjective status is typical, subjective social class identification (e.g., seeing oneself as “working class” or “middle class”) remains a relatively neglected approach. Drawing on two recent national datasets and several measures of subjective status, I find that subjective class identification partly explains links between objective SES and subjective ladder scores. Adjusted distributions of ladder scores differ strikingly by subjective social class, with peaks and troughs highly dependent on class identity and ladder question wording. Crucially, subjective class and ladder systems both contribute to predicting self-rated health, net of each other and at similar, substantial levels. In sum, Americans significantly associate ladders with class. Thus, a sole emphasis on ladder-based approaches misses the categorical and cultural construction of subjective status, limiting our insight into health inequality.

The current study examined the interrelationships among potentially relevant family and social factors associated with family health. A cross-sectional study was conducted by collecting demographic information from 432 families, including family typology, family life cycle (FLC), and social status as well as social support and stressful life events (SLEs), with self-perception of family health being measured as a dependent variable. Descriptive analysis of the sample and univariate and multivariate linear regression analyses were performed. Multivariate analyses showed that the FLC stage of families as launching centers, lower educational level of household heads, and impact of SLEs were negatively associated with family health, whereas adequate perceived social support and the number of close friends and relatives were positively associated with family health. Therefore, these factors must be considered by family nurses to promote family health and prevent family dysfunction.

This study aims to investigate the communicative content of nonverbal (emotion) expressions of soccer coaches during a game and how these provide information about the current situation and how this information might impact players’ self-confidence during a game. In Studies 1 ( N = 137) and 2 ( N = 102) we investigated if soccer coaches are estimated to be happier and are rated higher on dimensions related to social status when their team is leading compared to when it is trailing. Results showed that observers rated coaches as happier, more dominant, more proud, and more confident when their team was leading. In Study 3 ( N = 152), participants watched short videos depicting the coach's NVB during a game and rated whether the coach's team was trailing or leading. The results showed that observers could clearly distinguish between leading and trailing coaches. In the fourth study, 72 soccer players were asked to watch the same videos from the first three studies and rate their own level of confidence in reaction to the coach's NVB in a hypothetical scenario. The results indicate that a coach's NVB can influence his athletes' self-confidence during a game. The practical implications of the findings regarding the body language of coaches are discussed.

Economic growth, urbanization and higher disposable incomes have helped to propel growth of luxury fashion in India. Indian customers attach luxury fashion with their social status. Therefore, a need was felt to understand the drivers of purchase intention for luxury fashion goods. The purpose of study is to explain the role of factors which have influence on purchase intention for luxury fashion brands. The research tries to identify the mediating effect of brand perception and social status on interrelationship between country of origin (COO) and purchase intention. The data were collected by means of structured questionnaires from a total of 400 Indian customers residing in the Delhi NCR. Structural equation modelling has been used to find the outcomes. COO, brand perception and social status were found to significantly influence customer purchase intention. However, mediation effect of brand perception was found in relation between COO and purchase intention. Mediation effect of social status also exists in relation between COO and purchase intention. Brand perception and social status sequentially mediate the relationship between COO and purchase intention.

This review examines the relationship between a person’s social status and trust. Previous research has yielded differing results. On one hand, studies have repeatedly found positive correlations of different strengths between social status and trust; that is, persons with higher social status trust more than persons with lower social status. On the other hand, empirical evidence has also suggested a negative correlation between social status and trust; that is, persons with lower social status trust more than persons with higher social status. In addition to a systematic analysis of the various theoretical approaches and the respective study results, possible causes for these diverging empirical findings are discussed. With regard to the relationship between socioeconomic status and generalized trust, all studies reviewed show a positive correlation. Contradictory results can be found only in studies that investigated socioeconomic status and trust, measured as behavior. In addition to the different operationalizations of social status and trust, one potential cause for different results may be found in the fact that in experimental settings, the social status of the interaction partner is often known.

