High-status Actors Research Articles

Trickle-Round Signals: When Low Status Is Mixed with High

AbstractTrickle-down theories suggest that status symbols and fashion trends originate from the elites and move downward, but some high-end restaurants serve lowbrow food (e.g., potato chips, macaroni and cheese), and some high-status individuals wear downscale clothing (e.g., ripped jeans, duct-taped shoes). Why would high-status actors adopt items traditionally associated with low-status groups? Using a signaling perspective to explain this phenomenon, the authors suggest that elites sometimes adopt items associated with low-status groups as a costly signal to distinguish themselves from middle-status individuals. As a result, signals sometimes trickle round, moving directly from the lower to the upper class, before diffusing to the middle class. Furthermore, consistent with a signaling perspective, the presence of multiple signaling dimensions facilitates this effect, enabling the highs to mix and match high and low signals and differentiate themselves. These findings deepen the understanding of signaling dynamics, support a trickle-round theory of fashion, and shed light on alternative status symbols.

Prismatic effects of negative ties

Research on negative ties has focused primarily on the harm they do. In this paper, we show that negative ties can also have beneficial effects. We argue that, like positive ties, negative ties can link actors together in the minds of observers. As a result, we theorize that negative ties with high-status actors can benefit a focal actor, whereas negative ties with low-status actors can harm the focal actor. This prismatic effect depends on the existing status of the focal actor: a focal actor of low status is likely to benefit far more from negative ties with high-status actors and suffer more from negative ties with low-status actors than will an actor of high-status. To test our ideas, we analyze the phenomenon of "diss songs" in hip-hop music. A diss song is a song in which a rapper makes derogatory comments about another rapper, constituting a negative tie. We analyze the effects of negative ties among 53 rappers over 20 points in time on audience reaction as measured by record sales. We find that negative ties with high-status actors enhance future sales for low-status actors. However, negative ties with lower-status actors have no effect on the future sales of both low- and high-status actors. Just as some researchers have reported both positive and negative consequences of social capital, our study demonstrates that negative ties can also have both positive and negative outcomes.

Counteracting Status Homophily (Heterophily): Microlevel Mechanisms in an Online Peer-to-Peer Market

The tendency to transact with similar or higher status actors is well documented. While previous work emphasized resource and coordination needs that counteract this tendency, this article looks at how actors may counteract it due to their performance rating considerations. Anxieties over performance rating may drive actors’ rating shopping behaviors and their strategies of exchange partner selection. I test this rating shopping mechanism in the context of a peer-to-peer marketplace where ratings are cornerstones of these marketplaces. The analysis of a proprietary dataset of a home swap platform shows that among higher-status prospective counterplayers, the focal actor will choose status-homophilous ones as exchange partners (“status homophily”) for the fear that they themselves will be devaluated by even-higher-status counterplayers; in contrast, among lower-status prospective counterplayers, the focal actor will choose status-heterophilous ones as exchange partners (“status heterophily”) for the speculation that even-lower-status actors can be easily impressed and thus provide desired positive ratings. Furthermore, when the focal actor experiences a decrease in ratings, to garner desired ratings, the tendency to exchange with lower-status counterplayers is even stronger. This study contributes to theories of status homophily (heterophily) and advances the literature on rating and commensuration.

Status and Egocentric Uncertainty: Theoretical Development and Empirical Evidence from Two Settings

This study revisits the fundamental proposition that high-status actors will sort away from markets that are high in egocentric uncertainty because egocentric uncertainty undercuts the value of sta...

