Abstract
We have all had the experience of being thrust into a group of strangers and tasked with solving a problem. Immediately, we look around at the others and quickly ascertain their individual utility and value. Who will be most helpful? Whose opinions hold the greatest gravitas? Who is most likely to make no contribution, or to even be disruptive? Once this has been determined, we relax a bit and make progress with the task. Inevitably one or two people will assume the necessary leadership roles, either by the forcefulness of their assertions or simply because the others recognize that they possess something valuable that will help solve the problem. We defer to them and afford them a level of status based on our perceptions of their potential contribution. Even though we know little or nothing about them, we are willing to grant them a level of authority based on the presumption of their ability. They have acquired status in our eyes, whether or not they aspired to it. Since such events are multiplied throughout our daily lives, status is—as Cecilia Ridgeway argues in Status: Why Is It Everywhere? Why Does It Matter?—everywhere.
Key to Ridgeway’s thesis is the idea that we embrace status hierarchies as a way to manage social situations where cooperative interdependence is reconciled with competitive interdependence to achieve valued goals. In other words, we learn to cooperate in order to achieve individual goals in a competitively structured environment. We accede to such hierarchies because we understand the shared socio-cultural blueprint that frames such activities. This is, according to Ridgeway, a cultural schema theory of status that helps us organize our behavior in cooperative ways to achieve individual goals. She also claims that such hierarchies inevitably produce and reproduce inequality that is as rampant in today’s meritocratic societies as it was in ancient ascriptive ones.
Many of Ridgeway’s empirical and theoretical assertions focus on the implicit ways people bring status into goal-oriented settings, using it as a building block behind group organization to achieve individual goals without compromising mutual interdependence. People use status as a way to make sense of group activities, and the more they adhere to such hierarchical structures, the greater their legitimacy. Inequality rears its ugly head when one considers variables such as race, gender, and social class. Unsurprisingly, men are viewed with greater status than women, whites with greater status than blacks, and the wealthy with greater status than the poor—even though individuals from each of the subordinate groups might possess the requisite knowledge or skills to solve the problem. This is part of the cultural schema where established norms have endowed certain groups with privileged status, and such a normative framework is reproduced through routine interactions. Ridgeway’s book focuses on status between groups of individuals in society, such as those mentioned above, as well as status in interpersonal hierarchies.
Many of us think of status as inextricably linked with wealth or even class; the rich person can afford the trappings that denote superior position while others look upward in envy or aspiration. But Ridgeway’s argument is that status pervades almost all aspects of everyday life. Daily interactions present problems of goal attainment for individuals and a search for expedient solutions that will not undermine the structure of the activity or group. In looking to others, we develop perceptions of capabilities or performance expectations that inform how we behave and whether or not we take initiative. In many respects this approach is resurrecting Robert Bales’s interaction process analysis theories developed decades ago, even though his work focused almost entirely on how groups developed structures to accommodate different personality types. I was also reminded of Erving Goffman’s work on the presentation of self, as it seems individual agency is contingent on an implicit recognition of how well we perform in interactions with others when part of goal-seeking. Nonetheless, Ridgeway does attempt to delineate the essentialism of status hierarchies as a way of reconciling goal achievement with the maximization of individual benefits. Thus, status hierarchies are everywhere—omnipresent and deeply rooted in culture.
Ridgeway devotes time to understanding why people value and pursue status as much as wealth and power; they care about it enough that they monitor it regularly. She notes how status is systematically reproduced and acquires legitimacy and authority that in turn can create opposition when groups perceive its utility as compromised. The fact that status is intermingled with inequality becomes clear as one moves through the book. Privileged groups leverage their resources to retain power, thus reproducing the inequality that afforded them the status in the first place. By arguing that such hierarchies are predicated on merit, such groups articulate a sui generis claim for their own superiority. Since we defer to that authority because we perceive its utility, it becomes entrenched.
Status is seen by the author as a conservative force as well as a powerful one, since most of us refer to these cultural schemata on a regular basis. Not surprisingly, inequality persists and is reified through individual interactions. As status remains durable, so too does inequality. It is, in answer to Ridgeway’s question, inevitable. Because we hold strong beliefs about the importance of status, it remains pervasive.
There were times throughout this book that I struggled with the dense terminology and the endless repetition of the key themes of individual goal attainment and group cohesion. A more succinct analysis might have served better in the presentation of the key ideas. At times it seemed obfuscation took precedence over clarity of exposition. Presenting ideas with theoretical implications beyond empirical evidence is useful, but only if a relatively unambiguous position is established. Nonetheless, I applaud the author for the thoroughness of her inquiries—no theoretical or empirical stone was left unturned! Even though I came away a little muddled and exhausted and had to frequently sit back and think carefully about what was being argued, I did glean some interesting insights. Perhaps the inevitably of inequality in more spheres than we normally acknowledge and the passive role we take in reinforcing this inequality through routine interactions were the seminal points that emerged.
In the end I couldn’t help but wonder if one could have spent time watching a dozen young children play in a structured way to observe the behavioral patterns that Ridgeway adumbrates. That is not to trivialize the author’s rigorous analysis, but merely to ponder how even the simplest of things such as children’s play can carry a powerful message. Status is everywhere, even among the young.