ABSTRACT

Personal status differs from social status, and the difference coincides with the distinction made by the Chinese between some ways of saving “face". Personal status consists of the network of relationships that exist between a particular individual and the various people with whom he is in sustained contact. Informal sanctions are effective because each man's personal identity and responsibility are clearly fixed and because failure to live up to the codes can result in a reduction of personal status. Informal codes are as effective as they are because most men act to preserve or enhance their personal status in the primary groups in which they participate. The preservation of personal status, then, consists of acting in ways that are insuring the perpetuation of network of relationships. Culture is the product of communication, and the ease with which members of primary groups communicate with one another in contrast to their reticence before strangers leads to the development of a special culture.