Gives an overview of sociological research on status inconsistency and disposition to political behavior. It is shown that there is no homogenous theory of status inconsitency (SI). In view of the considerable differences between authors it is only possible to speak of a "family of theories". Divergencies can be shown in the following areas: theoretical conceptualization; operational definition of SI; social psychological hypotheses about the emergence of frustration and stress; hypotheses about the conditions under which political reactions can be expected and about the direction of political reactions. The examination of 31 empirical SI studies in the field of political sociology leads to the result that the research nearly exclusively relies on secondary analyses and that convincing evidence of correlations between SI and leftist or right wing support of social change has not yet been established. It is suggested that SI research should focus on the following topics in the future: (1) problems of operationalization, especially development of subjective measures; (2) inclusion of antecedent and intervening variables in testing theories, (3) realization of studies with a lower degree of standardization of instruments, as well as case studies beside quantitative research; (4) analysis of the results' dependence on operationalization of SI, choice of strategies of data analysis and sample composition.