Status Consciousness

Abstract

This research examined individual differences in how people think about social status via a scale with eight proposed factors. Items designed to measure these factors were administered to an online sample (n = 1,009). A factor analysis revealed eight meaningful factors: rejection of status, high-perceived status, respect for hierarchy, low-perceived status, status display, egalitarianism, belief in hierarchy, and enjoyment of status. The 40 items forming these eight factors were then administered to a new sample of online participants (n = 303) alongside measures of self-esteem, social dominance orientation, competitiveness, assertiveness, social comparison orientation, narcissism, and hypersensitive narcissism. Confirmatory factor analyses from this subsequent study supported the model derived in the first study. A preliminary analysis of the construct validity of this new “Status Consciousness Scale” scale was undertaken by examining the correlations between the factors and other personality variables that were predicted to relate to each factor.