Some Questionable Assumptions in the Theory of Status Inconsistency

Objective and Subjective Status Inconsistency: a Search for Empirical Correspondence

“…Box and Ford (1969) and Doreian and Stockman (1969) reach much the same conclusions with respect to status inconsistency. They argue, essentially, that there is no necessary connection between objective inconsistencies and the phenomenology of status and that, further, only when an account of the latter shows it to be based in the former can we sociologically subscribe to a theory of objective status inconsistency.…”

“…The wave of empirical studies on the effects of objectively defined inconsistencies between status positions of individuals has now gone some twenty years and has survived various seemingly fatal attacks. The attacks have been of three types: primarily empirical (Jackson and Curtis, 1972;Kelly and Chambliss, 1966;Kenkel, 1956;Olsen and Tully, 1972;Segal et al, 1970), primarily methodological (Blalock, 1966;Hodge, 1970;Hyman, 1966;Mitchell, 1964), and primarily conceptual (Box and Ford, 1969;Doreian and Stockman, 1969;Hartman, 1974;Knoke, 1972;Meyer and Hammond, 1971). Empirical attacks have focused upon the failure of research to find evidence of hypothesized effects of objective inconsistencies.…”