The place a person occupies in society. The concept of social role. Social status and personal status

Social status - the position occupied by an individual or a social group in society or a separate subsystem of society. It is determined by characteristics specific to a particular society, which can be economic, national, age and other characteristics. Social status is divided by skills, abilities, education. The concept in the sociological sense was first used by the English historian and lawyer Henry Maine.

Social status - the place or position of the individual, correlated with the position of other people; this is the place of the individual in a hierarchically organized social structure, his objective position in it; it is an inexhaustible human resource that gives a person the opportunity to influence society and through it to receive privileged positions in the system of power and distribution of material wealth. Each person occupies a number of positions in society, each of which implies a number of rights and obligations. Social statuses are structural elements of the social organization of society, providing social ties between the subjects of social relations. Society not only creates social positions - statuses, but also provides social mechanisms for the distribution of members of society in these positions.

Status types

Birth status - the status received by a person at birth (sex, race, nationality). In some cases, birth status may change: the status of a member of the royal family - from birth and as long as the monarchy exists.

Acquired (achievable) status - the status that a person achieves through his own efforts (position, post).

Prescribed (assigned) status - a status that a person acquires regardless of his desire (age, status in the family), it can change over the course of life. Prescribed status can be congenital or acquired.

41. The concept of a status portrait. Main status and episodic statuses.

Status refers to an individual's position in a group or society. Drawing further an analogy with physics, we see that a status, like a point, is non-material within itself and is not filled with anything. This is some place taken in relation to other points, bodies and coordinate systems. Status is an empty place, a cell in the social division of labor. Rights and obligations (status content) can be written and unwritten (formal and informal). All or most professions have a formal definition of status, which is fixed in job descriptions. The metro passenger also has formally fixed rights and obligations. However, in modern society for a significant part of the statuses, the content is not formally fixed, but is a set of fixed traditions, conventional (conditional) norms. We know the rights and obligations of a guest not from formal instructions, but from life experience. Most of the rights and obligations of husband and wife are enshrined in tradition, not in legal laws.

42. Social status and personal status.

Social status - the position occupied by an individual or a social group in society or a separate subsystem of society. It is determined by characteristics specific to a particular society, which can be economic, national, age and other characteristics. Social status is divided by skills, abilities, education. Personal status - the position of an individual in a small group, depending on how the members of this group evaluate him in accordance with his personal qualities.

For example: leader, outsider, soul of the company, etc.

And, accordingly, the owner of many different statuses. The whole set of human statuses is called status set. The status that the person himself or those around him consider the main one is called main status. This is usually professional or family status, or status in the group where the person has achieved the greatest success.

Statuses are divided into prescribed(obtained by virtue of birth) and achieved(which are acquired purposefully). The freer the society, the less important are the statuses prescribed and the more important are the achieved ones.

A person can have different statuses. For example, his status set may be as follows: male, unmarried, candidate of technical sciences, computer programming specialist, Russian, city dweller, Orthodox, etc. A number of statuses (Russian, male) were received by him from birth - these are prescribed statuses. A number of other statuses (candidate of sciences, programmer) he acquired, having made certain efforts for this, these are achieved statuses. Suppose this person identifies primarily as a programmer; therefore, the programmer is his main status.

The social prestige of a person

The concept of status is usually associated with the concept of prestige.

social prestige - this is a public assessment of the significance of the position that a person occupies in.

The higher the prestige of a person's social position, the higher his social status is estimated. For example, the professions of an economist or a lawyer are considered prestigious; good education educational institution; high post; a specific place of residence (capital, city center). If they talk about the high importance not of a social position, but of a particular person and his personal qualities, in this case they mean not prestige, but authority.

social role

Social status is a characteristic of a person's inclusion in the social structure. In real life, the status of a person is manifested through the roles that he plays.

social role is a set of requirements that are imposed by society on persons occupying a specific social position.

In other words, if someone occupies a certain position in society, they will be expected to behave accordingly.

A priest is expected to behave in accordance with high moral standards, from a rock star - scandalous acts. If a priest begins to behave scandalously, and a rock star begins to preach sermons, this will cause bewilderment, discontent and even condemnation of the public.

In order to feel comfortable in society, we must expect people to play their roles and act within the rules prescribed by society: a teacher in a university will teach us scientific theories, not; the doctor will think about our health, not his earnings. If we did not expect others to fulfill their roles, we would not be able to trust anyone and our lives would be filled with hostility and suspicion.