We tested the novel hypothesis that men lower in status-linked variables—that is, subjective social status and perceived mate value—are relatively disinclined to offset their high hostile sexism with high benevolent sexism. Findings revealed that mate value, but not social status, moderates the hostile–benevolent sexism link among men: Whereas men high in perceived mate value endorse hostile and benevolent sexism linearly across the attitude range, men low in mate value show curvilinear sexism, characterized by declining benevolence as hostility increases above the midpoint. Study 1 ( N = 15,205) establishes the curvilinear sexism effect and shows that it is stronger among men than women. Studies 2 ( N = 328) and 3 ( N = 471) show that the curve is stronger among men low versus high in perceived mate value, and especially if they lack a serious relationship partner (Study 3). Discussion considers the relevance of these findings for understanding misogyny.

This study’s objective was to examine direct and indirect relationships among family socioeconomic status, subjective social status, and achievement motivation within the first 3 months after college freshmen enrollment in China. A longitudinal dataset was collected over a 3-month period at four measurement points with 4-week intervals. A cluster sample of 1,983 college freshmen from the eastern, central, and western economic regions of China was surveyed. Latent growth modeling was conducted. The results indicated that achievement motivation decreased over time and was positively related to a decline in subjective social status. Mediation analyses demonstrated that, after controlling for sex and economic region, family socioeconomic status predicted the initial level of achievement motivation directly and indirectly through the initial level of subjective social status, and notably, the directions of these effects were opposite. Further, family socioeconomic status also significantly predicted the rate of change in achievement motivation indirectly through the initial level of subjective social status. These results highlight the longitudinal relationship between family socioeconomic status and achievement motivation via different pathways and have implications for improving college freshmen’s achievement motivation.

It is theorized that income inequality is an indicator of status inequality and should therefore be associated with adverse health outcomes. In this article, we propose a novel way to capture status inequality more directly by measuring the distribution of self-perceived status in a society. We investigate whether status inequality in a society is associated with depression in the population. We show, first, that there is only a moderate association between subjective social status inequality and income inequality. Second, we provide evidence that depression is higher in countries with higher status inequality and that our novel measure of status inequality is more strongly associated with depression than the conventionally used income inequality measure. However, results are susceptible to influential country cases.

This work examines the validity of the two main assumptions of relative risk-aversion models of educational inequality. We compare the Breen-Goldthorpe (BG) and the Breen-Yaish (BY) models in terms of their assumptions about status maintenance motives and beliefs about the occupational risks associated with educational decisions. Concerning the first assumption, our contribution is threefold. First, we criticise the assumption of the BG model that families aim only at avoiding downward mobility and are insensitive to the prospects of upward mobility. We argue that the loss-aversion assumption proposed by BY is a more realistic formulation of status-maintenance motives. Second, we propose and implement a novel empirical approach to assess the validity of the loss-aversion assumption. Third, we present empirical results based on a sample of families of lower secondary school leavers indicating that families are sensitive to the prospects of both upward and downward mobility, and that the loss-aversion hypothesis of BY is empirically supported. As regards the risky choice assumption, we argue that families may not believe that more ambitious educational options entail occupational risks relative to less ambitious ones. We present empirical evidence indicating that, in France, the academic path is not perceived as a risky option. We conclude that, if the restrictive assumptions of the BG model are removed, relative-risk aversion needs not drive educational inequalities.

Grandiose narcissism is a multidimensional construct consisting of agentic and antagonistic aspects with markedly distinct correlates and consequences. However, this complexity has not been reflected in how grandiose narcissism is measured and investigated in forensic contexts. To provide a more nuanced picture of narcissism in a forensic context, we harnessed the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept. More precisely, we investigated the psychometric properties of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire–Short Scale (NARQ-S) in self- and informant reports of 199 male prisoners. Results confirmed the two-dimensional structure, acceptable internal consistency, moderate self-other agreement, and a differentiated nomological network for the NARQ-S. Admiration and rivalry showed distinct associations with criminal history, institutional misbehaviors, and social status in the group of prisoners. Together, the findings provide initial evidence for the validity and utility of self- and informant reports of the NARQ-S in forensic contexts and its contribution to security and treatment recommendations.

