High-status Others Research Articles

The Company She Seeks: How the Prismatic Effects of Ties to High-Status Network Contacts Can Reduce Status for Women in Groups

Women experience chronically inferior returns in organizations. One common recommendation is to form instrumental network ties with high-status others in groups. We integrate research on social status, social perceptions, and gender issues in social networks to suggest that, despite the theoretical and empirical appeal of this approach, instrumental ties to high-status network contacts (versus ties to lower-status network contacts) in groups may incur hidden social status costs for women in intragroup status-conferral processes. Instrumental ties to high-status network contacts may be perceived as a sign of agency of the focal person, which violates feminine gender norms. Women with these high-status network contacts in groups may therefore be perceived as less communal, thus subsequently lowering their status in the eyes of other group members compared with women with lower-status network contacts. Studies 1–4, across cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental designs, support our model. Study 5 suggests that signaling a group-oriented goal may mitigate the interpersonal, social perceptual costs of instrumental ties to high-status network contacts for women. The effect of ties with high-status network contacts for men is relatively inconsistent. This research reveals a potential social-network dilemma for women: Instrumental ties to high-status network contacts in groups and organizations are necessary for success and should be encouraged, yet they may also create an extra social perceptual hurdle for women. Organizations need to investigate social and structural solutions that harness the benefits of high-status network contacts for women, while minimizing any potential social perceptual costs. Funding: Financial support from the Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University, is gratefully acknowledged. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.14640 .

Network Ties, Upward Status Heterophily, and Unanticipated Health Consequences.

Using cross-national data containing information on the status rank of network alters, this study investigates the potential negative effects of "upward status heterophily," ties to and perceived interaction with higher status others. According to our main finding, upward status heterophily is associated with poor physical health and lower subjective well-being. We also find that this focal relationship varies across individual and contextual moderators. For subjective well-being only, it is weaker among people who are better educated, have larger nonkin network, and possess greater self-efficacy. Moreover, there is a significant cross-level interaction: For both health outcomes, the relationship is more pronounced in subnational regions that are economically more unequal. Our findings shed light on the mechanisms of the "dark side of social capital" by operationalizing perceived status differential as a proxy for upward social comparison and showing its deleterious consequences in the East Asian context.

Knowing where others stand: Accuracy and performance effects of individuals' perceived status hierarchies.

Status hierarchies are perhaps the single most important form of social structure within groups, ubiquitous and affecting groups' information flow, decision-making, and performance as well as the behavior and outcomes of individual members. The extent to which individuals are able to accurately perceive and navigate their groups' status hierarchies may thus be a critical determinant of their success. Research to date, however, has not yet fully examined the role of individuals' perceptions of status hierarchies. We introduce the concept of perceived status hierarchies, or individuals' mental representations of their groups' status hierarchies. Across four field studies, involving students in university cohorts and working adults, we find substantial variance in individuals' perceived status hierarchies, and that individuals with more accurate status perceptions exhibit higher performance. Analyses of individuals' networking behavior reveals that individuals with more accurate perceived status hierarchies seek out contact with higher status others on average, which mediates the positive association between accuracy and performance. This work makes important contributions by extending existing theories of status, connecting the literatures on status and social networks, and providing a thorough investigation into the consequences of accurate perceptions of social structure for individuals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Infants Choose Those Who Defer in Conflicts

For humans and other social species, social status matters: it determines who wins access to contested resources, territory, and mates [1-11]. Human infants are sensitive to dominance status cues [12, 13]. They expect conflicts to be won by larger individuals [14], those with more allies [15], and those with a history of winning [16-18]. But being sensitive to status cues is not enough; individuals must also use status information when deciding whom to approach and whom to avoid [19]. In many non-human species, low-status individuals avoid high-status individuals and in so doing avoid the threat of aggression [20-23]. In these species, high-status individuals commit random acts of aggression toward subordinates [23] and even commit infanticide [24-26]. However, for less reactively aggressive species [27, 28], high-status individuals may be good coalition partners. This is especially true for humans, where high-status individuals can provide guidance, protection, and knowledge to subordinates [2, 29, 30]. Indeed, human adults [31-33], human toddlers [34], and adult bonobos [35] prefer high-status individuals to low-status ones. Here, we present 6 experiments testing whether 10- to 16-month-old human infants choose high- or low-status individuals-specifically, winners or yielders in zero-sum conflicts-and find that infants choose puppets who yield. Intriguingly, toddlers just 6months older choose the winners of such conflicts [34]. This suggests that, although humans start out like many other species, avoiding high-status others, we shift in toddlerhood to approaching high-status individuals, consistent with the idea that, for humans, high-status individuals can provide benefits to low-status ones.

