Thank you for identifying this collective lack of understanding. Before reading this I hadn't even realised that I didn't know what "status" really was.

I actually find the "social stratification" more compelling than the last two sections. I'm not sure that "self-esteem" is any more substantive than "status". In the case of the mountain climber and the teachers, "self-esteem" is recognised by others, so it's just not just something that one identifies in themself, it's also identified between people and (perhaps) within groups, in which case it becomes "esteem" rather than "self-esteem", which I think is synonymous and no more substantive than "status".

The question is:

• Why do students react to teachers according to their posture etc?
• Why do people react differently to mountain climbers who summitted versus those who have not?

I suspect the answers will involve

• coalition economics (it's inadvisable to oppose someone who already has a large body of supporters),
• evolutionary xenophobia (it's adaptive to trust those within my tribe over outsiders since they are more likely to share my values and traditions), and
• wealth (I try to gain favour of those with wealth in the hope that they will bestow some on me)

I think these are the type of factors you were talking about under "social stratification" (no exact correspondence).

Also, I seem to remember that Steven Pinker's "How the mind works" might have some relevant information on this topic. I'll pull it out and see what I can find :)