Low-status Peers Research Articles

Accounting for Negative Attention: Status and Costs in the Market for Audit Services

Prior work has emphasized the role of positive attention spillovers in driving cost advantages for high-status firms, with exchange partners offering preferential terms to high-status organizations because they anticipate benefits. Yet, spillovers from a client to a supplier may also be negative. These negative spillovers can be exacerbated when high-status actors are involved, because of the high level of publicity they attract. In this paper, we propose that suppliers’ concerns about negative attention are an important contingent factor determining whether high-status firms enjoy cost advantages or, instead, pay a premium. We expect that when suppliers anticipate that negative spillovers are more likely than positive ones and when they enjoy some bargaining power over their clients, a positive relationship between status and costs will result. To test this argument, we analyze fees paid by clients of varying status levels in the U.S. market for audit services. Consistent with our theory, we find that (1) high-status clients are charged more than their lower status peers and (2) the media attention clients receive does mediate this relationship. Indicative of the role of the supplier’s expectation of negative spillovers and their bargaining power, we also demonstrate that the positive relationship becomes stronger when auditors view clients as presenting a greater risk of future negative events and when clients have more bargaining power. Our efforts at theoretical integration result in a fuller picture of the role of status in shaping a firm’s costs, suggesting that status involves advantages in some settings but disadvantages in others. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.15814 .

Features of the Intellectual Development of Preschool Children in the China

The article examines the peculiarities of the intellectual development of preschool children in the People's Republic of China, reveals the connection between the dependence of a preschooler's intellectual development on the peculiarities of his/her interaction with the surrounding social environment. The purpose of the article is to analyze and characterize the features of the intellectual development of preschool children in the People's Republic of China. Among the research methods used, the following were decisive: analysis and generalization of scientific and methodical sources for theoretical substantiation of research problems, modelling, synthesis of the obtained data. Results. The results of the study of the intellectual development of high-status, medium-status and low-status members of educational groups of primary schools in the People's Republic of China are presented. It is shown that the intellectual development of high-status and middle-status children aged 4 to 5 years is higher than that of their low-status peers, primarily in aspects such as perception, attention, and memory. It is noted that the integral indicator of high-status subjects corresponds to an average or high level of intellectual development. Moreover, a high level is characteristic of the majority of subjects in this category. The integral indicator of intellectual development of middle-status test subjects is quite comparable to that of high-status subjects. Attention is drawn to the fact that, in fact, there is only one, but important feature between these two categories of subjects ‒ among the high-status children, there are no children with an integral indicator of intellectual development below the average. Conclusions. The integral indicator of intellectual development of the majority of low-status subjects corresponds to a low level of intellectual development. Through the prism of the concept of «interpersonal development situation», the dialectical relationship between the intellectual and socio-psychological development of preschool children in the People's Republic of China is analyzed. Methodical provision of the structure of interpersonal relations in educational groups of kindergartens of the People's Republic of China is presented. Based on the results of the research, a number of scientific and practical recommendations are proposed.

The influence of social status on children's merit-based resource allocation: The potential explanation of expectation.

How 3- to 11-year-old children integrate recipients' merit and social status when allocating resources was examined in 2021 and 2022. Study 1 (Han Chinese, n = 309, 150 girls) showed that while children prioritized merit, they developed from favoring high-status recipients to favoring low-status recipients. Study 2 (n = 194, 98 girls) and Study 3 (n = 138, 68 girls) revealed that children held stereotypes about the relation between merit and social status which shifted with age from expecting high-status peers to expecting low-status peers to work harder, these expectations corresponded allocation decisions. These findings suggest children shift from perpetuating to rectifying inequity and changing stereotypes about people of different social status may serve an important function in the process.

