Low-status Positions Research Articles

The mismatch effect: When testosterone and status are at odds.

Why do some people strive for high status, whereas others actively avoid it? In the present studies, the authors examined the psychological and physiological consequences of a mismatch between baseline testosterone and a person's current level of status. The authors tested this mismatch effect by placing high and low testosterone individuals into high or low status positions using a rigged competition. In Study 1, low testosterone participants reported greater emotional arousal, focused more on their status, and showed worse cognitive functioning in a high status position. High testosterone participants showed this pattern in a low status position. In Study 2, the emotional arousal findings were replicated with heart rate, and the cognitive findings were replicated using a math test. In Study 3, the authors demonstrate that testosterone is a better predictor of behavior than self-report measures of the need for dominance. Discussion focuses on the value of measuring hormones in personality and social psychology.

Gender, status and the use of power strategies

AbstractThe present study examined the effects of gender and status on the use of power strategies. The experiment consisted of a computer‐based problem‐solving task performed in pairs, where participants interacted with simulated long‐distance partners. Participants were 36 female and 38 male undergraduate students, who were assigned to be influencing agents and were required to convince their partners to accept their help in the problem‐solving process. Status was manipulated by the extent to which partners were dependent upon the participants' resources. Partners were either same sex or other sex. Results indicated an interactive effect of agent gender by status. Men used more frequently ‘masculine’‐typed and less frequently ‘feminine’‐typed strategies than did women in low status positions, whereas in high status positions no significant gender differences in power strategy choices were found. These findings suggest that gender differences and similarities vary according to social contexts. Implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

House sparrows ( Passer domesticus) adjust their social status position to their physiological costs

For group-living animals, the maintenance of a position in the social hierarchy may be associated with physiological costs such as increased stress and energy expenditure or suppressed immune functions. In this study, we experimentally manipulated the social status of house sparrows so that each bird experienced two social environments in random sequence: being dominant and subordinate. For 14 males, we investigated how corticosterone concentrations, energy expenditure and immune functions were affected by these changes in social status position. We found that the cost of maintaining a social status position differed between individuals and were related to individual body size. Birds with small body size had increased costs in terms of increased stress responses and reduced cell-mediated immune responses while being experimentally kept as dominants, while birds with large body size had increased costs while they were subordinates. We also found that birds with increased energetic and immunological costs as dominants obtained a low status position in the large group, while birds with increased costs as subordinates obtained a high status position in the large group. In summary, we found that the costs associated with the maintenance of social status position differed between individuals and was related to the individuals' body size. Furthermore, in a large group, individuals maintained a social status position that minimized energetic and immunological costs.

Testosterone, cognition, and social status

What leads some people to perform better than others on certain cognitive tasks? One explanation involves individual differences in testosterone. Testosterone is associated with higher performance on spatial tests, and lower performance on verbal tests. However, a large literature suggests that testosterone only predicts behavior when status is in jeopardy. In the present study, we manipulated status before administering a spatial and verbal test. In a high-status position, high-testosterone individuals performed well on both tests, and blood pressure dropped. In a low-status position, high-testosterone individuals performed relatively poorly on both tests, and blood pressure did not change. These data suggest that differences in cognitive performance stem from an interaction between testosterone and the social situation.

Stepping-Stones or Traps?

This article addresses the question of whether the first job functions as a ‘stepping stone’ or as a ‘trap’. It does so by using individual longitudinal data to estimate the consequences on future occupational attainment of entry into the labour market via (a) ‘under-qualified’ jobs or (b) via temporary contracts. A cross-national comparison of West Germany, Great Britain and Italy allows assessment of the impact of different labour market structures on this allocation process. With regard to ‘under-qualified’ positions, the findings are not consistent with the stepping-stone hypothesis but provide some support for the entrapment hypothesis. Despite the greater mobility chances of over-qualified workers, the initial disadvantage associated with status-inadequate jobs is not fully overcome during their future careers. The article shows, however, that the negative effects are not due to the mismatch as such but rather to the relatively lower level positions. These effects are mediated by the national labour market structure, with the British flexible model providing the best chances of making up for initial disadvantages, and the more tightly regulated and segmented markets in Germany and Italy leading to stronger entrapment in lower status positions. No negative effects of the type of contract are found for later occupational positions in any of the countries.

