Status shift

A status shift requires a conversion experience, acquiring a new and overwhelming primary identity, such as becoming a "born again" Christian. Some statuses are mutually exclusive, like black and white, or male and female. Other statuses aren’t mutually exclusive, but contextual; people can be both black and Hispanic, or both a mother and a senator. One of the identities is used in certain settings while the other is used in different settings.

Stephen Colbert used the phrase in a taped interview with Harvard students in December 2006, briefly elaborating that all jokes contain status shifts [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5550134133036374310] . Stephen Colbert is a satirical television pundit who plays the character of a conservative, whose views likely contradict the actor's.

This is called situational negotiation of social identity; when ethnic identity is flexible and situational, it can become an achieved status. Shifting ethnic affiliations is when an ethnic group may move through levels of culture as they negotiate their identities. Ascribed status is associated with a position in the social–political hierarchy in many societies. Minority groups with inferior power and less secure access to resources are subordinate to majority groups. Ethnic groups help create races; in turn, discrimination against such a group is called racism.