Status Inconsistency and Gender

Abstract

This study addresses the debate regarding the way in which status-ability inconsistency is resolved in task-oriented groups. Most recent research supports the combining principle, according to which actors aggregate performance expectations based on all relevant status and ability information. The research reported here represents an attempt to test the validity of the combining principle in a more interactive context than is the case in the standard experimental design used by expectation states theory. The authors conducted an experimental investigation of the joint effects of differences in gender (male vs. female) and specific task ability (high vs. low) on influence and also examined changes in social influence patterns over time. Overall, although the combining mechanism does not predict the exact ranking of influence among the different conditions, it is supported in that subjects incorporated expectations based on both their ability and gender in making their decisions.