Advancing up status tiers requires adopting each tier’s more expensive lifestyle conventions

Evidence

As we move up the status hierarchy, we must adopt conventions with higher status value. This mostly involves buying more expensive goods. The rich can spend more, and the expensive items they buy become standard within their status tier. “One does not move up in a one-class suburb,” writes the cultural historian Russell Lynes about the standards of homeownership. “One moves out—to another suburb where the houses and the lawns are bigger, the trees older and taller, and the atmosphere is one of permanence not transience.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 157

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Lifestyle differences between status tiers are structurally inevitable — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 146; Expenditures that seem extravagant to outsiders are necessary basics within higher status tiers — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 156; Everyday conventions carry status value that yields social rewards or penalties — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 153 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Everyday conventions carry status value that yields social rewards or penalties #expands (0.82) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 153
• Status signals require costly barriers that elites can pay with ease #qualifies (0.80) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 213
• Groups imposing costlier requirements attract more committed members #expands (0.78) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 346
• Status symbols derive prestige from money, time, and exclusive access costs. #corroborates (0.76) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 215
• Flattening the gap between standard and premium reduces status hierarchies #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 819
• Elite recruiters favor financially costly extracurriculars over traditional qualifications #exemplifies (0.74)
• Households are pushed into financial markets that promise lifestyle advancement. #exemplifies (0.72) — Neil Fligstein & Adam Goldstein, The Emergence of a Finance Culture in…, 34
• Low distinctiveness need yields a two-tier status structure, not many tiers #qualifies (0.72)