Creating Status Characteristics

Status characteristics constitute significant elements of small group and societal stratification systems, and understanding their creation has theoretical and practical importance. The authors generalize Cecilia L. Ridgeway's pathbreaking theory of status construction in three stages. First, they show that a conceptual change, using goal objects instead of exchangeable resources, permits to explain the creation of many more status characteristics. Second, they explicate an interaction mechanism, behavior interchange patterns, that can transform other characteristics into status characteristics, even creating status differences where no characteristic is salient. Third, they show how new characteristics themselves can be created and given status value from deviance and personality attribution processes. They briefly note some parallels with other theorists' work, suggest some independent tests, and consider theoretical and applied implications of this work