This qualitative phenomenological study examined the occupational downgrading experiences of six adult immigrants. Occupational downgrading happens when an individual’s occupation post immigration does not match his or her education credentials and previous professional experiences. The goal is to make sense of the participants’ narratives through the lens of possible selves theory. Therefore, the research questions guiding this study were (1) How do occupational downgrading experiences of immigrants shape their integration to the U.S. workforce? and (2) How can we make sense of the participants’ narratives through the lens of possible selves theory? Phenomenological interviews served as the main source for data collection. In addition, artifacts allowed the participants to enrich their stories. Themes that emerged from the participants’ occupational downgrading experiences include underemployment, shift in status, language barrier, feeling of discrimination, and lack of inspiration at the new job. Looking at past, present, and future selves, the participants’ narratives were examined first through identity transition processes: separation, transition, and reincorporation. The study adds to a developing body of literature focusing on the possible selves of adult immigrants experiencing occupational downgrading. In particular, they inform who is participating in adult education. Likewise, this study centralizes the immigrant as participant to adult learning; it provides new narratives of adults in transition.

Recommendations to routinely question patients about violence victimization have been around for many years; nonetheless, many patients suffering in the aftermath of violence go unnoticed in health care. The main aim of this study was to explore characteristics associated with being asked about experiences of violence in health care and thereby making visible victims that go unnoticed. In this study, we used cross-sectional survey data from 754 men (response rate 35%) and 749 women (response rate 38%) collected at random from the Swedish population, age 25-85. Questions were asked about experiences of emotional, physical, and sexual violence from both family, partner, and other perpetrators. Only 13.1% of those reporting some form of victimization reported ever being asked about experiences of violence in health care. Low subjective social status was associated with being asked questions (adj OR 2.23) but not with victimization, possibly indicating prejudice believes among providers concerning who can be a victim of violence. Other factors associated with increased odds of being asked questions were: being a woman (adj OR 2.09), young age (24-44 years, adj OR 6.90), having been treated for depression (adj OR 2.45) or depression and anxiety (adj OR 2.19) as well as reporting physical violence (adj OR 2.74) or polyvictimization (adj OR 2.85). The main finding of the study was that only few victims had been asked questions. For example, among those reporting ≥4 visits to a primary care physician during the past 12 months, 43% reported some form of victimization but only 6% had been asked questions. Our findings underline the importance of continuing to improve the health care response offered to victims of violence. Funding: Region Ostergotland [LIO-514621]

Employee voice plays a critical role in facilitating positive organizational change and development. This study seeks to identify the antecedents of challenging promotive voice, which indicates constructive challenge geared toward improvement. Specifically, we investigate the influences of formal, informal, and self-perceived status as well as the effects of interpersonal and procedural justice. The results demonstrate that: (a) informal status such as age was positively associated with challenging promotive voice; (b) self-perceived status was positively linked to challenging promotive voice; (c) both interpersonal and procedural justice increased challenging promotive voice; and (d) interpersonal justice moderated the relationship between self-perceived status and challenging promotive voice such that the effect of status was less pronounced when perceptions of interpersonal justice was higher. The findings highlight the significance of structural influences on voice behavior, calling for further research on status disparities, organizational justice climate, and employee engagement.

Background: Research results indicate outdoor orientation programs (OOPs) successfully help students transition to college and increase student retention, but an understanding of all the key variables involved in creating those positive transitions is unknown. Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore the role of subjective social status as a variable that may be important to the curricular design of OOPs. Methodology/Approach: Surveys asking questions about status were sent to students from 31 college OOPs between 2013 and 2017. Responses ( N = 4,484) were reviewed to understand students’ perceptions of within-group social status. Findings/Conclusions: OOP participants most often reported perceiving their social status as equal among group members. Equality perception was associated with traits such as vocality (defined as being able to verbalize ideas and be listened to in the group) and certain aspects of the trip structure (e.g., shared living conditions). Respondents who reported social status equality also reported positive experiences. Implications: Subjective perceptions of within-group status may have important implications for OOPs and may be an important consideration for program planning and curriculum.