Who will Divorce: A 14-Year Longitudinal Study of Black Couples and White Couples

The present study examines the early development of marriage for a representative sample of urban white couples and black couples. We are interested in predicting the stability of these marriages over the first 14 years of marriage. First, we assess whether objective social and economic conditions account for divorce over time. These factors focus on oppressive social conditions, lower status positions in society, and challenges of parenthood and family responsibilities. Next, we concentrate on perceived interactive processes between spouses that are critical for maintaining a relationship over time. We postulate that race, gender, and time act as contexts in which to understand the quality and impact of structure and the perceptions of interaction in predicting divorce. Results indicate that both race and education are critical to the risk of divorce over 14 years. Perceived interactional processes are also important to divorce, but often depend on the contexts of race and gender.

Diffusion and Syncretism: The Modern Jazz Tradition

This article presents an analysis of the musical syncretism involved in the development of a modern jazz tradition in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. It shows how a professional ethos among popular musicians during this period guided their reinterpretation and reinvention of folk, popular, and classical music practices in the creation of this music tradition. It further argues that this ethos led them, in their low-status positions as popular musicians, to affirm their legitimacy through the creation of a high-art aesthetic. In general, this study shows how the social context in the diffusion of jazz practices affected the transformation of these practices in value and form in this century.

Status, Quality, and Social Order in the California Wine Industry

This paper examines how a producer's status in the market influences its choices about product quality, and the outcomes that result. We compare economic models of reputation that emphasize the role of past quality as a source of information about current quality with sociological models of status that emphasize the role of affiliations. We test hypotheses about the complementary effects of status and reputation in an analysis of more than 10,000 affiliation decisions made by 595 wineries over a 10-year period. Results show that actors occupying high-status positions obtain greater benefit from subsequent high-status affiliations than do actors occupying low-status positions. As such, these actors are more willing and able to pay for subsequent high-status affiliations and to use them to advance their position in the larger status ordering.

Responding to negative social identity: a taxonomy of identity management strategies

Taken from literature on social identity theory and social comparison theory, 12 strategies of identity management were identified as possible responses to negative social identity. A taxonomy with two orthogonal axes is proposed as theoretical organization of these diverse strategies. While the first axis considers responses as being either individual or collective, the second axis refers to the distinction between behaviours and cognitions. It is assumed that the German unification process implied a lower status position of East Germans relative to West Germans on relevant comparison dimensions, and that East Germans have to deal with this threat to their identity. Hence, data of an East German sample are used to empirically systematize identity management strategies, and, thus, to test the proposed taxonomy. Results support the expected four-factor solution only for those strategies taken from social identity theory, while the responses derived from social comparison research build a fifth factor. In addition, the empirical assignments of strategies to cells of the taxonomy are only partly in line with the expected pattern. The empirical findings suggest some clarification and modifications of the proposed response taxonomy. The most important refers to a re-interpretation of the taxonomy's first axis, which now differentiates between responses according to the specific changes of the comparison parameters they imply. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The occupational integration of former Soviet physicians in Israel

This paper reports the findings of a five-year, three-stage study of the occupational status persistence of 333 physicians who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1990. The first data collection, by way of a structured questionnaire in Russian, was undertaken in 1991, during their participation in preparatory courses for the medical licensure examination. The second and third stages of data collection were undertaken by mail in 1993 and 1995. Data are presented regarding the influence of gender and age on employment status and on the relationship between employment status and psycho–social well-being, including work and general satisfaction, self-esteem, mood, health and overall adaptation, at both stages. The dynamics of occupational integration are investigated by looking at the effects of occupational stability vs occupational change between stage 2 and stage 3 on the psycho–social outcome variables. After three years in Israel, men were more likely to be working as physicians than women, and women were more likely to be unemployed. However, after five years, women were equally likely to have found work in their profession, albeit in lower status positions. Younger respondents were more successful than older respondents in passing the licensure examination, finding work in their profession, and entering residency programs. The gap between them did not close between stage 2 and stage 3. At both stage 2 and stage 3, those working as physicians had significantly more positive well-being scores than those not working as physicians. All occupational groups had more positive scores at stage 3 than at stage 2, except for those who were working in non-medically related jobs. The greatest improvement in psycho–social well-being was among those who became physicians between stage 2 and stage 3, compared to those who were not physicians at either stage and those who were physicians at both stages.