A Status-Seeking Account of Psychological Entitlement.

We propose that people high in entitlement are characterized by motivation to attain status. Five studies (total N = 2,372) support that entitlement promotes motivation to seek status. This motivation, in turn, relates to affective processes when facing upward comparisons and contributes to status attainment. Specifically, entitlement fostered prestige and dominance motivation. These, in turn, predicted greater benign and malicious envy, respectively, when encountering high-status others. The indirect effects occurred when entitlement was measured (Studies 1A and 1B) and manipulated (Studies 2A and 2B). Finally, entitlement related to status attainment, yet not always in line with more entitled people’s motivation. Although they ascribed themselves both more prestige and dominance, others ascribed them only more dominance, yet less prestige (Studies 3A, 3B, and 3C). These findings suggest that a status-seeking account offers important insights into the complexities of entitled behavior and its social consequences.

The Downside of High Status: Relating Status Level and Coworker Status to Stress in the Workplace

Informal status is an important aspect of organizational life. The many advantages of having higher status relative to one’s coworkers are well documented. This study extends research on status to hypothesize and show a downside of high status: stress. The study observed naturally occurring status hierarchies within a telecommunications organization in the Western U.S. and found that higher levels of status were positively related to higher levels of stress, after controlling for friendship levels, education, formal job level, tenure, job satisfaction, and perceptions of the organization’s culture. This effect was moderated by status distance, a dispersion measure drawn from the literature on relational demography, that shows how close in status a given individual is to the other individuals on his or her team. Specifically, high-status participants experienced more stress when on teams comprised of high-status others, as compared to low-status others. Implications for both practice and theory are discussed.

Social Comparison Theory and Interpersonal Contact : The Influence of Incidental Envy on Contacting Higher or Lower Status Others

Incidental envy influences behavior in various domains. However, no research, to date, has investigated whether incidental envy influences interpersonal behavior toward others who are unrelated to the emergence of the emotion. That is, the literature is silent on how those who experience incidental envy engage in interpersonal contact and how this may affect consumers. In this paper, we address this question by investigating the influence of incidental envy on interpersonal contact with others of higher or lower status based on the social comparison theory. We demonstrate that incidental envy (versus a neutral emotion) motivates people to contact higher status others to facilitate upward assimilation (experiments 1 and 2). We also show that when competition (a situational factor that heightens the personal relevance of the interaction with the target) is involved, individuals who feel envy (versus a neutral emotion) are more likely to contact lower status others to engage in downward contrast (experiment 3). We conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of our findings.

Is Deference the Price of Being Seen as Reasonable? How Status Hierarchies Incentivize Acceptance of Low Status

High-status members are incentivized to contribute to a group’s collective endeavors by the deference and influence they receive. But what incentives do groups offer low-status members for their continued participation and deference to high-status others? We develop and test a theoretical account of how the implicit cultural rules for status hierarchies create a modest incentive system for deference to those deemed more valuable to the collective effort. Such deference endorses the group’s shared expectations for what is perceived to be validly better. The group responds by granting the deferrer a modicum of respect: the dignity of being seen as reasonable. This respect reaction acts as an incentive system that tempts the low-status person to stay involved in the group’s endeavor despite being less valued. Three experiments confirm that low-status members anticipate receiving and higher-status members offer such reactions of respect and reasonableness for low-status deference, and these reactions increase low-status members’ commitment to the group. A fourth study with a nationally representative sample supports the robustness of these findings.

Visual attention to powerful postures: People avert their gaze from nonverbal dominance displays

This paper investigates whether humans avert their gaze from individuals engaging in nonverbal displays of dominance. Although past studies demonstrate that both humans and nonhuman primates direct more visual attention to high-status others than low-status others, non-human primates avert their gaze when high-status conspecifics engage in nonverbal dominance displays (e.g., chest pounding). In two experiments, participants were eye-tracked while viewing photographs of men and women adopting either dominant, high-power (i.e., expansive and open) or submissive, low-power (i.e., contractive and closed) nonverbal postures. Results demonstrated that humans, like primates, avert their gaze from the faces and upper bodies of individuals displaying dominance compared to those displaying submissiveness. Not only did participants look less often at the faces and upper bodies of dominance-displaying individuals, they also fixated on these regions for shorter durations. Our findings ultimately suggest that nonverbal dominance displays influence humans' visual attention in ways that are likely to shape how social interactions unfold.