The Consequences of Status and Stardom: An Integration of Perspectives on the Role of Audiences

This presenter symposium brings together different perspectives on the roles of audiences in determining the consequences of status and stardom. Taking both theoretical and empirical approaches, these presentations address: the rejection of high status actors by lower status groups because of concerns based on power asymmetry, the effects of status shocks on subsequent visibility, the relationships between power and status on group performance, the capture of value from stars over time, and the potential punishment of high status actors who become stars. Using both micro and macro perspectives, this symposium highlights how audiences grant status and thereby control the benefits of status or benefit from the status of others. Out of My League: Why (and when) low-status audiences reject high- status offerings Presenter: Oliver Hahl; Carnegie Mellon U. - Tepper School of Business Status Shocks: How and when the rise and fall of editors affects citations Presenter: Jennifer Carson Marr; U. of Maryland Presenter: Alexander Oettl; Georgia Institute of Technology Presenter: Sudheer Chava; Georgia Institute of Technology When Does Hierarchy Win? Divergent effects of power and status differentiation on performance Presenter: Nikhil Awasty; Michigan State U. Presenter: Christopher To; New York U. Presenter: Nicholas Hays; Michigan State U. Stellar Evolution: Value creation and capture from stars across the career life cycle Presenter: Matt Call; Texas A&M U., College Station Courting status and stardom: The cross-domain consequences of audience extension Presenter: Brian Philip Reschke; Brigham Young U. Presenter: Taeya Howell; Brigham Young U.

Translating Research for Managers: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Knowledge Translation Strategies

In this study, focusing on how scholarly research papers in management are translated into practitioner-oriented research highlights, we conducted a cross-cultural comparison to examine whether and how knowledge translation strategies differ when the same source knowledge is translated into different languages for audiences in different cultures. More specifically, using data from a bilingual management magazine that publishes highlights of scholarly management research papers, we compared its Chinese research highlights (written for a Chinese practitioner audience) and English research highlights (written for a more Western practitioner audience) to analyze whether and how the translation strategies are similar or different. Drawing on cultural psychology literature and academic-practitioner knowledge transfer literature, we explored potential dimensions on which the translation strategies might differ. We found that in comparison to English research highlights, Chinese research highlights tended to place more emphasis on the collective (by utilizing appeals to collective emotions), be more mindful of status (by toning down negative implications for high-status actors or organizations, and by highlighting the role of researchers), and be written in more practical and prescriptive tones. Our study provides a nuanced depiction of the important roles that knowledge translators play in the translation of knowledge from academia towards practitioners, as well as how they adapt to the different cultural environments of their practitioner audiences.

The Structure of Deference: Modeling Occupational Status Using Affect Control Theory

Current theories of occupational status conceptualize it as either a function of cultural esteem or the symbolic aspect of the class structure. Based on Weber’s definition of status as rooted in either cultural or class conditions, we argue that a consistent operationalization of occupational status must account for both of these dimensions. Using quantitative measures of cultural sentiments for occupational identities, we use affect control theory to model the network deference relations across occupations. We calculate a measure of the extent to which one occupational actor deferring to another is incongruent with cultural expectations for all possible combinations of 304 occupational titles. Because high-status actors are less likely to defer to low-status actors, the degree to which these events violate cultural expectations provides an indicator of the relative status position of different occupations. We assess the construct validity of our new deference score measure using Harris Poll data. Deference scores are more predictive of status rankings from poll data than are occupational prestige scores. We establish criterion validity using five theoretically relevant workplace outcomes: subjective work attachment, job satisfaction, general happiness, the importance of meaningful work, and perceived respect at work.

Unequal and Unfair: Free Riding in One‐Shot Interactions

This study investigates the effect of status on perceptions of and reactions to free riders. Extrapolating from expectation states theory, I posit that higher status actors are granted a greater degree of social leniency than lower status actors when it comes to free riding. Specifically, I hypothesize that higher status actors are less likely to evoke the same negative emotional and behavioral responses elicited by lower status free riders. Using gender as an indicator of status, I employ a simple vignette to examine this relationship. Results validate previous findings related to the negative emotional and affective responses individuals have toward free riders. Furthermore, while findings fail to support the stated hypotheses, additional results demonstrate the subtle complexity of the relationship between gender, status, and free riding as well as its effect on the emotional and behavioral responses of individuals within small groups. As a result, I suggest that an outright rejection of the stated hypotheses may be premature and that further research in this area is warranted.

