The aim of this study was to test if self-concept clarity and subjective social status mediate between psychological suzhi and social anxiety. Participants were 614 Chinese adolescents (40.4% male; ...aged 12–19years, M=15.49years, SD=1.76); they completed measures of psychological suzhi, social anxiety, self-concept clarity, and subjective social status. Structural equation modeling was used to test for a mediating effect; self-concept clarity and subjective social status were found to fully mediate between psychological suzhi and social anxiety. The indirect effect was stronger via subjective social status than via self-concept clarity. These findings suggest that self-concept clarity and subjective social status underlie psychological suzhi's effect on adolescents' social anxiety.
•Suzhi was positively correlated with adolescents' SCC and SSS.•SCC and SSS were negatively correlated with adolescents' SA.•SCC and SSS mediate the association between suzhi and SA.•Suzhi's indirect correlations with SA were significantly stronger via SSS than via SCC.
Sex work has undergone a change, with the rise of the internet economy with more ‘middle class’ sex workers coming into the industry. In this paper, I explore the social status hierarchy within ...online direct-contact commercial sex work in New Zealand. I draw on findings from an in-depth qualitative investigation of online sex work, undertaken between 2017 and 2018. I took a participatory approach, working closely with NZPC – Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective to provide an understanding of two interrelated issues: the role web platforms play in shaping the social status of sex workers who advertise for clients online; and how sex workers brand and market themselves online. The findings suggest that sex workers strive to represent themselves as authentic in their marketing to enhance social status. Furthermore, the web platform on which over 90% of indoor sex workers in New Zealand advertise has embedded a status system among sex workers through the advertising packages they offer. Social status has thus become the most powerful marketing tool indoor direct-contact sex workers have to stand out from their competitors and attract sufficient clients to make a liveable income.
This paper simultaneously explores the relationship between social status, routine activity theory, and repeat victimization. This study compares the effects of lifestyle with key social status ...variables like gender, race, and sexuality, on varying degrees of victimization to answer the question: do routine activities or social status predict repeat victimization? This research is a secondary data analysis using two waves of the Canadian Victimization Survey from 2004 and 2009. Both a logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression are used to analyze the possible causes of repeat victimization. Overall, social status is influenced by lifestyle when predicting victimization; however, key social status variables predict high levels of victimization such as identifying as gay or lesbian or being an Aboriginal Canadian. The most powerful indicator of victimization was if a victim had been previously arrested themselves. The results of this study suggest that, while lifestyle is a strong predictor of victimization, minority groups are still at risk of being victimized at higher levels.
High subjective social status (SSS) is believed to protect health in the current literature. However, high SSS entails social responsibilities that can be stressful in collectivistic cultural ...contexts. Here, we tested the hypothesis that those socialized in collectivistic societies (e.g., Japan) recognize their high social status as entailing social duties difficult to ignore even when they are excessive. Using cross-cultural survey data (N = 1,289) and a measure of biological health risk (BHR) by biomarkers of inflammation and cardiovascular malfunction, we found that higher SSS predicted lower BHR for American males. In contrast, higher SSS predicted higher BHR for Japanese males, mediated by the perceived difficulty of disengaging from their current goals. In both cultural groups, females showed no association between SSS and BHR. These findings suggest that social status has differing health implications, depending on the relative salience of privileges and burden-producing responsibilities in different cultural contexts.
Prolonged physiological stress responses form an important risk factor for disease. According to neurobiological and evolution-theoretical insights the stress response is a default response that is ...always "on" but inhibited by the prefrontal cortex when safety is perceived. Based on these insights the Generalized Unsafety Theory of Stress (GUTS) states that prolonged stress responses are due to generalized and largely unconsciously perceived unsafety rather than stressors. This novel perspective necessitates a reconstruction of current stress theory, which we address in this paper. We discuss a variety of very common situations without stressors but with prolonged stress responses, that are not, or not likely to be caused by stressors, including loneliness, low social status, adult life after prenatal or early life adversity, lack of a natural environment, and less fit bodily states such as obesity or fatigue. We argue that in these situations the default stress response may be chronically disinhibited due to unconsciously perceived generalized unsafety. Also, in chronic stress situations such as work stress, the prolonged stress response may be mainly caused by perceived unsafety in stressor-free contexts. Thus, GUTS identifies and explains far more stress-related physiological activity that is responsible for disease and mortality than current stress theories.
How to explain the morphological diversity of dry-stone corbelled huts found in Apulia region? Their diversity manifests itself mainly in the outer shell whereas the inner structure remains invariant ...(corbelling technique, dry-stone technology). In contrast with previous theories, the author indicates with litho-poiesis the fabrication process, not only functional but also symbolic and agentive, which has been carried out, with different degrees of know-how, by the dry-stone builders especially during the 19th century. The different choices and alternatives that the builders had to deal with during the building process, emphasize two ways in which litho-poiesis has manifested itself: 1. A “collective” process that implied the gradual emergence of local aesthetics and that sometimes has given rise to cases of hybridism; 2. A more individualized process within the local community, which implied the close collaboration between the future hut users on one hand and the specialized dry-stone builders on the other hand, in order to create a construction that has the capacity to stand out from the neighboring ones and therefore, thanks to the greater technical virtuosity that characterizes it, communicates to the viewer the higher social status of the respective owner.