Gender in Job interviews: some implications of verbal interactions of women and men

The Job interview can be seen as a Situation in which gender-specific communicative rules might have a severe social impact. Using four interviews drawn from a larger corpus of actual Job Interviews recorded in several Dutch companies, this study examines whether the speech patterns of the dominant, male, group prove to be the norm in mixed-gender Job Interviews. The variables of initiation/response behavior, Interruption, and laughter on the pari of each participant are analyzed. Linguistic features that reflect dominance are examined in all four groups (Interviewers and applicants of each sex) and positioned on a scale of conversational styles ranging from most dominant to nondominant. The interaction of gender and Status yields a sociolinguistic hierarchy in which Interviewers rank above applicants, and within each group, males rank above females. This offers support for the argument that a higher-status position does not result as much in a dominant speech style for women as it does for men. Moreover, a lower-status position does not lead as much to a subordinate speech style in men as it does for women. It is argued therefore that not only in everyday conversation, but also in formal speech, differences in sex-specific subcultural communicative rules as well as differences in the communication patterns of different-status persons play an important r ole in the organization of conversations.

Racial and Gender Biases in Magazine Advertising

Recent evidence suggests that racial and gender biases in magazine advertisements may be increasing. To explore this possibility, a content analysis was performed on 10 years of fashion advertisements drawn from magazines geared toward White women, Black women, or White men ( N = 1,800 advertisements from 1985–1994). The results indicated that (a) except for Black females in White women's magazines, African Americans were underrepresented in White magazines; (b) female body exposure was greater than male body exposure, and White female body exposure rose significantly during the 10 years; (c) White women were shown in low-status positions nearly twice as often as were other models; and (d) Black women wore the majority of animal prints, most of which were patterned after a predatory animal. These findings suggest that racial and gender biases in magazine advertising persisted, and in some cases increased, between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.

Gender and Interpersonal Task Behaviors: Status Expectation Accounts

In this paper we argue for the utility of status characteristics theory (Berger et al. 1977) in accounting for research concerned with gender differences in interpersonal task situations. We state and defend a basic status argument that differences in stereotypical gender task behaviors are a direct function of status differences or of attempts to cope with status differences. We show support for this argument in several areas of research: the influence, participation and performer evaluations of group members; their relative performance-reactor profiles; the relation of these behavioral profiles to the assignment of personality traits; the correlation of status position with the gender typing of tasks (i.e., male-identified, female-identified, or neutral); the relationship between gender status and salient information about other statuses; the role of expectations for rewards; and the emergence of mechanisms for coping with the implication of a low gender status position. We conclude that status characteristics theory can provide a set of interrelated explanations of the relationship of gender to interpersonal task behaviors.

Bullying Within Organizations

It is by no means certain that the number of incidents of bullying within organizations is rising. However, we can be sure that there has been a marked increase in the level of awareness about it throughout organizations. This change could be attributable both to the popularity of Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) and to the increase in publicity given to the rights of employees.For the past two years I have worked as a counsellor for some of the major EAP providers in the City, and have heard of instances of bullying at first hand and, therefore, have drawn many conclusions based on experience rather than statistically based evidence.Certain organizations are guilty of creating a bullying culture, where more and more is expected of individuals for less and less. There are many examples of employees being treated badly and unfairly during company reorganization - some being made redundant, others being redeployed to lower-status positions (with corresponding pay cuts). Sometimes, employers will create a job specification which, because it makes unrealistic demands on an individual, will eventually lead to failure and a resultant dismissal or resignation. Another way of placing undue pressure on an individual is by “freezing them out” by giving them too little to do or by giving them menial tasks which could lead them to consider resignation. For example, a woman employee had all of her work taken away from her without explanation and the whole team was instructed not to speak to her.

The "Ideal" Black Family?

Many writers have documented changes that have occurred during past two decades in respect participation of Blacks in North American television programs. Earlier reports emphasized general underrepresentation of Blacks on television and their typical restriction unimportant petty criminal roles in crime drama series; even when characters were industrious and law abiding, they were located almost exclusively in low-status positions (e.g., Banks, 1977; Hinton, Seggar, Northcott, & Fowles, 1973; Lemon, 1977; Northcott, Seggar, & Hinton, 1975; Poindexter & Stroman, 1981). As more all-Black shows were developed, it was felt that characters became, if anything, even more stereotyped: Viewers could conclude that to be Black means that one is poor, carefree and unskilled (Banks, 1977, p. 339). Alternatively, because so many new Black shows were comedies, the American people have got idea that black people are funny (Sklar, 1980, p. 103). The early 1980s saw increasing development of integrated shows in which Blacks portrayed central characters who were generally as successful, competent, professional, and attractive as

Status Inconsistency, Traditionality and Marital Distress in the Netherlands

Based on recent literature, when the wife occupies a higher socioeconomic status than her husband, the marital adjustment of couples is expected to be worse than the marital adjustment of couples when the husband has greater status. This was tested in a sample of 37 Dutch dual-career couples. Initially, evidence for the hypothesis was found but was less strong when ‘duration of the relationship’ was taken into account as a covariate. Traditionality of the husband with regard to sex-role patterns was a more important factor. When the wife had the higher socioeconomic status and when the wife had a lower status position, traditionality was strongly related to low marital adjustment of the couples. Couples who had been together less than five years had better relationships than couples who had been together longer. Altogether this sample of dual-career couples showed better marital adjustment than the average Dutch couple. In the discussion the implications of these findings are considered.

