Status, in sociology, is the social position of an individual relative to other people in society. Familiar statuses among most societies include those associated with being a parent, child, teacher, student, employer, and worker. Every person in a society has status. Over time, people may acquire new statuses and lose others.
A person’s status is an important factor in determining that person’s social role . A social role is the set of behaviors that a society expects from a person of a certain status. For example, most societies have certain expectations about how teachers interact with students. Societies often expect an employer to behave and interact with workers in particular ways. Those interactions are usually different from how workers of equal status may interact with one another.
Most people in a society have many overlapping status roles. For example, a woman may be a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a church elder, a volunteer, and an employee. Each status requires the woman to play a slightly different role within a particular group. The woman may readily switch status roles depending on whom she is interacting with at any particular time.
How status is obtained.
The ways people obtain or lose status within a society may vary greatly. However, all status positions within a society can be identified as either achieved or ascribed.
Achieved status is obtained through accomplishment. For instance, a person may gain social status by accumulating great wealth or by being exceptionally generous to others. A warrior may gain status through acts of bravery in battle. A woman gains the status of mother when she has a baby. A student may gain status by studying and working to earn high grades and honors. However, a person may also lose status through various acts. For example, a person who steals things is recognized by society as a criminal, a generally undesirable status.
Ascribed status is usually assigned from the circumstances of a person’s birth. For example, male and female members have different status roles in all human societies. This status will determine their other possible status roles as sister, brother, father, or uncle. A royal family consists of the monarch of a particular nation state and the monarch’s relatives—spouse, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, and parents. The members of the family are ascribed their high-status positions by virtue of their birth.
Ascribed status is not as easily gained or lost as achieved status. For example, for thousands of years, each person in India was born into a particular social class, called a caste . Typically, a person could only interact with or marry a person within the same caste. A person could not move from one caste to another. The caste people were born into determined their status for life, no matter how much they accomplished or their qualities as individuals.
High and low status.
People in all human societies have a complex mix of achieved and ascribed status roles. In addition, all societies tend to emphasize the importance of certain status positions over others. Such positions are seen as desirable, high-status roles. Other social positions may be seen as low-status, or undesirable. The desire to gain higher status is an important motivational force in most societies. However, societies vary greatly in how they determine which statuses are important.
Among Native American groups of the Pacific Northwest in the United States, for example, status was achieved through an elaborate ceremony called a potlatch . The potlatch concluded with the host giving away many valuable items to the guests. The host may have lost a great amount of material wealth through this tradition, but the host gained a higher social status by performing the ceremony.
In India, for thousands of years, a person’s caste has traditionally been the most important status role. This system limits social mobility— that is, the ability to change one’s social position. Many experts think such limitation on social mobility can hinder economic development. Today, members of various castes are not as restricted in their opportunities as they were in the past. But social interaction and marriages between castes are still limited.
In animals.
Status is also important among animals that live in social groups. Such animals include those that live in herds, such as bison , elk , or horses ; and other social animals, including elephants , lions , wolves , and many primates . In animal groups, high-status individuals are seen as dominant. Dominance determines which individuals have access to resources that are in limited supply. These resources may include food, water, resting places, and mates. 
Just as in human societies, status in nonhuman animals may be ascribed or achieved. Within a troop of baboons , for example, a baby born to a high-status mother will usually possess a high status. A baboon may also achieve a higher social status by defeating a high-status individual in an aggressive encounter. The loser of the contest often suffers a drop in social status. See Dominance .