Thus, if social status is the position of a person in the social structure of society with certain rights and obligations, then a social role is the functions performed by a person in accordance with his status: the behavior that is expected from the owner of this status.

Even with the same social status, the nature of the roles performed can vary significantly. This is due to the fact that the performance of roles has a personal coloring, and the roles themselves can have different versions of performance. For example, with r. the owner of such a social status as the father of the family, may be demanding and strict with the child (play his role in an authoritarian manner), may build relationships in the spirit of cooperation and partnership (democratic behavior), or may let events take their course, giving the child a wide degree of freedom (permissive style). In exactly the same way, different theater actors will play the same role in completely different ways.

Throughout life, a person's position in the social structure may change. As a rule, these changes are associated with the transition of a person from one social group to another: from unskilled workers to specialists, from villagers to city dwellers, and so on.

Features of social status

Status - is a social position that includes a profession of this type, economic situation, political preferences, demographic features. For example, the status of a citizen I.I. Ivanov is defined as follows: “salesman” is a profession, “a wage worker with an average income” is economic traits, “LDPR member” is a political characteristic, “a man aged 25” is a demographic quality.

Each status as an element of the social division of labor contains a set of rights and obligations. Rights refer to what a person can freely allow or allow in relation to other people. Duties prescribe some necessary actions to the status holder: in relation to others, at their workplace, etc. Responsibilities are strictly defined, fixed in rules, instructions, regulations, or enshrined in custom. Responsibilities limit behavior to certain limits, make it predictable. For example, the status of a slave in the ancient world assumed only duties and did not contain any rights. In a totalitarian society, rights and obligations are asymmetrical: the ruler and senior officials have maximum rights and minimum duties; ordinary citizens have many duties and few rights. In our country in Soviet times, many rights were proclaimed in the constitution, but not all of them could be realized. In a democratic society, rights and obligations are more symmetrical. It can be said that the level of social development of a society depends on how the rights and obligations of citizens are correlated and observed.

It is important that the duties of the individual presuppose his responsibility for their qualitative fulfillment. So, the tailor is obliged to sew a suit on time and with high quality; if this is not done, he must be punished somehow - pay a penalty or be fired. The organization is obliged under the contract to deliver products to the customer, otherwise it incurs losses in the form of fines and penalties. Even in Ancient Assyria there was such an order (fixed in the laws of Hammurabi): if an architect built a building, which subsequently collapsed and crushed the owner, the architect was deprived of his life. This is one of the early and primitive forms of responsibility. Nowadays, the forms of manifestation of responsibility are quite diverse and are determined by the culture of society, the level of social development. In modern society, rights, freedoms and obligations are determined by social norms, laws, and traditions of society.

Thus, status- the position of the individual in , which is connected with other positions through a system of rights, duties and responsibilities.

Since each person participates in many groups and organizations, he can have many statuses. For example, the mentioned citizen Ivanov is a man, a middle-aged person, a resident of Penza, a salesman, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, an Orthodox, a Russian, a voter, a football player, a regular visitor to a beer bar, a husband, a father, an uncle, etc. In this set of statuses that any person has, one is the main one, the key one. The main status is the most characteristic for a given individual and is usually associated with the main place of his work or occupation: "salesman", "entrepreneur", "scientist", "bank director", "worker in an industrial enterprise", "housewife", etc. P. The main thing is the status that determines the financial situation, and hence the lifestyle, circle of acquaintances, demeanor.

Given(innate, prescribed) status determined by sex, nationality, race, i.e. biologically predetermined characteristics inherited by a person in addition to his will and consciousness. The achievements of modern medicine make some statuses changeable. Thus, the concept of biological sex, socially acquired, appeared. With the help of surgical operations, a man who played with dolls from childhood, dressed like a girl, thought and felt like a girl, can become a woman. He finds his true gender, to which he was psychologically predisposed, but did not receive at birth. What gender - male or female - should be considered innate in this case? There is no single answer. Sociologists also find it difficult to determine what nationality a person belongs to whose parents are persons of different nationalities. Often, moving to another country in childhood, emigrants forget the old customs, their native language and practically do not differ from the indigenous inhabitants of their new homeland. In this case, the biological nationality is replaced by the socially acquired one.

