We investigate the utility of two divergent conceptualizations of social stratification as they apply to symptoms of stress. One approach envisages socioeconomic status as some "average" of the values of a number of indicators of status, while the other emphasizes the effects of status incongruence. Those with incongruence of status did not differ significantly from status congruents in proportion with stress, nor was amount of status incongruence associated with stress. The "average-of-indicators" model of status as represented by a more or less unidimensional hierarchy had a better "fit" to the data than the multidimensional concept of stratification.