In cultural consumption, higher social status is primarily reflected in the consumption of cultural products from diverse levels of sophistication, denoted as cultural omnivorousness. The article asks whether digital media are capable of attenuating these inequalities. Since digital media potentially make cultural products from all levels available to wider audiences, the distinguishing effect of omnivorousness might shrink. However, based on a model of individual decision-making, the article discusses several reasons why this assessment might be too optimistic. Empirically, the article focuses on omnivorousness and media use in feature film consumption. Differentiating between four types of electronic media (television, DVD, video on demand, Internet) and two types of omnivorousness (“by volume,” “by composition”), results reveal that digital media rather reinforce social inequalities in cultural consumption. Television, in contrast, has the highest levels of omnivorousness and the lowest levels of social structuration. Hence, not digital media are a democratizing force, but television.

Background In the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh maternal health is poor, and women’s social status is low. For some women, autonomy and decision-making within the family is limited as they seek medical treatment through their husband or father-in-law. The then state government identified a need to strengthen midwifery care given by auxiliary nurse midwives to improve maternal and neonatal health.>* Methods This cross-cultural, two phase study was designed in partnership with an Indian non-governmental organisation, utilising Elliot’s action research model within the paradigm of critical theory. Phase 1 investigated the then current situation and established a potential solution to strengthening midwifery practice within Madhya Pradesh. This comprised an educational approach using a specifically designed self-directed distance learning programme focussing on normal pregnancy and childbirth. The distance learning programme was a hard copy workbook supported by a multimedia resource informed by the Rowntree and Analysis Design Development Implementation Evaluation models of educational material development. Phase 2 involved the use and evaluation of the distance learning programme with an initial primary group sample of 28 comprising auxiliary nurse midwives (22), lady health visitors (4) and staff nurses (2) in Madhya Pradesh. Fourteen auxiliary nurse midwife participants completed knowledge tests using a pre- and post-programme multiple choice question paper. This primary group negotiated a 3-day workshop to cover identified gaps within their original 12-week study period. Nineteen additional auxiliary nurse midwife participants joined this workshop (group 2). Results The multiple choice question test results indicated that the first group had poor knowledge of the normal process of pregnancy and childbirth. After the workshop, they marginally improved their personal performance scores. The second group demonstrated greater change, which suggests that coupling self-directed guided study material with an enabling, face-to-face environment can be successful. Conclusions Distance learning among auxiliary nurse midwives in central India may be enhanced when accompanied by face-to-face workshops. Partnership working – at organisational, team and individual levels, was a crucial, and empowering, component of this cross-cultural action research study. Both points have relevance for others undertaking similar studies.

The case of Angelo Soliman − a black man raised in the royal courts of eighteenth-century Vienna who appeared during his lifetime to have attained significant social status and acceptance into bourgeois society, only to have his body stuffed and exhibited after death in a natural history museum − is discussed in the context of Enlightenment race theories at the core of a then-new ‘scientific racism’. This article explores his representation in its wider discursive and historical context, and critically reflects on predominant narratives and typologies associated with him. The piece then reflects on contemporary attempts to retell his story – via museum exhibitions, literature and film – some of which started to critically reflect on age-old European stereotypes of blackness used in earlier representations of Soliman. The piece promotes a discussion of Soliman’s life from a more critical, historically reflexive, de-colonialising and anti-racist position that questions white normativity and the scientific racism of the European Enlightenment and colonialism, the foundations of modern racism.

Though the officers and crews of the British ‘country’ ships that operated in association with the English East India Company in the waters of the Malay Archipelago, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea were all men, there are occasional references to women on board. These women fall into two categories: European wives and local concubines. This article provides examples of these elusive women, examines the reasons for their presence on board, assesses their social status and makes some comparisons between the two categories.

