One unresolved question is whether people who are judged by sociologists to be status inconsistent actually feel they are somehow under-rewarded or over-rewarded.
Most attention has been given to inconsistency between material status and prestige or respect, arising from education, occupation, or ethnicity.
Geschwender (1967), among others, suggests that the balance of investments (e.g. education) versus rewards (e.g. income) is at the heart of any actual effects of apparent status inconsistency.
Max Weber articulated three major dimensions of stratification in his discussion of class, power, and status.
In the 1950s and 1960s, American Jews provided a strong anecdotal example: Politically liberal, better educated and more affluent than average, they were still subjected to discrimination in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.