Social Structures in Transition: Applications of Two Theories to Chiefdoms

Status characteristics theory and elementary theory are applied to explain developments through three structural forms that chiefdoms are known to take. Theoretic models find that downward mobility inherent in the first form, the status-lineage structure, destabilizes its system of privilege. As a consequence, high-status actors are motivated to find mechanisms to preserve and enhance privilege. By engaging in hostile relations with other chiefdoms, high-status actors offer protection to low-status others from real or imagined threats. Through that protection, they gain tribute and support. The result is structural change from influence based on status to power exercised through indirect coercion, the second structural form. In settled societies, accumulation through war and selective redistribution contribute to separation of warrior and commoner rankings. That separation leads to the third structural form, direct coercive chiefdom.

Status Characteristics and the Provision of Public Goods: Experimental Evidence

We present experimental evidence on the effects of status characteristics in problems involving the provision of public goods. According to Status Characteristics Theory (SCT), status differentials affect performance expectations, which in turn affect the power and prestige order in group tasks. Applied to problems of collective action, SCT suggests several intriguing hypotheses (cf. Simpson, Willer, and Ridgeway 2012). Most importantly, the theory proposes that high-status actors show a greater initiative in and also overall contribute more to the provision of public goods than low-status actors. We put this theoretical claim to a strict experimental test, in addition to other hypotheses and conjectures. In our experimental setup, the volunteer’s timing dilemma is used as the group task. Three experimental conditions are implemented, which differ with respect to the way status groups are formed on basis of the type of status characteristic. Our results validate the central hypothesis cited above and also lend support to a conjecture regarding the beneficial effects of heterogeneity in status.

Signaling by early stage startups: US government research grants and venture capital funding

Signaling by early stage startups: US government research grants and venture capital funding

Systems of Evaluation and the Matthew Effect

Existing research on the Matthew Effect establishes that this dynamic can alter information flow and the distribution of rewards in ways that lead to cumulating advantages for high status actors. We know little, however, about how systems of evaluation, and especially variations in systems of evaluations, influence the expression and strength of these outcomes. Drawing on analyses of the effects of rankings on organizations, I consider how different evaluation contexts can change both audience perceptions about which organizations are award worthy and the definition of merit on which reward distributions are based.

The Structural Origins of Unearned Status: How Arbitrary Changes in Categories Affect Status Position and Market Impact

Focusing on the categorical nature of many status orderings, we examine the relationship among status, actors’ quality, and market outcomes. As markets evolve, the number of categories that structure them can increase, creating opportunities for new actors to be bestowed status, or it can decrease, dethroning certain actors from their superior standing. In both cases, gains and losses of status may occur without changes in actors’ quality. Because audiences rely on status signals to infer the value of market actors, these exogenously generated status shifts can translate into changes in how audiences perceive actors, resulting in benefits for unearned status gains and costs for unearned status losses. We find support for our hypotheses in a sample of equity analysts at U.S. brokerage firms. Using data on the coveted Institutional Investor magazine All-Star award, we find that analysts whose status increases because of a category addition see corresponding increases in the stock market’s response to their earnings estimates, while those who lose status see corresponding reductions. Our results suggest that the greater weight accorded to high-status actors may be misguided if that status occurs for structural reasons such as category changes rather than because of an actor’s own quality.

Helping Others to Help Themselves?: Giving Voice to Those Who Should Have It but Don't

In an ideal world, status hierarchies in organizations would benefit organizational performance. The people with the greatest potential to help the organization would rise to the top, and, once there, they would use their status and voice in pro-social ways. Reality, unfortunately, is often far from this ideal. Together, the five talks in this symposium document how and why high-status actors may act in ways that are bad for organizations, and suggest solutions for these destructive status dynamics. We show how, by directing simple behaviors–such as showing deference, amplifying others' ideas, and voicing opinions–even toward those in low status positions, people can help fellow group members who should have influence, but don't. Motivations for Voice Behavior: The Roles of Power and Status in Determining the Content of Voice Presenter: Taeya Howell; Brigham Young U. Presenter: Nicholas Hays; Michigan State U. Is it Worse to Lose Power or to Lose Status? A Social Rejection Account of Losing Hierarchical ...