Acquired Status is a status that a person receives under certain conditions. So, the eldest son of an English lord after his death inherits this status. The kinship system has a whole set of acquired statuses. If innate statuses express consanguinity ("son", "daughter", "sister", "brother", "nephew", "uncle", "grandmother", "grandfather", "aunt", "cousin"), then non-blood relatives have an acquired status. So, having married, a person can get all his wife's relatives as relatives. “Mother-in-law”, “father-in-law”, “sister-in-law”, “brother-in-law” are acquired statuses.

Achieved status - socially acquired by a person through his own efforts, desire, luck. Thus, a person acquires the status of a manager through education and perseverance. The more democratic the society is, the more statuses are achieved in the society.

Different statuses have their own insignia (symbols). In particular, the uniform of the military distinguishes them from the mass of the civilian population; in addition, each military rank has its own differences: a private, major, general has different badges, shoulder straps, headgear.

status image, or image, is a set of ideas about how a person should behave in accordance with his status. In order to match the status image, a person must “not allow himself too much”, in other words, look the way others expect from him. For example, the president cannot sleep through a meeting with the leader of another country, university professors cannot sleep drunk in the stairwell, as this does not correspond to their status image. There are situations when a person undeservedly tries to be “on an equal footing” with a person who has a different status in terms of rank, which leads to the manifestation of familiarity (amikoshonstvo), i.e. unceremonious, cheeky attitude.

Differences between people, due to assigned status, are noticeable to one degree or another. Usually each person, as well as a group of people, tends to occupy a more advantageous social position. Under certain circumstances, a flower seller can become a vice-premier of the country, a millionaire. Others do not succeed, because the assigned status (sex, age, nationality) interferes.

At the same time, some social strata are trying to raise their status by uniting in movements (women's movements, organizations like the "union of entrepreneurs", etc.) and lobbying their interests everywhere. However, there are factors that hinder the attempts of individual groups to change their status. Among them are ethnic tensions, attempts by other groups to maintain the status quo, lack of strong leaders, and so on.

Thus, under social status in sociology is understood the position that a person (or social group) occupies in society. Since each person is a member of various, he is the owner of many statuses (i.e., the bearer of some status set). Each of the available statuses is associated with a set of rights that determine what the holder of the status can afford, and obligations that prescribe the implementation of specific actions. In general, status can be defined as the position of an individual in the social structure of society, associated with other positions through a system of rights, duties and responsibilities.

Instruction

Pay attention to clothes. As a rule, people with high social status om, they dress in rather expensive stores, but at the same time their image does not scream about their financial situation. Everything is quite concise, restrained, tasteful.

Look at the wrists: an important factor in helping to determine the social status man, is the presence of hours. And not just their presence, but their brand and price. The same rule applies here as in the previous paragraphs: the more expensive and authoritative, the higher the position of a person in.

Pay attention to the gestures of the person you are interested in. The more confident and concise they are, the more power accumulates in his hands.

It is also worth noting the manners. The rules must be strictly observed by people with high social status and often they are neglected by people belonging to the social strata of the lower levels.

Look at the man's car. However, if the object of interest to you drives an economy car, you should not immediately conclude about its social status e. Pay attention to the brand. BMW, Lexus and similar cars are often chosen by wealthy people.

You can pay attention to the wallet. If it is cheap, then with a high probability we can say that in front of you is a person with a low social status ohm. The opposite is evidenced by wallets with no compartment for small change.

Note the various accessories, such as a tie, cufflinks, etc. Pay attention to the pen that the person uses. Both and having a high social status, prefer metal and gold-plated handles to plastic handles.

The main types of social roles

Manifold social groups and relations in their groups, as well as activities became the basis for the classification of social statuses. Currently, there are types of social roles, such as: formal, interpersonal and socio-demographic. Formal social roles are related to the position that a person occupies in society. This refers to his occupation and profession. But interpersonal roles are directly related to various types relations. This category usually includes favorites, outcasts, leaders. As for socio-demographic roles, these are husband, son, sister, etc.

Characteristics of social roles

The American sociologist Talcott Parsons identified the main characteristics of social roles. These include: scale, method of obtaining, emotionality, motivation and formalization. As a rule, the scale of the role is determined by the range of interpersonal relationships. There is a directly proportional relationship here. For example, the social roles of husband and wife are very significant because a wide range of relationships are established between them.

If we talk about the method of obtaining a role, it depends on the inevitability of this role for the individual. Thus, the roles of a young man or an old man do not require any effort to acquire them. They are determined by the age of the person. And other social roles can be won during life when certain conditions are met.

Social roles can also differ in terms of emotionality. Each role has its own expression of emotions. Also, some roles involve the establishment of formal relationships between people, others - informal, and still others can combine those and other relationships.

