Achieved status is a concept developed by the anthropologist Ralph Linton for a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit and is earned or chosen through one's own effort.
Examples of achieved status include being an Olympic medalist, college graduate, technical professional, tenured professor, or tournament winner.
Status is important sociologically because it comes with achieved rights, obligations, behaviors, and duties that people occupying a certain position are expected or encouraged to perform.
For instance, the role of a professor includes teaching students, answering questions, and being impartial and appropriate.
Parents provide children with cultural capital, the attitudes and knowledge that make the educational system a comfortable familiar place in which they can succeed easily.
According to the sociologist Rodney Stark, few Americans believe that coming from a wealthy family or having political connections is necessary to get ahead.
People with a lower income will generally be a better example of moving up in the social stratification and achieving status.
That holds to be evident in most cases because those who accrue a lower income may either have the motivation to achieve a greater status, or face financial pressure, and attempt to follow their own ambitions and hard work.
The peasants were not necessarily slaves but placed in their social class and required to work because they were bound to the land on which they lived and that they farmed.
[clarification needed] That sort of social interaction is based mainly on the people's strong belief of tradition and to uphold the actions of the past.
Traditional society in South Asia and other parts of the world such as Egypt, India, Bali, Tibet, and Japan were composed of castes.