Drawing on social identity development theory, this study investigated a socioeconomically diverse sample of 8‐ to 12‐year‐old US children's (N = 93) subjective social status (SSS), how they ...determined and identified with their SSS, and whether their own SSS related to their social preferences for individuals from other SSS groups. Children primarily referenced material resources, lifestyles, money, and relative comparisons when explaining how they determined their SSS. Although all children identified with their SSS ingroup and viewed it positively, higher‐SSS children reported stronger identification with their SSS ingroup than did middle‐SSS children. Finally, regardless of their own SSS, children liked higher‐SSS individuals less, on average, than middle‐ or lower‐SSS individuals. Overall, this study provides novel evidence for the emergence of SSS identity in late childhood and its early relations to SSS intergroup preferences.
Subjective social status has a known association with health, whereby better health outcomes are observed for those with higher perceived status. In this research, we offer new evidence on the ...status–health relationship using a rigorous methodological approach that considers both observed and unobserved confounders.
We use 5 waves of data spanning 15 years from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and derive a measure of allostatic load with biomarkers as an objective measure of health. We apply ‘within–between’ panel regression models.
Models reveal the expected association between subjective status and health when comparing participants (the ‘between’ estimate), but no association when examining temporal variation within participants (the ‘within’ estimate). When controlling for personality traits including optimism, and parental education, the ‘between’ association between subjective status and allostatic load is reduced but does not disappear.
Person-level confounders play some role in explaining the observed link between subjective status and health. The exact nature of the link, including the role of psychological pathways and early-life confounders, remains a question for future research.
•Subjective social status has a known association with health outcomes.•We re-test this association with overtime data and biomarkers to measure health.•Higher status is associated with better health.•Overtime analysis within individuals shows no link between status and health.
Abstract
Recent scholarship on mobility has increasingly incorporated wealth. We ask if wealth brings anything new to mobility research or is just a standard socioeconomic status (SES) dimension in ...disguise. We exploit Swedish administrative registers, which contain rich SES measures over individuals’ lives for both parents’ and children’s generations. Using sibling correlations to estimate a baseline of shared family background influence, we then perform a total decomposition for each SES dimension and their overlaps. We find that wealth is a distinct dimension of SES that is very different from education, occupation, and income. Parental wealth cannot be substituted for other SES dimensions in understanding child’s wealth attainment. Moreover, parental wealth substantially moderates intergenerational reproduction in other dimensions: The wealthiest have higher reproduction rates in all child outcomes, but in particular for children’s income and wealth. Excluding wealth leads to underestimating intergenerational inequality, aggravated by its qualitatively unique status as an SES resource. We conclude that—alongside the SES resources education, occupation, and income—wealth emerges as an integral and unique dimension of what we choose to call the “big four” of social stratification.
•Customers at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) tend to participate in aspirational consumption.•The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review on aspirational consumption in ...BOP contexts.•This synthesis demonstrates factors driving aspirational consumption and the consequences of aspirational consumption in BOP contexts.•This study also suggests some insightful directions for further research in this area.
Customers at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) desire to use the same products as affluent consumers. Thus, BOP customers tend to participate in aspirational consumption. The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review and to synthesise the literature on aspirational consumption in BOP contexts to gain a comprehensive understanding of it. Among other findings, this review synthesises factors that drive aspirational consumption and the consequences of aspirational consumption in BOP contexts. This study also suggests insightful directions for further research on aspirational consumption in BOP contexts. Our study advances BOP and consumer behaviour literature by examining an emergent domain of aspirational consumption at the BOP. Our study also outlines some insightful practical and social implications.
This book explores the relationship between mainstream and marginal or subaltern religious practice in the Indian subcontinent, and its entanglement with ideas of nationhood, democracy and equality. ...With detailed readings of texts from Marathi and Hindi literature and criticism, the book brings together studies of Hindu devotionalism with issues of religious violence.
Drawing on the arguments of Partha Chatterjee, Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, the author demonstrates that Indian democracy, and indeed postcolonial democracies in general, do not always adhere to Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality, and that religion and secular life are inextricably enmeshed in the history of the modern, whether understood from the perspective of Europe or of countries formerly colonized by Europe. Therefore subaltern protest, in its own attempt to lay claim to history, must rely on an idea of religion that is inextricably intertwined with the deeply invidious legacy of nation, state, and civilization. The author suggests that the co-existence of acts of social altruism and the experience of doubt born from social strife - ‘miracle’ and ‘violence’ - ought to be a central issue for ethical debate. Keeping in view the power and reach of genocidal Hinduism, this book is the first to look at how the religion of marginal communities at once affirms and turns away from secularized religion.
This important contribution to the study of vernacular cosmopolitanism in South Asia will be of great interest to historians and political theorists, as well as to scholars of religious studies, South Asian studies and philosophy.
Milind Wakankar teaches in the Department of English, SUNY Stony Brook, USA. He received his PhD in English and Comparative Literature and Postcolonial theory from Columbia University. His current work involves a monograph on Ramchandra Shukla and a critical commentary on the Dnyaneswari.
Preface Part 1: Introduction: The Question of a Prehistory 1. Subalternity at the Cusp: Limits and Openings in the Dalit Critique 2. Moral Rite before Myth and Law: Death in Comparative Religion 3. The Time of Having-Found (God): Languages of Dalit Hearsay Part 2: The Vicissitudes of Historical Religion 4. The Anomaly of Kabir: Historical Religion in Dwivedi’s Kabir (1942) 5. The Pitfalls of a Dalit Theology: Dr Dharmvir’s Critique of Dwivedi (1997) 6. System and History in Rajwade’s Grammar for the Dnyaneswari (1909) Part 3: The Prehistory of Historical Religion 7. The Suspension of Iconoclasm: Myth and Allegory in the Time of Deities 8. Miracle and Violence: The Allegorical Turn in Kabir, Dnyaneswara, and Tukaram 9. Deity and Daivat: The Transfiguration of the Folk in Tukaram
We propose a self-regulation model of grandiose narcissism. This model illustrates an interconnected set of processes through which narcissists (i.e., individuals with relatively high levels of ...grandiose narcissism) pursue social status in their moment-by-moment transactions with their environments. The model shows that narcissists select situations that afford status. Narcissists vigilantly attend to cues related to the status they and others have in these situations and, on the basis of these perceived cues, appraise whether they can elevate their status or reduce the status of others. Narcissists engage in self-promotion (admiration pathway) or other-derogation (rivalry pathway) in accordance with these appraisals. Each pathway has unique consequences for how narcissists are perceived by others, thus shaping their social status over time. The model demonstrates how narcissism manifests itself as a stable and consistent cluster of behaviors in pursuit of social status and how it develops and maintains itself over time. More broadly, the model might offer useful insights for future process models of other personality traits.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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