Motivation depends on the needs and motives of a person. Different social roles may be due to certain motives. For example, when parents take care of their child, they are guided by a sense of care and love for him. The leader works for the benefit of some enterprise. It is also known that all social roles can be subject to public evaluation.

Social status is the position of a person in society, occupied by him in accordance with age, gender, origin, profession, marital status. This is a certain position in the social structure of a group or society, associated with other positions through a system of rights and obligations.

One person has many statuses, as he participates in many groups and organizations. He is a man, father, husband, son, teacher, professor, doctor of science, middle-aged man, member of the editorial board, Orthodox, etc.

The totality of all statuses occupied by one person is called a status set (this concept was introduced into science by the American sociologist Robert Merton).

The main status is called the most characteristic for this person the status with which he is identified (identified) by other people or with which he identifies himself.

A person looks at the world and treats other people in accordance with his status.

Social statuses are prescribed and acquired. The first category includes nationality, place of birth, social origin, etc., the second - profession, education, etc. Some statuses are prestigious, others are vice versa.

Prestige is an assessment by society of the social significance of a particular status. This hierarchy is formed under the influence of two factors:

the real usefulness of those social functions that a person performs;
value systems characteristic of a given society.
The social status of the individual, first of all, has an impact on her behavior.

The social role of the individual is a set of social functions learned and performed by a person and the patterns of behavior corresponding to them.

Each individual has the opportunity to choose from a variety of social statuses and roles those that allow him to better implement his plans, to use his abilities as efficiently as possible.

Personal status is the position of an individual in a social group, depending on how he is evaluated and perceived by members of this group (acquaintances, relatives) in accordance with his personal qualities. To be a leader or an outsider, the soul of a company or an expert, means to occupy a certain place in the system of interpersonal relations.

Social role - a model of behavior focused on this status. It can be defined differently - as a template type of behavior aimed at fulfilling the rights and obligations assigned to a specific status.

Social roles and social norms refer to social interaction;
Social statuses, rights and obligations, the functional relationship of statuses are related to social relations;
Social interaction describes the dynamics of society, social relations - its statics.

Introduction

2. The social status of the individual. Its structure

3. The influence of self-esteem on the social status of the individual

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The word "status" came into sociology from the Latin language. In ancient Rome, it denoted a state, a legal status legal entity. At the end of the nineteenth century. the British historian Main gave it sociological significance.

Status is a certain position in the social structure of a group or society, associated with other positions through a system of rights and obligations. The social status is general position individual or social group in society, associated with a certain set of rights and obligations.

Any person occupies several positions, as he participates in various groups and organizations. Thus, each person is characterized by a status set (the term was introduced by R. Merton). A status set is a set of all statuses occupied by a given individual.

Social status, providing certain rights and opportunities, and obliges a lot. With the help of statuses, relations between people are ordered and regulated. Social statuses are reflected both in external behavior and appearance - clothing, jargon, manners, and in the internal position of the individual - attitudes, value orientations, motives. Each status requires and gives people the opportunity to achieve the social expectations of people from their modification, if it does not create conditions for the realization of these expectations. In this sense, the well-known Polish sociologist F. Znaniecki (1882-1958) is right, who believed that the sociologist should take the human individual not only as he “really is” organically and psychologically, but as he is “made” by others and by himself in them and his own experience of social life.

From a sociological point of view, in the individual, his social position and function are primary. The organic and psychological characteristics of the individual, according to Znaniecki, are simply the material from which the social personality is formed in the process of education and self-education. The social status of the individual has an impact on her behavior. Knowing the social status of a person, one can easily determine most of the qualities that he possesses, as well as predict the actions that he will carry out. In the process of interaction with other individuals, each person performs certain social functions that determine his social status. However, despite the fact that the behavior of an individual is largely determined by the status that she occupies and the roles she plays in society, she (the individual) nevertheless retains her autonomy and a certain freedom of choice. And although in modern society there is a tendency towards the unification and standardization of the individual, fortunately, its complete leveling does not occur.

The individual has the opportunity to choose from a variety of social statuses and roles those that allow him to better implement his plans, to use his abilities as efficiently as possible. Any role prescription outlines only general scheme human behavior, while retaining the ability to choose the ways of its implementation.

In the multitude of statuses that a person has in the system of social ties, general (universal) statuses play a special role. The first is the status of a person, his rights and obligations. Another general status is the status of a member of a given society, a state (citizen). General statuses are the foundation of the status position of the individual. The rest of the statuses are special, that is, differentiating a particular society.