Socioeconomic status has been related to poorer eating behaviors, potentially due to feeling of lower status relative to peers. Despite experimental evidence that temporarily feeling of lower status ...can contribute to greater caloric intake, it remains unclear how feeling of lower social status relate to eating behavior in daily life. This study aimed to test whether lower subjective social status (SSS)—the feeling of having relatively lower social status—in American society and relative to college peers were related to daily food selection. A sample of 131 young adults (Mage = 20.3, SD = 0.8; 60% female; 46% Latinos; 34% European American; 15% Asian American; 5% of other ethnicities) reported their SSS in society and in college and completed 15 daily reports regarding the number of daily servings they had of fruits, vegetables, fried foods, fast foods, desserts, and sugary drinks. Multilevel models with days nested within individuals were used to test whether low SSS in society or college related to daily food intake. Next, we examined whether associations were driven by young adults' perceived stress and daily stressors. Analyses controlled for age, gender, ethnicity, family and personal income, and parents' education to test the unique associations between subjective status and food intake. Whereas SSS in society was not related to food intake, young adults with lower SSS in their college consumed fewer daily servings of healthy foods and more daily servings of high-fat/high-sugar foods. Although lower college SSS was related to greater perceived stress, perceived stress and daily stressors were consistently unrelated to daily food intake. Findings suggested that lower SSS in local environments (e.g., college) may impact young adults’ daily food choices through processes beyond heightened stress.
Abstract
Background
Assessing subjective social status (SSS) may be easily accommodated in the context of a Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS). To our knowledge, no prior studies have ...examined the association of SSS and health in Angola. Subjective socioeconomic measures may provide a rapid assessment of a relevant social status construct, important for studying health inequalities. In this study, we addressed social determinants of health by examining the relationship between the subjective and objective social status, reported health and healthcare-seeking behaviour.
Methods
This research results from a cross-sectional study performed during 2015 in the Dande HDSS, in Angola. We tested the application of the MacArthur scale as a measure of SSS in a developing setting, in a sample of 12,246 households. First, we investigated its relation to objective socioeconomic indicators, and then we explored how subjective and objective social status associate with health reported needs and health-seeking behaviour of the surveyed population.
Chi-square, ANOVA tests, and Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) Curves analysis were computed for testing relationships between subjective status ladder quartiles, sociodemographic and household characteristics. Logistic regression was used to examine the influence of subjective perception of status in self-reported health and health-seeking behaviour.
Results
Our findings suggest that the SSS follows a gradient distribution obtained with more objective socioeconomic indicators. Additionally, we found that subjective perception of status influence health needs reporting and health-seeking behaviour and its significant effect remained after controlling for the objective socioeconomic markers. Individuals standing in the second quartile of the social ladder have more odds of reporting illness and those in the highest quartiles of the ladder were twice more likely (OR = 2.23, 95% CI = 1.52–3.26) to seek help from formal health services than those at the bottom of the ladder.
Conclusions
The MacArthur Scale is a valuable tool to measure SSS in the Dande HDSS, relevant for studying socioeconomic disparities and health inequalities. It is also an easier alternative to traditional measures such as income, usually difficult to measure in developing settings. The social perception of status should be considered as a complement with objective indicators when exploring social determinants of health.
This paper explores the factors that have recently increased support for candidates and causes of the populist right across the developed democracies, especially among a core group of working‐class ...men. In the context of debates about whether the key causal factors are economic or cultural, we contend that an effective analysis must rest on understanding how economic and cultural developments interact to generate support for populism. We suggest that one way to do so is to see status anxiety as a proximate factor inducing support for populism, and economic and cultural developments as factors that combine to precipitate such anxiety. Using cross‐national survey data from 20 developed democracies, we assess the viability of this approach. We show that lower levels of subjective social status are associated with support for right populist parties, identify a set of economic and cultural developments likely to have depressed the social status of men without a college education, and show that the relative social status of those men has declined since 1987 in many of the developed democracies. We conclude that status effects provide one pathway through which economic and cultural developments may combine to increase support for the populist right.
We argue that support for parties of the radical right and left can usefully be understood as a problem of social integration—an approach that brings together economic and cultural explanations for ...populism. With comparative survey data, we assess whether support for parties of the radical right and left is associated with feelings of social marginalization. We find that people who feel more socially marginal—because they lack strong attachment to the normative order, social engagement, or a sense of social respect—are more likely to be alienated from mainstream politics and to support radical parties. We also find an association between indicators for recent economic and cultural developments often said to affect social status and feelings of social marginalization, especially among people with low incomes or educational attainment. We conclude that problems of social integration and subjective social status deserve more attention from scholars of comparative political behavior.
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