Status inconsistency and drinking patterns among working men and women.

Previous research suggests that status inconsistents constitute a social category that is vulnerable to embarrassments and disappointments, since individuals who are of high status on one dimension and low status on another tend to respond to themselves in terms of the higher status, while other people tend to respond to them in terms of the lower one. This article extends this research to patterns of alcohol consumption and finds that status and status inconsistency are significantly associated with frequency of consumption and quantity consumed per occasion among certain groups of drinkers.