The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences (original) (raw)

Social status is a cumulative characteristic of a person, reflecting a certain set of features by which a person is evaluated in order to determine his position in the society or subculture. The identification of the place of the social status in the structure of a stranger's image, as well as the analysis of significant elements for this phenomenon can allow to establish the components of the world's picture, which reveals a number of its features both at the individual level and at the level of social processes. In the present study (n=101) the correlations between estimates of the perceived social status and socioeconomic status in society were revealed, including the structure of the components of a stranger's image associated with the attributed social status. People were found to be able to determine the social status of an unfamiliar individual with high accuracy, and connections were found between estimated social status and a number of attributed personal traits. A stranger's image is determined by a number of personal traits (commitment, confidence, wastefulness and others), which are associated with the person's social status. In further studies, it is necessary to establish what is primary-the assessment of objective indicators and personal traits, and after this process the social status's attribution occurs, or giving personal characteristics occurs after determining the social status based on the analysis of the specific manifestations (income, profession, education, etc.).