Ascribed high status lets the advantaged claim status without visible effort or symbols

Evidence

The freedom gained at high-status levels isn’t the only effect of the status hierarchy on our persona crafting: the inherent biases of ascribed status structures force discriminated individuals to more intensely craft their personas to achieve normal status. The status-advantaged gain high-status cues without conscious effort and can thus make successful status claims without acquiring status symbols or hiding shibboleths. The nonchalance, speech patterns, and bodily movements of Old Money are status symbols. The French poet Théophile Gautier wrote that the novelist Gustave Flaubert “was smarter than us… . He had the wit to come into the world with money.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs well with the homey/Bourdieu line of argument and with the reader’s interest in how hierarchies express themselves through small gestures and demeanor rather than explicit claims. — connects to: Expenditures that seem extravagant to outsiders are necessary basics within higher status tiers — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 156; High-status choices carry an alibi of being exemplary regardless of actual merit — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 171; Direct status claims are self-defeating because eager signaling signals low status — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 198 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Illegitimate claims to status provoke envy and social sanction #complicates (0.81) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 92
• Achieved status remains heavily dependent on ascribed group membership #expands (0.76) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3161
• Status symbols create a tradeoff between exclusivity and legibility to outsiders #qualifies (0.74) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 224