In the past decade or more, improving young people’s mental health has been identified as a priority for policy-makers in many countries, including Norway. Physical education, as a setting for physical activity, is increasingly viewed as having a potentially significant role to play in addressing mental health among the young. This paper reports the findings from a study of 148 Norwegian youngsters (68 girls and 80 boys) from the 10th grade (15–16 years old) in eight secondary schools in Norway in 2017. It explores Norwegian youngsters’ experiences of physical education in relation to aspects of their mental health – specifically, being judged and, by extension, ‘othered’. The findings suggest that physical education may undoubtedly serve to generate positive feelings associated with physical activity and games and, in doing so, bolster some youngsters’ self-esteem and self-identities. On the other hand, however, for those less competent in sporting terms, and whose bodily self-image is not particularly positive, the public nature of physical education and the nature of the activities that constitute the subject can give rise to unplanned and unintended harm to some youngsters’ mental health – especially in countries, such as Norway, where sport is a significant aspect of the group habitus and collective ‘we-group’ identity.

Despite legal classification as White, Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Americans experience high levels of discrimination, suggesting low social status precludes them from accessing the White racial category. After first demonstrating that the rated Whiteness of MENA Americans influences support for discriminatory policies (Study 1), the present research explores ratings and perceptions of Whiteness of MENA Americans by demonstrating how MENA ethnicities shift racial categorization of prototypically White and racially ambiguous targets (Studies 2–4), and how MENA Americans’ social status influences rated Whiteness (Study 5). As few studies have explored the relative Whiteness of different ethnicities in the United States despite the fluid history of the White racial category, the present studies have implications for the processes that inform White categorization and lay categorizations of MENA Americans.

Humiliation, which Silvan Tomkins paired with shame (‘shame-humiliation’), has not received much attention in queer, feminist and cultural analysis. This article addresses this omission by putting forward an account of humiliation’s eventful ‘structure of feeling’. In line with Raymond Williams’ original conception, and in conversation with affect studies, my account links humiliation’s structure to the broader socio-political tensions it articulates: especially, the tension between individualisation and collective social experience within neoliberalism. The cultural economy of reputation in particular reveals how, from within the eventful structure of humiliation, we become attuned to the social as that which affectively obliges us. By mediating the affective obligation of the social, media cultures train us in an affective sociality. My analysis questions the deeper reasoning that subtends humiliation and the repercussions of the affective obligation of the social for how we think about culture, identity and power in the context of networked media.

This study explores individual and contextual explanations of why some people perceive themselves as being mobile and others do not. While subjective social position in recent decades has become an important topic of sociological enquiry, only a handful of studies explicitly investigate the nature of subjective perception of intergenerational mobility. When assessing their performance in comparison to their parents, individuals are likely to consider many other aspects of their lives than the attainment of socio-economic position. For empirical analysis, I operationalise an objective indicator of intergenerational mobility, often assumed to be the central explanation of perceptions of mobility, by means of intergenerational educational trajectories. In addition to exploring individual-level explanations, I use multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression models to test how contextual environment is associated with perceived intergenerational mobility across 35 societies in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Results indicate that an objective measure of intergenerational mobility and other individual-level factors are important explanations of subjective intergenerational mobility. Further, the difference in economic development between individuals’ birth years and the year of interview is the most salient contextual factor explaining perceived intergenerational mobility, while contemporary economic development and short-term economic growth also reduce the likelihood of perceived downward mobility. The findings of this study contribute to sociological literature by highlighting the importance of contextual environment and factors beyond socio-economic characteristics for individuals’ perception of intergenerational mobility.

Aim: Subjective appraisals of socio-economic status (SES) are robustly associated with health outcomes, even when controlling for objective SES. Is this because objective SES is not accounted for in a sufficiently exhaustive way? Methods: I pool eight waves of nationally representative survey data from Germany (German General Social Survey, 2004–18, N=13,557) to assess the association between two separate subjective appraisals of SES (a 10-point scale and subjectively chosen social class membership) and poor self-rated health using logit and linear probability models. I account for an exhaustive range of objective SES variables, including respondents’ household incomes and social status, as well as occupational status, social class and education of respondents and of their partners, fathers and mothers. Results: The association between subjective SES and poor self-rated health remains stable, even when accounting for a wide range of objective SES markers. This is true for both subjective SES measured on a 10-point scale and as a subjective class identification. Conclusions: Even when controlling for a large number of objective SES markers, subjective SES and self-rated health are linked, suggesting that subjective assessments of SES are meaningful measures of SES which form a distinct pathway to health.

