A Look into Measuring Online and Real-world Social Status
, Abstract – Previous instruments into measuring social status have advanced the research into how our status
correlates with other aspects of the self, such as one’s personality and self-esteem. These scales, however, have
only been limited to measuring real-world social status. With the growing use of social media, it is theorized that
one could possibly have different levels of status online. In the present study, 104 participants answered a self-
report survey consisting of a new 16-item Social Status (SS) scale and six pre-established questionnaires which
examined different constructs related to status. Results indicated that out of 16 items, 14 items had captured the
two properties of social status with high reliability (coefficient α ranging from .79 to .85). The validity of our
scale was also supported, revealing that the items accurately measured status, personality traits could predict real-
world SS (e.g. extroversion), and that online SS is related with social media addiction.
, A Look into Measuring Online and Real-world Social Status
Social status, or the amount of respect, admiration, and importance we receive from others (Mahadevan et al.,
2016) is a complex construct to measure. From the many past instruments that have attempted to evaluate the several
constructs related to status, most only on our real-world social status. Yet in the modern age of social media, much
of the population are becoming less restricted to real-world settings to socialize. Online platforms such as Twitter,
Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook easily give an individual the opportunity to create online personalities and post
their opinions and interests. Given this, we could say that some people may have different social status online
compared to the real world. The purpose of this study is to develop a new scale that could capture both types of
social status, and present evidence of its factor structure, reliability, and validity.
In past research, real-world social status is often measured alongside inclusion like in the Status and Inclusion
scale by Mahadevan et al. (2016). This is a common practice in research into real-world social status, as they both
evaluate an individual’s social relations, i.e. how one interacts with others in their group such as among school peers
and co-workers. However, it is not to be confused with one another, as status is defined as how one is respected and
admired whereas inclusion is how one is liked and accepted. Regardless, they tend to co-occur, as successful people
who are often respected can also be liked by others. Mahadevan et al.'s (2016) scale has become a structurally
validated and established scale which summarizes the key measures that can evaluate these social relations. One of
the reasons for this is that it includes statements that evaluate status and inclusion through dimensions of respect
(see Huo et al., 2010). This is because respect has been previously found to be an indication of someone’s status,
the degree to how much they are liked in a group and how fairly they are treated by members of the group. Status
has been found to predict social engagement, meaning those with higher perceived status would believe that they
are regarded as worthy and valued members of the group. Thus, how an individual functions within a group and the
extent to which their peers respect them can indicate their status.
Our level of social status is likely to be influenced by factors such as profession, lifestyle, social class, and most
notably, one’s personality. It is through our daily social interactions that we most often showcase our personality,
regardless offline or online. The most widely and extensively used instrument to measure personality is the Big-
Five Personality Dimensions (Costa & McCrae, 1992). A study by Anderson et al., 2001 used this scale to
investigate whether any of the personality traits could predict social status, and they found that extraversion is a
significant predictor in elevating status for both males and females. Interestingly, these findings were replicated
when looking at an online context, as those who are highly extraverted use social media more frequently and thus
have more social engagement (Gosling et al., 2011).
With social media addiction becoming increasingly prevalent, especially amongst teenage to young female
adults (Andreassen et al., 2016), one’s online social engagement tends to increase. As such, it has been worried if
the constant online social comparison would negatively impact one’s self-esteem. Self-esteem is defined to be “a
positive or negative attitude toward [...] the self” and is measured using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