Promote up, ingratiate down: Status comparisons drive warmth-competence tradeoffs in impression management

We hypothesized participants would adopt diverging impression management strategies when interacting with lower- versus higher-status others, to disconfirm status-based stereotypes of their own respective coldness or incompetence. In Study 1, downward comparers downplayed their own competence to appear warmer, and upward comparers downplayed their own warmth to appear more competent. In status comparisons with counter-stereotypical targets, Studies 2a and 2b showed impression management strategies no longer diverge, but effects do not reverse, suggesting a combination of stereotype-disconfirming and target trait-matching goals. Study 3 replicates diverging strategies in downward and upward status comparisons and suggests diverging reasons for these strategies: Downward comparers perceive reason to disconfirm status-based stereotypes, while upward comparers perceive reason to match their comparison target. Together, these studies show mere status differences shift individuals' interaction goals in conveying two central dimensions of impression formation, warmth and competence.

The Independent and Combined Effects of External Endorsements on Equity Investments: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

This study employs a randomized field experiment to causally identify which signals of external endorsement are most important to equity investors in early stage firms. The three external endorsements examined are: product certification by expert intermediaries; affiliation with prominent others; and social proof, that is, others’ interest in investing in a particular venture. The study, in the context of equity crowdfunding, randomly assigns who is able to view these endorsements and their combinations to make causal inferences about their impact. I find that experienced investors who were able to view the combined product certification and prominent affiliate signals have a 72% higher likelihood of indicating an interest in investing, than those who received no signal. Similarly, experienced investors who were able to view the combined product certification and social proof signals have a 65% higher likelihood of indicating an interest in investing. This suggests that experienced investors follow others (the crowd or high status others) when they have a concrete signal of quality. In contrast, for inexperienced investors, I find that the three endorsements and their combinations are not significantly associated with interest in investing, suggesting a lack of agreement in this group about what factors identify a high potential venture.

The Contingent Effects of High-status Affiliations on Low-status Partners

We examine how low-status actors are influenced by being affiliated with high-status actors. Grounded in the social status literature and the signaling theory, we propose a contingent view on the effects of being affiliated with high-status others. Specifically, we argue that the benefits of partnering up with high-status others depend on the quality of the low- status actors themselves: low-status but better quality actors can better reap the benefits than low-status, low-quality ones. The analysis of a set of longitudinal data on U.S. NBA players from the 1999/2000 to 2009/2010 seasons renders strong support to our theoretical predictions. In particular, we found that teaming up with a greater number of star players helped the low-status but better quality players get selected into the prestigious All-Star Game and attract more media attention, but it prevented the low-status, low-quality players from getting access to the same resources.

The Relational Benefit of Status Dissimilarity

While previous relational demography research addressed the benefits of working with similar, high-status, and low-status others based on the notion of the collective self, we argue that working wi...

When the Wolf Wears Sheep’s Clothing

Current research into the elicitors of nonconscious behavioral mimicry focuses almost exclusively on prosocial motives. Alternatively, the present research investigates whether the self-centered desire to be liked by others also induces mimicry. We investigate this issue by measuring the mimicry behavior of narcissists—a “dark personality” that is uniquely characterized by a desire to be liked by rather than by genuine liking for people. Narcissists are particularly motivated to form social alliances with high-status others. Hence, it was hypothesized that narcissistic participants would show more mimicry of higher status others (compared to lower status others). Support for this hypothesis was provided by a mixed within- and between-subjects field experiment in which the mimicry behavior of participants identified as being above or below average in subclinical narcissism was observed in a scripted interaction with a higher and lower status other.

I’m With Them: The Effect of Sending Mixed Signals to the Market (WITHDRAWN)

When an actor of uncertain quality enters into a market, that actor’s affiliations with other actors of known status and quality are used as signals by the market to help clarify this uncertainty. Previous literature in economics, management, and sociology has made this point clear and has shown that when these uncertain actors affiliate themselves with high-status others these actors are sending a positive signal to the market and are more likely to reap beneficial returns. However, less is known about how the market reacts to these uncertain actors when they send inconsistent or mixed signals through their affiliations. This research studies mixed signals through within-network affiliations, when high-status actors are present in the affiliation network but do not occupy the highest position within the network’s role hierarchy. Using initial public offerings (IPOs or offerings) data from January 1997 to December 2011 this analysis furthers the status literature finding that the market penalizes firms, in both the short- and long-term, for sending within-network mixed signals. Further, this paper finds that uncertain actors in this setting are better off, in terms of stock performance, sending a consistent low-status signal to the market than a mixed signal.