Effects of Affective and Informational Characteristics of Work Environments on Worker Satisfaction

Workers in eleven businesses (e.g., a trucking company, a warehouse, a county hospital, a computer company) rated the physical and social environment in which they worked using three nearly independent measures of pleasantness-unpleasantness, dominance-submissiveness inducing quality, and “information rate.” Complexity, novelty, variability, and unpredictable quality of a situation jointly characterize its “information rate” and are positive correlates of the arousal elicited by the setting. Two measures of worker satisfaction used were the Job Satisfaction Index (JSI) and a new Worker Satisfaction Scale (WSS). Internal consistency-reliability was .77 for the WSS and compared favorably with .57 for the JSI. The WSS correlated .60 with the JSI and .71 with a modified version of the JSI from which unsatisfactory items were eliminated. Results with both the WSS and the JSI showed that worker satisfaction was a positive correlate of pleasantness, and information rate, of work environments. In addition, an Information Rate X Dominance Interaction on WSS scores showed that workers whose work environments made them feel submissive (e.g., those in low-status positions) were more satisfied with work settings which provided greater variety, complexity, and/or novelty. In comparison, workers who felt dominant due to environmental factors, did not exhibit a parallel preference, possibly because their work provided the necessary complexity and/or variety and additional information from the work setting was not required.

Status Characteristics Theory: An Application to Clothing Research

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two variables on performance: a status characteristic (fashionability) and an opportunity to demonstrate competence. Sixty-two undergraduate female volunteers participated in the study. Fifty percent of the subjects, after being labeled either fashionable or unfashionable, were given an opportunity to demonstrate competence by making decisions about appropriate clothing for various situations. The other 50% were given no opportunity to demonstrate competence. Subjects who were given an opportunity to demonstrate competence improved their scores on a posttest twice as much as subjects who were not given an opportunity to demonstrate competence. Subjects who had been negatively labeled "unfashionable" and who were then given an opportunity to demonstrate competence improved their scores almost three times as much as subjects who had been negatively labeled "unfashionable" and who were not given an opportunity to demonstrate competence. Results suggest that persons in a lower status position relative to others can benefit from being given an opportunity to disprove that lower status label.

So Happy Together? The Impact of Gender Segregation on Men at Work

How does gender segregation at work affects men's well-being, as expressed in their psychological orientations toward work? Analyzing a sample of employed males in the 1973 Quality of Employment Survey, we find that men in mixed work settings report significantly lower job-related satisfaction and self-esteem and more job-related depression than men in either maleor female-dominated work settings, even after controlling for individual, job, organizational, and economic determinants of well-being. These findings are difficult to reconcile with theories suggesting that men dislike gender integration at work simply for economic reasons or with the view that male tokens suffer psychologically by occupying low-status positions viewed as female jobs. Rather, our findings are more consistent with perspectives that emphasize how the quality and quantity of intergroup relations decline as groups become more balanced. The implications of our results for segregation theories and for efforts to remedy segregation are discussed.

Evaluations of employment suitability based on accent alone: An Australian case study

Two experiments are reported in which two groups of subjects, small businessmen and suburban shoppers, evaluated various Australian voices on their suitability for training programs for high and low status occupations. The voices were produced by the matched-guise technique. The first experiment asked businessmen to evaluate Asian-, German- and two (Standard and Broad) Anglo-Australian voices. The second asked the shoppers to evaluate Asian- and the two Anglo-Australian accents. The ratings of the Anglo- and German-Australian voices supported previous research. The Standard Anglo-accent was rated more suitable for the high status program; the Broad Anglo-Australian accent was rated more suitable for the low status program. The German accent's rated suitability fell between the two Anglo accents. The ratings of the Standard Anglo voice for the low status position changed from the first to the second experiment. The employers did not differentiate between the two Anglo voices, the shoppers did, regarding the high status accent as being unsuitable for the low status training program. Employers and shoppers differed in their evaluation of the Asian voice. Employers ranked it equal in suitability with the high status Anglo voice. Shoppers rated the Asian voice on a par with the low status Anglo voice. The results are discussed in terms of possible differences in the cognitive schemata of the two groups of subjects.