From the new paper “Genres, Objects, and the Contemporary Expression of Higher-Status Tastes”:
Individuals are deemed to be higher status when they have the following characteristics: a high level of childhood exposure to the arts, a graduate degree, one standard deviation above the mean for broad-based weak social ties, and one standard deviation above the mean for narrow strong social ties to higher-status positions. Middle-status individuals have some childhood exposure to the arts, some college (but no degree), and the mean on remaining status variables. Lower-status individuals have no childhood exposure to the arts, a high school degree only, and one standard deviation below the mean on the remaining status indicators. The figure clearly illustrates that lower-status individuals tend to have tastes for fewer genres as well as less-consecrated objects within those genres. Middle-status individuals are placed almost precisely at the origin in this space. Note that no mechanical relation exists between the individual status measures and the dependent variables. Thus, these results strongly support the overall view of a homology in social space and tastes: middle-status individuals are average with respect to their inclusivity toward genres and exclusivity toward objects. In stark contrast, higher-status individuals are at once considerably more inclusive with respect to genres and more exclusive with respect to objects.
* Lower-status individuals have tastes concentrated in fewer genres, and they like relatively fewer objects within those genres. Lowerstatus individuals are also clearly more exclusive in their tastes for genres than their tastes for objects, which tend to lean considerably toward the unconsecrated. Middle-status individuals show few differences with respect to their configuration
of tastes across genres and objects, although they also tend to lean somewhat more toward less-consecrated objects. Once again, in stark contrast, higher-status individuals have a distinct taste configuration. Higher-status individuals have much more broadly inclusive tastes, especially for genres, and relatively fewer exclusive tastes for genres than for the objects within those genres.
