Thomas Hobbes is recognized as the first to clearly formulate the problem, to answer which he conceived the notion of a social contract.
For Parsons, it is a set of social institutions regulating the pattern of action-orientation, which again are based on a frame of cultural values.
"Status groups" can be based on a person's characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, caste, region, occupation, physical attractiveness, gender, education, age, etc.
Social values are our desires modified according to ethical principles or according to the group, we associate with: friends, family, or co-workers.
These stable expectations do not necessarily lead to individuals behaving in ways that are considered beneficial to group welfare.
In his researching, he found that "when all individuals pursue their own preferences, the outcome is segregation rather than integration," as stated in "Theories of Social Order", edited by Michael Hechter and Christine Horne.
It is considered the distribution of prestige or "the approval, respect, admiration, or deference a person or group is able to command by virtue of his or its imputed qualities or performances".
The case most often is that people associate social honor with the place a person occupies with material systems of wealth and power.
Status can be achieved, which is when a person position is gained on the basis of merit or in other words by achievement and hard work or it can be ascribed, which is when a person position is assigned to individuals or groups without regard for merit but because of certain traits beyond their control, such as race, sex, or parental social standing.
An example of achieved status is Oprah Winfrey, an African American woman from poverty who worked her way to being a billionaire.
The first theory is "order results from a large number of independent decisions to transfer individual rights and liberties to a coercive state in return for its guarantee of security for persons and their property, as well as its establishment of mechanisms to resolve disputes," as stated in Theories of Social Order by Hechter and Horne.
The next theory is that "the ultimate source of social order as residing not in external controls but in a concordance of specific values and norms that individuals somehow have managed to internalize."