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37 Soc. F. 243 (1958-1959)
Status Consciousness: A Dimensional Analysis

handle is hein.journals/josf37 and id is 259 raw text is: STATUS CONSCIOUSNESS

STATUS CONSCIOUSNESS: A DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS*
H. M. BLALOCK, JR.
University of Michigan

T          HE subjects of stratification and social
mobility have received considerable at-
tention from American sociologists. Yet
the interrelationships among various attitudes
which might be lumped together under the general
heading of status consciousness have apparently
not been systematically investigated. By status
consciousness the writer means the degree to which
status considerations are important to the indi-
vidual, the extent to which he is concerned about
his own relative status or to which status factors
tend to color his interaction with others.' The
purpose of this paper is twofold: to distinguish
conceptually between a number of dimensions of
status consciousness and to investigate their
empirical interrelationships.
We can construct an ideal-type model of the
highly status-conscious person as one who adheres
religiously to middle-class values and who has high
mobility aspirations. Not only is he willing to
sacrifice interesting work for a job that pays, but
he is very much aware of the kinds of behavior
required in playing the social game. He is
careful to learn the proper etiquette and to join the
right organizations. In his interpersonal relations
he associates with those persons who are in a posi-
tion to help him advance toward the top, shunning
those who are beneath him in status. He has a
high respect for status, defers to his superiors, and
expects those beneath him to do likewise. Unless he
has obviously already arrived, he is careful to
engage in the proper amount of conspicuous con-
sumption, trying to keep up appearances without
being overly ostentatious. He learns to know the
status system in his community and can readily
* The writer is indebted to Gerhard E. Lenski for
his helpful suggestions and to Marvin E. Olsen for
performing most of the computations.
'Notice that status consciousness, as used in this
paper, is a distinctly different concept from that of
dass consciousness which is usually used to refer to
identification with a particular class. See R. Centers,
The Psychology of Social Classes (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1949). The term status conscious-
ness is similar to but perhaps somewhat broader than
status concern as used by W. Kaufman in Status,
Authoritarianism, and   Anti-Semitism, American
Journal of Sociology, 62 (1957), pp. 379-382.

evaluate the relative standings of various civic,
social, or religious organizations. He takes pride in
knowing members of the elite, either personally or
vicariously. In  short, the   extremely  status-
conscious person lives and acts as though status
considerations are of the utmost importance. They
are to him the essence of social interaction.
The above picture is obviously overdrawn. The
empirical problem with which this paper is con-
cerned is the question of just how realistic this kind
of description actually is. In depicting an ideal-
type of this sort, it is tempting to assume inter-
relationships between those types of behavior
which would seem to belong together if the indi-
vidual were completely rational. An important
empirical question therefore is, How well do
these various dimensions of status consciousness
hang together? If they are highly intercorrelated,
then it is legitimate to conceive of status con-
sciousness as a unitary phenomenon. If not, the
dimensions should be used as distinct variables. It
is also possible, of course, that intercorrelations will
be high for some populations and low for others.
A questionnaire consisting of a number of back-
ground variables to be used as controls, several
prejudice items (see findings below), and a 24-item
status-consciousness scale was given to a random
sample of 228 students in introductory sociology
at the University of Michigan. The status-
consciousness scale consisted of four items on
each of six dimensions (as described below) and
was administered to students in large lecture sec-
tions on the first day of classes before they had had
any contact with the course. Students were about
equally divided between freshmen and sopho-
mores, and about three-quarters were female. The
group was extremely homogeneous with respect to
class background, the median income of parents
being between $10,000 and $15,000. Of the total
sample, four were nonwhites and three others failed
to complete the status-consciousness questions
satisfactorily. The white sample actually used
therefore consisted of 221 students.
DIMENSIONS OF STATUS CONSCIOUSNESS
In addition to the six dimensions described below
for which data were actually collected, it is pos-

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