What is the most significant indicator of social status?

Question

What is the most significant indicator of social status?

Answer 1

One obvious indicator is, oddly, good or poor teeth. Teeth can be fairly easily manipulated in early life, but your parents have to have excess disposable income to cover what is not an essential expense. True, I am equating social status with wealth, but this is hardly an invention of my own.

Answer 2

That question is kind of funny because you can have many different answer depending on who you ask. For me the way in which one behaves and speaks is a major indicator of ones social status. I say this because you may see someone in a nice  car, but it might not even be theirs, and the same goes for most of not all material possessions.

Answer 3

determination of social status is greatly driven by a certain society's belief and value system - or even their concept of power.

social status can be seen as layering and segmentation of societies based on particular variables like wealth, power, religion or social occupational grouping.

In india, with the introduction of the caste system, the Brahmins are the highest social class comprising mainly of priests and sages and highly educated members. it be-speaks of India as something bordering a theocratic form of government.

in the middle ages in Europe such a system also existed - you have the members of the nobility, clergy, and the peasants. it has something to do with the system of government then, which is mainly Lord-Vassal arrangements (fiefdoms or fiefs).

other countries have developed their intricate social caste systems also.

but I guess similar to Darwinian evolution - social status is a matter of what a society holds important. in this day and age, i think he who controls information and technology - can take us to the next stage of evolution (or at least determine our position in the society).

social classes tend to act as barometers helping individuals assess themselves against what the society feels is significant. in a way it is like survival of the fittest with the social barriers acting as natural selection agents.