Grandiose narcissists typically pursue agentic goals, such as social status, competence, and autonomy. We argue that because high intelligence is a key asset for the attainment of such agentic goals, the concept of intelligence should play a prominent role in grandiose narcissists’ self-regulation and social behavior. We review the relevant literature and report evidence in support of this claim. Grandiose narcissists consider intelligence to be an important resource that leads to benefits across life domains, they tend to maintain and defend illusory positive intellectual self-views, and they are extremely motivated to appear intelligent to other people. Thus, even though grandiose narcissism is essentially unrelated to objectively assessed intelligence, intelligence nevertheless plays an important role in the way grandiose narcissists think, feel, and behave. We discuss potential implications for social relationships and point toward avenues for future research.

We propose that CEOs are more likely to engage in financial misconduct after the media names them as being among the best business leaders. We theorize this occurs because winning such an award is a meaningful event that increases the CEO’s self-worth but also increases the CEO’s sense of psychological entitlement, including the freedom to break rules. We test our ideas by examining scenarios where award-winning CEOs feel especially entitled and therefore are most likely to commit misconduct. Using a sample of award-winning CEOs from Chinese publicly listed firms, we find that award-winning CEOs are more likely to commit financial misconduct in the post-award period than in the pre-award period. In addition, the effect of winning a CEO award on financial misconduct is stronger when CEOs are underpaid or from industries in which awards are rare and therefore more special. We also validate aspects of our theory that are difficult to observe. First, we use bivariate probit models with partial observability to confirm that our results hold when accounting for unobserved misconduct. Second, we use survey data that capture the psychological entitlement of a subsample of CEOs to confirm the mediating effect of psychological entitlement on the relationship between winning an award and committing financial misconduct.

The majority of mental illness on college campuses remains untreated, and mental illness stigma is the most common reason for not seeking mental health treatment. Compared with affluent students, working-class students are at greater risk of mental illness, are less likely to seek treatment, and hold more stigmatized views toward people with mental illness. Research on college culture suggests that elite contexts may be associated with greater stigmatization of illness. This study asks how social status and college context together predict students’ mental health attitudes. A survey of Ivy and non-Ivy League undergraduates ( n = 757) found that lower status students’ perceptions of themselves as status minorities may be responsible for greater stigmatization of mental illness in elite contexts. Elite academic institutions bolster cultures of individualism and perfectionism, which encourage students to adopt stigmatizing views. In addition, these processes may be even more harmful to lower status students who are underrepresented on their elite college campuses. Results suggest that elite colleges need to evaluate the negative effects their culture and norms have on students’ mental health attitudes, and that increasing socioeconomic diversity may improve lower status students’ mental health attitudes.

This study examined whether compromised emotional clarity prospectively contributes to maladaptive social behavior (aggression, anxious solitude) and adverse social experiences (low social status, victimization) in early adolescence; gender differences in these effects also were explored. Youth ( N = 636, [Formula: see text] age = 10.94, SD = 0.37) completed a self-report measure of emotional clarity in fifth grade, and their teachers completed measures of youth aggression, anxious solitude, social status, and victimization in fifth and sixth grades. Prospective path analyses revealed that emotional clarity deficits predicted anxious solitude and low social status in both girls and boys, and predicted aggression and victimization in girls but not boys. These findings provide support for theoretical models of emotional and affective social competence, and indicate some gender differences in the social consequences of emotional clarity deficits. More broadly, this research implicates emotional clarity as a target for socioemotional learning programs in early adolescence.

Scholars and practitioners are increasingly attentive to contestation against symbols and institutions underpinning international order(s). Yet International Relations scholarship can benefit from greater understanding of ways in which contestation interacts with salient dimensions of social status in specific international organizations (IOs). Drawing on evidence from the history of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with a focus on democratic governance and human rights, this article analyzes status-related contestation as a significant, yet under-examined type of contestation in multilateral diplomacy. Status-related contestation conveys dissatisfaction about symbols, institutions, and actors which reinforce socially significant divisions that place a state (or group of states) at a social disadvantage in a particular multilateral venue. International organizations provide unique social contexts which affect the content of contestation. Building on scholarship in social psychology, constructivism, and status hierarchies in world politics, the article analyzes the evolution of a dimension (or basis) of social status in the OSCE and illustrates that, beyond domestic and material interests, state representatives communicate social identity-related concerns through language, for example, that expresses discontent with dividing lines, unfairness, or (dis)respect, in attempting to minimize negative social identities in multilateral organizations.