Intérêt de l’injection sous échographie de toxine botulinique A dans la prise en charge du syndrome piriforme

This paper investigates whether humans avert their gaze from individuals engaging in nonverbal displays of dominance. Although past studies demonstrate that both humans and nonhuman primates direct more visual attention to high-status others than low-status others, non-human primates avert their gaze when high-status conspecifics engage in nonverbal dominance displays (e.g., chest pounding). In two experiments, participants were eye-tracked while viewing photographs of men and women adopting either dominant, high-power (i.e., expansive and open) or submissive, low-power (i.e., contractive and closed) nonverbal postures. Results demonstrated that humans, like primates, avert their gaze from the faces and upper bodies of individuals displaying dominance compared to those displaying submissiveness. Not only did participants look less often at the faces and upper bodies of dominance-displaying individuals, they also fixated on these regions for shorter durations. Our findings ultimately suggest that nonverbal dominance displays influence humans' visual attention in ways that are likely to shape how social interactions unfold.

Biases in Perceiving One’s Own Social Position and Social Ties as Evolved Psychological Mechanisms

Negotiating dominance hierarchies and developing cooperative relationships are major adaptive problems in many lines of animal evolution, and especially primates. Therefore, people should have evolved psychological mechanisms that address particular challenges involved with the complex social interactions in human society. Evolutionary psychologists have previously identified the potential adaptive value of self-enhancement biases in perceiving one’s own behaviors, cognitions, and characteristics. In this paper, I extend the evolutionary analysis of biases in social cognition to the perception of social structure and one’s position in it. In a review of research conducted in natural social settings, I find evidence of three such biases: over-estimation of own dominance rank, over-reporting own social interaction with higher status others, and over-estimation of own centrality in social networks. For each bias, several studies suggest a moderate strength illusion. I offer evolutionary accounts of the adaptive functions of these biases. Most interpretations concern the potential that these illusions stimulate individuals to behave in ways that lead to higher status and cultivation of beneficial social ties. More extensive cross-cultural research is needed to assess the universality of these biases and hypotheses they imply.

Threatened Selves and Differential Prejudice Expression by White and Black Perceivers.

Previous theorizing suggests that often-stigmatized individuals may be just as likely, if not more likely, than infrequently stigmatized individuals to protect self-regard by derogating members of low-status groups after receiving negative feedback from high-status others. Often-stigmatized individuals, however, can discount criticism from these high-status others as reflecting prejudice, thereby making outgroup derogation unnecessary as an esteem-protective strategy. Replicating past research, White participants in Experiment 1 expressed prejudices after receiving negative feedback from a White evaluator; as predicted, however, Black participants did not. In Experiment 2, participants instead received negative feedback from Black evaluators (evaluators more likely to threaten Black participants' self-regard). Here, contrary to previous theorizing, Black participants expressed prejudices, not toward another low-status group, but toward high-status Whites. In all, findings reveal flaws in previous assumptions that frequently stigmatized individuals may be especially prone to devalue lower-status others after rejection or negative feedback from members of higher-status groups.

Networks, Information Transfer, and Status Conferral: The Role of Social Capital in Income Stratification among Lawyers

The focus of this article is to examine how and to what extent social networks serve to alleviate information problems on both demand and supply sides of the market, and how this mechanism contributes to income inequality among legal service providers. The empirical context of this study is a random sample of urban lawyers in Chicago. The findings indicate that a lawyer benefits not only from having access to social capital that provides timely and novel information related to solving work-related tasks, but also from the endorsement by high-status network partners. In addition, empirical analyses reveal that the returns on ties to high-status others, net of control, and other social capital variables vary according to the level of client uncertainty in the market.

Compared to whom? The impact of status on third person effects in advertising persuasion in a South African context

Abstract In an experiment conducted in South Africa, we show that perceptual differences between the self and other that underlie third person effects have not only magnitude (e.g., third person effects increase as perceived self‐other differences increase), but also valence. Specifically, individuals contrast themselves against lower status others, resulting in greater third person effects, but compare themselves favorably with higher status others, resulting in smaller third person effects. High status others serve as a norm against which people gauge their own and others' responsiveness to persuasion attempts like advertising. Implications for third person effects, status and the construal of the ‘other,’ and the socio‐cultural context of advertising are discussed. Additionally, we describe managerial considerations regarding branding and target marketing that diverge from Western assumptions about persuasion knowledge and receptivity toward advertising. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.