Liability of High Status: Overpayment to Relieve Status Anxiety in the English Premier League

Extant literature on status has emphasized the benefits of high status for organizations. This paper, however, explores the economic costs that high status actors may accrue in market transactions....

To The Manner Born: How Earned Status And Inherited Status Influence Conformity

How status affects conventionality is a question with a long tradition in sociology and organization theory. The bulk of this literature focuses on how “earned status”, that is the status that is acquired through recognition and deference by peers or audiences, affects actors’ conventionality. Literature in social psychology has shown however, that actors also inherit status on the basis of ascribed characteristics (such as gender or nationality). We investigate how the inconsistency between the status actors earn and the status they inherit affect their propensity to adopt conventional choices. We suggest, as we detail in our study, that the status inconsistency for low-status actors from a high-status group prompts a different behavior than status inconsistency for high-status actors from a low-status group. We study the role of status inconsistency on the repertoire choice of conductors of the major US orchestras between 1896 and 1970. We find that high status conductors from low status countries are more likely, than their peers from high status countries, to play compositions that are more adopted in the field. As different from this, low status actors from high status countries are more likely to play unconventional compositions than their peers from low status countries.

Pride Cometh before a Fall: When High-status Actors Engage in Projects of Great Magnitude

This study explores the dynamics of the Matthew effect in the creative industries. We suggest that high-status organizations are able to realize more financial and status benefits for demonstrating...

Punishment and status in collective action: How status hierarchiesfoster optimal punishment use

AbstractI provide a brief overview of the literature on human cooperation, punishment, and social dilemmas. After reviewing relevant literature, I move on to a series of predictions, intertwining findings on punishment, public goods, and social status. Leaning onStatus Characteristics Theory, I explicate how the behavioral expectations that we derive from status positions foster a means of using punishment to secure public goods. Furthermore, I argue that we carry general expectations for high status actors to punish when deemed collectively necessary. Building on this expectation, I articulate how initially status‐homogenous groups can develop status ranks on the basis of punishment behavior, allowing task groups to mimic sanctioning institutions commonly seen in public goods research and everyday life.

The Rise of Rational Choice Theory as a Scientific/Intellectual Movement in Sociology

How did Rational Choice Theory (RCT), traditionally rejected by sociologists for its economic individualism, rise rapidly in the 1980s and the 1990s to theoretical and institutional prominence within sociology? Drawing on Frickel and Gross’ (American Sociological Association, 70(2):204–232 2005) framework for the emergence of scientific/intellectual movements (SIMs), we argue that RCT rose to prominence in sociology in conjunction with: 1) high status actors’ criticism of the previously dominant paradigm, structural functionalism; 2) favorable structural conditions that provided entrepreneurial access to key resources; 3) proliferation through micromobilization contexts; and 4) the ability of those espousing RCT for sociology to draw on dominant cultural motifs outside of academia. The rise of RCT in American sociology provides a case study for how scientific/intellectual movements can find an audience in academic contexts that are predisposed to oppose them.

It’s the Conventional Thought That Counts

A core claim of sociological theory is that modern institutions fall short of their meritocratic ideals, whereby rewards should be allocated based on achievement-related criteria. Instead, high-status actors often experience a “status advantage”: they are rewarded disproportionately to the quality of their performance. We develop and test a theory of status advantage in meritocratic settings. The most influential model in past research derives status advantage from decision-makers’ tendency to infer quality from status when quality is uncertain. The theory developed here integrates and extends this and other theories to explain the emergence of status advantage in the many meritocratic contexts where the decision-maker’s personal, first-order sense of quality is less important to the decision. We argue that in such contexts, decision-makers must often coordinate with others to make the “best” decision, and thus they focus on the “third-order inference” problem of discerning who or what “most people” think is higher quality, as encoded in status beliefs. Three experiments demonstrate that under such conditions, status advantages can emerge even though (1) status information does not resolve uncertainty about quality; (2) the status belief is illegitimate; and (3) no party to the decision personally prefers the higher-status option. The theory implies that status hierarchies are resilient in the face of significant dissent but may be subject to public challenge.