A Study of Status Flexibility

This study drew a systematic random sample of households listed in the Indianapolis and Suburban City Directories for 1965. Interviews were conducted with 759 respondents. Survey questions addressed a range of attitudes, including attitudes toward conventional and unconventional behavior, voting and political attitudes and positions, attitudes toward social change, and attitudes toward blacks and the civil rights movement. Other items focused on employment, including job satisfaction, fairness on the job, and the respondent’s first job. Additional questions assessed conversation partner preferences, expectations of children, neighborhood preferences, leisure activities, voluntary association membership, and family background and demographics.

The Indianapolis survey was part of a broader, comparative study of six communities, selected from two contrasting regions of the United States, that investigated the possibility that rank stratification varies between communities within the same society.