1. Status types. Their characteristics and differences

An important characteristic of each of the statuses is the range and freedom of other statuses. In any society, there is a certain hierarchy of statuses, which is the basis of its stratification. Certain statuses are prestigious, others are vice versa. Prestige is an assessment by society of the social significance of a particular status, enshrined in culture and public opinion.

This hierarchy is formed under the influence of two factors:

The real usefulness of those social functions that a person performs;

The system of values characteristic of a given society.
If the prestige of some statuses is unreasonably high or, conversely, underestimated, it is usually said that there is a loss of status balance. A society that tends to lose this balance cannot function normally.

There are statuses assigned (born) and achieved (acquired). A person receives the assigned status automatically - by ethnic origin, place of birth, family status - regardless of personal efforts (daughter, Buryat, Volzhanka, aristocrat). The achieved status - a writer, student, spouse, officer, laureate, director, deputy - is acquired by the efforts of the person himself with the help of various social groups - families, brigades, parties.

Assigned status does not coincide with innate. Only three social statuses are considered natural: sex, nationality, race. The Negro is a born status that characterizes the race. A man is an innate status that characterizes gender. Russian is an innate status that determines nationality. Race, gender and nationality are given biologically, a person inherits them against his will and consciousness.

Recently, scientists have begun to question whether birth status even exists if sex and skin color can be changed through surgery. The concepts of biological sex and socially acquired have appeared.

When parents are persons of different nationalities, it is difficult to determine what nationality the children should be. Often they themselves decide what to write in the passport.

Age is a biologically determined trait, but it is not an inborn status, since during a person’s life a person moves from one age to another, and people expect quite specific behavior from a specific age category: from the young, for example, they expect respect for the elders, from adults - care for children and old people.

The kinship system has a whole set of assigned statuses. Only some of them are natural. These include the statuses: “son”, “daughter”, “sister”, “nephew”, “grandmother” and some others expressing consanguinity. There are also non-blood relatives, the so-called legal relatives, who become as a result of marriage, adoption, etc.

Achieved status. Significantly different from the assigned status. If the assigned status is not under the control of the individual, then the status achieved is under control. Any status that is not automatically given to a person by the very fact of birth is considered to be achieved.

A person acquires the profession of a driver or engineer through his own efforts, training and free choice. He also acquires the status of world champion, doctor of science or rock star thanks to his own efforts, great work.

Achieved status requires acceptance independent solution and independent action. The status of a husband is achievable: in order to get it, a man makes a decision, makes a formal proposal to his bride, and performs a host of other actions.

Achievable status refers to the positions that people occupy due to their efforts or merit. “Postgraduate student” is the status that university graduates achieve by competing with others and showing outstanding academic achievement.

The more dynamic a society is, the more cells in its social structure are designed for achieved statuses. The more statuses achieved in a society, the more democratic it is.

Statuses can also be formalized or non-formalized, depending on whether one or another function is performed within the framework of formalized or non-formalized social institutions and, more broadly, social interactions (for example, the status of a plant director and leader of a company of close comrades).

Social status is the relative position of an individual or group in a social system. The concept of social status characterizes the place of the individual in the system of social relations, his activities in the main areas of life and the assessment of the individual's activities by society, expressed in certain quantitative and qualitative indicators (salary, bonuses, awards, titles, privileges), as well as self-esteem.

Social status in the meaning of the norm and the social ideal has great potential in solving the problems of socialization of the individual, since the orientation towards achieving a higher social status stimulates social activity.

If a person's own social status is misunderstood, then he is guided by other people's patterns of behavior. There are two extremes in a person's assessment of his social status. Low status self-esteem is associated with weak resistance to external influence. Such people are not self-confident, more often subject to pessimistic moods. High self-esteem is more often associated with activity, enterprise, self-confidence, life optimism. Based on this, it makes sense to introduce the concept of status self-assessment as an essential personality trait that cannot be reduced to individual functions and actions of a person.

Personal status - the position that a person occupies in a small (or primary) group, depending on how he is assessed by his individual qualities.

Social status plays a dominant role among strangers, and personal status among acquaintances. Acquaintances make up the primary, small group. Introducing ourselves to strangers, especially employees of any organization, institution, enterprise, we usually name the place of work, social status and age. For familiar people, these characteristics are not important, but our personal qualities, that is, informal authority.

Instructions