This study used data collected from a smoking cessation program ( N = 146) to evaluate whether subjective social status was indirectly associated with smoking cessation through nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Findings indicated that subjective social status was indirectly associated with smoking cessation through withdrawal symptoms, specifically through anger and anxiety symptoms. People with lower subjective social status reported more withdrawal symptoms, particularly symptoms related to anger and anxiety, shortly after a quit attempt, and as such, were less likely to achieve smoking abstinence. Findings from this study provide insight into why socioeconomically disadvantaged adults are less likely to remain abstinent after a quit attempt.

How do members of dominant groups, like White people in the United States, react when their privileged social status is threatened, for example, by the prospect of numeric decline? Prior studies identify two sets of reactions: (1) White people identify more strongly with ingroup members, and (2) they withhold material and symbolic resources from outgroup members. This study explores another possibility: White people may alter the boundary around Whiteness by redefining the criteria for membership. I use an original survey experiment to examine how demographic threat affects how White people in the United States classify people who are ambiguously White, and specifically people who are ambiguously White or Latino. The results reveal that White people are less—not more—likely to classify people who are ambiguously White or Latino as “White” under threat. The results contribute to a growing literature on the racial classification of multiracial and racially ambiguous people that has previously ignored ambiguity around the Latino category. They also speak to an active debate about demographic projections and the classification decisions on which they rest.

Purpose. Peer crowd–targeted campaigns are a novel approach to engage high-risk young adults in tobacco use prevention and cessation. We elicited the perspectives of young adult key informants to understand how and why two social branding interventions were effective: (1) “COMMUNE,” designed for “Hipsters” as a movement of artists and musicians against Big Tobacco, and (2) “HAVOC,” designed for “Partiers” as an exclusive, smoke-free clubbing experience. Design. Qualitative study (27 semistructured qualitative phone interviews). Setting. Intervention events held in bars in multiple U.S. cities. Participants: Twenty-seven key informants involved in COMMUNE or HAVOC as organizers (e.g., musicians, event coordinators) or event attendees. Measures. We conducted semistructured, in-depth interviews. Participants described intervention events and features that worked or did not work well. Analysis. We used an inductive-deductive approach to thematically code interview transcripts, integrating concepts from intervention design literature and emergent themes. Results: Participants emphasized the importance of fun, interactive, social environments that encouraged a sense of belonging. Anti-tobacco messaging was subtle and nonjudgmental and resonated with their interests, values, and aesthetics. Young adults who represented the intervention were admired and influential among peers, and intervention promotional materials encouraged brand recognition and social status. Conclusion. Anti-tobacco interventions for high-risk young adults should encourage fun experiences; resonate with their interests, values, and aesthetics; and use subtle, nonjudgmental messaging.

Stress is often invoked as a potential contributor to disparities in physical health as a function of social status. Although there is good reason to believe that stress exposure and stress responses may be an important pathway linking lower social status to poor health, direct evidence is lacking. We summarize the evidence for this pathway and limitations of that evidence, focusing particularly on how stress is conceptualized and measured. We argue that in addition to more direct tests of mediation, the measurement of the mediator—stress—could also be improved. We also propose that measuring theory-specific stress exposures may be more fruitful than assessing general stress exposures (e.g., life events, global perceived stress) by increasing theoretical clarity and predictive utility of stress in this context.

Michel Houellebecq has a reputation as a heavy drinker and many of his protagonists mirror this tendency. This article focuses specifically on wine, asking whether the consumption of wine, both in his writing and in representations of his life, constitutes a simple cultural transgression, mainly via the quantities imbibed, or whether in fact wine is used as a complex literary device, a symbolic marker of national identity, social status and interpersonal relations. Tracing the presence and analysing the significance of wine in Houellebecq’s seven novels published to date reveals new ways to decode and interpret the author’s work through the prism of this product and its rich semantic field.

