Forms of Status Inconsistency

Abstract

Status inconsistency—conflicts between several evaluated attributes of a given individual—is seen as occurring with respect to social rules which define appropriate combinations of status characteristics. These congruence rules may operate to redefine status combinations in a wide variety of ways, rendering apparently consistent ones inconsistent and vice versa. Further, the addition of a second social position to a given position (with its cluster of attributes and congruence rules) may disturb an equilibrated situation in any of a wide variety of ways. These problems of interpretation arise even without considering the uncertain results of ambiguities or social conflicts over the definition of appropriate rules and attributes. The problems all operate to make the definition and prediction of inconsistency very uncertain, and to make research strategies problematic.