8.1.4: Status Inconsistency

8.1.4: Status Inconsistency 

Ordinarily, we have a similar rank on all three dimensions of social class—property, power, and prestige. The homeless men in the opening vignette are an example of these three dimensions lined up. Such people are status consistent. Some people, however, have a mixture of high and low ranks. This condition, called status inconsistency, leads to some interesting situations. In classic research, sociologist Gerhard Lenski (1954, 1966) analyzed how people try to maximize their status​, their position in a social group. Individuals who rank high on one dimension of social class but lower on others want people to judge them on the basis of their highest status. Others, however, are also trying to maximize their own status, so they may respond according to these people’s lowest rankings. Trying to claim the higher status but being handed the lower one. This is so frustrating that the tensions affect people’s health. Researchers who studied thousands of Europeans over a decade found that men who are status inconsistent are more likely to have heart attacks and strokes than men who are status consistent. For reasons that no one knows, status inconsistent women do not have these higher health risks (Braig et al. 2011; Grau et al. 2019). 237 A fascinating social consequence of status inconsistency is that it tends to produce political liberals. An example is college professors. Their prestige is very high, as you saw in Table 8.2, but their incomes are relatively low. Hardly anyone in U.S. society is more educated, and yet college professors don’t even come close to the top of the income pyramid. In line with Lenski’s prediction, the politics of most college professors are left of center. This hypothesis may also hold true among academic departments; that is, the higher a department’s average pay, the more conservative are the members’ politics. Teachers in departments of business and medicine, for example, are among the most highly paid in the university—and they also are the most politically conservative. How do you set yourself apart in a country so rich that of its 4.6 million people 79,000 are millionaires? Saeed Khouri (on the right), at an auction in Abu Dhabi, paid $14 million for the license plate “1.” His cousin was not as fortunate. His $9 million was enough to buy only “5.” Credit: KARIM SAHIB/AFP/Getty Images Instant wealth, the topic of the following Down-to-Earth Sociology, provides an interesting type of status inconsistency. Down-to-Earth Sociology The Big Win: Life after the Lottery “If I just win the lottery, life will be good. These problems I’ve got, they’ll be gone. I can just see myself now.” So goes the dream. And many people shell out megabucks every week, with the glimmering hope that “Maybe this week, I’ll hit it big.” Most are lucky to get $20 or maybe just another scratch-off ticket. But some do hit it big. What happens to these winners? Are their lives all wine, roses, and chocolate afterward? We don’t have any systematic studies of the big winners, so I can’t tell you what life is like for the average winner. But several themes are apparent from reporters’ interviews. A common consequence of hitting it big is that life becomes topsy-turvy. All of us are rooted somewhere. We have connections with others that provide the basis for our orientations to life and how we feel about the world. Sudden wealth can rip these moorings apart, and the resulting status inconsistency can lead to a condition sociologists call anomie (an`-uh-me). First comes the shock. As Mary Sanderson, a telephone operator in Dover, New Hampshire, who won $66 million, said, “I was afraid to believe it was real and afraid to believe it wasn’t.” Mary says that she never slept worse than her first night as a multimillionaire. “I spent the whole time crying—and throwing up” (Tresniowski 1999). 

Reporters and TV crews appear on your doorstep. “What are you going to do with all that money?” they demand. You haven’t the slightest idea, but in a daze you mumble something. Then come the calls. Some are welcome. Your Mom and Dad call to congratulate you. But long-forgotten friends and distant relatives suddenly remember how close they are to you—and strangely enough, they all have emergencies that your money can solve. You even get calls from strangers who have ailing mothers, terminally ill kids, sick dogs … You have to turn off your phone and change your number. 

You might be flooded with marriage proposals.

 You certainly didn’t become more attractive or sexy overnight—or did you? 

Maybe money makes people sexy. 

You can no longer trust people. 

You don’t know what their real motives are. 

Before, no one could be after your money because you didn’t have any. 

You may even fear kidnappers. 

Before, this wasn’t a problem—unless some kidnapper wanted a seven-year-old car as ransom. The normal becomes abnormal. Even picking out a wedding gift becomes a problem.

 If you give the usual juicer, everyone will think you’re stingy. But should you write a check for $25,000? 

If you do, you’ll be invited to every wedding in town—and everyone will expect the same. Here is what happened to some lottery winners: Mack Metcalf, a forklift operator in Corbin, Kentucky, hit the jackpot for $34 million. 

To fulfill a dream, he built and moved into a replica of George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.

 Then his life fell apart—his former wife sued him, his current wife divorced him, and his new girlfriend got $500,000 while he was drunk. 

Within three years of his “good” fortune, Metcalf had drunk himself to death. (Dao 2005). 

When Abraham Shakespeare, a dead-broke truck driver’s assistant, won $31 million in the Florida lottery, he bought a million-dollar home in a gated community.

 He lent money to friends to start businesses, even paid for funerals (McShane 2010). 

This evidently wasn’t enough. 

His body was found buried in the yard of a “friend,” who was convicted of his murder. (Allen 2012).

 Callie Rogers was just 16 years old when she won $3 million in the lottery. 

She proudly declared that she wouldn’t change, that she’d drive a regular car, and so on. 

Then came the drugs ($380,000 on cocaine), the booze, the two boob jobs, and the four suicide attempts.

 Now broke, a mother, and married to a firefighter, she says, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.” (Evans 2013).

 “Bud” Post elected to take his $16 million in annual installments of $500,000, a conservative, sensible decision. 

The first $500,000 burned a hole in his pocket. 

Bud leased a restaurant for a brother, bought a car lot for another brother, and although he could not fly, he purchased a two-engine airplane for himself. In just three months, he was $500,000 in debt.

 One brother wanted his lottery winnings for himself and put out a contract on Bud and his wife. 

After six divorces, Bud died dead broke (Sullivan 2006). 

Jesús Davila, winner of $265 million in the Illinois lottery, who is retired, used to drive cabs for a living. How do you think his lottery win will change his life? Credit: M. Spencer Green/AP Images Winners who avoid anomie seem to be people who don’t make sudden changes in their lifestyle or their behavior. They hold onto their old friends and routines—the anchors in life that give them identity and a sense of belonging. Some even keep their old jobs—not for the money, of course, but because the job anchors them to an identity with which they are familiar and comfortable. Sudden wealth, in other words, poses a threat that has to be guarded against. And I can just hear you say, “I’ll take the risk!” For Your Consideration → How would you avoid anomie?