Aims: The study examined the timing of family socio-economic factors during early (aged 0–8 years) and late (aged 9–14 years) childhood, as well as psychosocial variables in relation to depressive symptoms at the ages of 15, 18 and 21. Methods: This prospective cohort study included 3014 young people from western Denmark. Exposure variables were equivalised household income (income), mother’s educational level and mother’s labour market participation (LMP), derived from registers and self-reported variables family functioning, subjective social status and negative life events. The outcome variable was depressive symptoms. Associations were analysed using logistic regression, adjusted for other exposure variables and sex. Results: In early childhood, mother’s low LMP was associated with higher risk of depressive symptoms at the age of 15, whereas mother’s low educational level and lower income was associated with higher risk of depressive symptoms at the age of 21. In late childhood, lower income, mother’s low educational level and mother’s low LMP was associated with higher risk of depressive symptoms at the ages of 15 and 21. Poorer family functioning was associated with depressive symptoms at the age of 15–21, with estimates ranging from 1.8 to 2.6. Reporting two or more negative life events were associated with depressive symptoms at the ages of 15 and 18. Conclusions: Timing of low income, mother’s low educational level and mother’s low LMP during childhood in relation to future depressive symptoms in the offspring appears to be of some importance in this Danish youth cohort. Family functioning and negative life events were the most stable risk factors for depressive symptoms. Results should, however, be interpreted with caution due to the risk of reverse causality.

Participating in conflict may facilitate the acquisition of social status in a group. We build on theories about the sources of conflict and status to formulate propositions about how conflict affects status mobility in schools. Using two-wave panel data from over 20,000 students in 56 middle schools, we first examine the relationship between change in conflict with schoolmates and change in a network-derived metric of status, betweenness centrality, which is an indicator of being well known. More overall conflict with students is associated with increases in status up to a threshold. Additionally, students who perceive more conflict with others who do not perceive conflict in return also gain status. Finally, more conflict with friends does not increase status. Based on this evidence, we propose a mechanism by which conflict increases status through signaling integration in the school’s social scene rather than through establishing dominance over others, as previous literature suggests.

Full-time teaching-focused faculty at research universities may hold alternative titles such as Assistant Teaching Professor, Instructor, or Lecturer. We manipulated the title of a fictitious faculty target to investigate how such titles are perceived. Student and lay respondents ( N = 317) respected and liked all targets, and their ratings did not differ depending on title. Faculty respondents ( N = 645) also liked and respected all the targets but predicted that Associate Teaching Professors, compared to Associate Professors, would be paid less and would be less likely to have tenure, hold the PhD, or be respected outside their university. Lecturer and Instructor titles were estimated to be even lower in status. We discuss what our data indicate about the status of teaching in academia.

In his recent book, Andrea Sangiovanni raises various objections against what he calls the ‘aristocratic’ conception of dignity – the idea that dignity represents a kind of high-ranking social status. In this short article, I suggest that Sangiovanni gives the aristocrats less credit than they deserve. Not only do his objections target an uncharitably narrow version of the view: Sangiovanni surreptitiously incorporates aspects of the aristocratic conception of dignity into his own (supposedly non-dignitarian) theory of moral equality.

A fundamental task for sociology is to uncover the mechanisms that produce and reproduce social inequalities. While status characteristics theory is the favored account of how social status contributes independently to the maintenance of inequality, it hinges on an unobserved construct, expectation states, in the middle of the causal chain between status and behavior. Efforts to test the mediation mechanism have been complicated by the implicit, often unconscious, nature of status expectations. To solve this “black box” problem, we offer a new conceptualization and research approach that capitalizes on the accuracy and precision of neurological measurement to shed new light on the biasing role of expectations in the status–behavior relationship. Results from an experimental study provide a unique illustration of ways in which social status is inscribed in the brain and how, in turn, these inscriptions are related to behavioral inequalities that emerge during interaction.