“We're IMGs, and we're often seen as human garbage outside of primary care”: A qualitative investigation of dynamic status hierarchy construction online by medical trainees

In the United States health care system, “USMDs,” or allopathic US-trained medical graduates, are generally considered higher status than “non-USMDs,” or osteopathic and international medical graduates (also abbreviated as IMGs). Two key aspects of this professional hierarchy have yet to be understood: one, how it is socially and culturally reproduced during specific medical training timepoints, such as the US residency placement cycle; and two, how changes within this hierarchy may be occurring among the new generation of medical trainees and professionals. To answer these questions, I qualitatively analyzed comments from a selection of medical student Reddit posts, called “Name and Shame,” where users discussed their experiences with discrimination and mistreatment during residency interviews spanning 2018 to 2020. From this analysis, I found that after exposure to and discussion of stories of applicant mistreatment, while some students on the forum reproduced this professional hierarchy, others rejected this inequality, with non-USMD users advocating for themselves and USMD students supporting their lower status peers. These findings highlight that the construction and understanding of this USMD/non-USMD hierarchy may be more dynamic than previously thought, especially among contemporary trainees now entering the medical profession.

Executive function measurement in urban schools: Exploring links between performance-based metrics and teacher ratings.

When compared to research centered on the executive function development of white, middle-class children, relatively little is known about their non-white, low socioeconomic status peers. In an effort to harmonize how executive functions are measured within under-represented contexts, the present study addresses gaps in the evaluation of everyday executive functioning to better understand whether behavior rating scales completed by teachers (BASC2EF - BASC executive function scale, 2nd edition; BASC3EF - BASC executive function scale, 3rd edition) capture distinctions between performance-based measures. This study includes two large samples of older, ethnic minority children from high-poverty backgrounds (Sample 1. N=243; Mage =9.28 years, SDage =0.80; nfemale =125; nAfricanAmerican =216, nLatinAmerican =15, nAsianAmerican =6; Sample 2. N=229; Mage =10.02 years, SDage =1.01; nfemale =120;nAfricanAmerican =132, nLatinAmerican =92, nWhite =3, nPacificIslander =1). Based on structural equation models testing the links between computerized performance-based measures and the teacher rating scales, the results indicate that BASC2EF in its original form might be a good fit for some populations but there is not a strong factor structure for the current high-poverty samples. In addition, post-hoc analyses suggest that only including BASC2EF items also in BASC3EF or using BASC3EF is best practice for high-poverty populations. BASC3EF seems better able to capture different components of performance-driven tasks, whereas BASC2EF captures overall executive functioning better than individual tasks. These findings encourage continued questioning surrounding metrics used to assess everyday executive functions in older children from diverse backgrounds. HIGHLIGHTS: This study explores whether teacher ratings of children's everyday executive functioning (using standardized behavior rating scales) capture distinctions between performance-based measures. Results indicate that BASC2EF teacher rating scale (Karr & Garcia-Barrera, 2017) is not a good representation of everyday executive function behaviors by children from schools in high-poverty communities. The findings suggest that restricting BASC2EF analyses to only items included in BASC3EF (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2015) or using BASC3EF for high-poverty populations. BASC3EF seems better able to capture the different components of performance-driven tasks, whereas BASC2EF captures overall executive functioning better than individual tasks.

Uncertainty, Status, and Networks: A Relational Approach to Optimal Distinctiveness Theory

Throughout this paper, we suggest and operationalize a relational approach to the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT). By building a longitudinal model of network evolution between art galleries and artists between 2002 and 2004, we explain the emergence of peer alignment between galleries. We hypothesize and find that both galleries’ status differentials and uncertainty impact peer alignment between galleries. High-status galleries preserve their status by avoiding aligning with low-status galleries, whereas under heightened uncertainty conditions, galleries show an overall higher propensity of aligning with peers. Uncertainty and status differential have a joint effect on peer-alignment. Under uncertainty conditions, high-status galleries show yet lower odds of aligning with lower-status peers. Thus, the paper brings a novel approach to operationalization of peer alignment within social network modeling and contributes to the understanding the role of status and uncertainty to explain the emergence of ties, under the lens of Optimal Distinctiveness Theory.

Cognitive control deployment is flexibly modulated by social value in early adolescence.

Recent mechanistic models of cognitive control define the normative level of control deployment as a function of the effort cost of exerting control balanced against the reward that can be attained by exerting control. Despite these models explaining empirical findings in adults, prior literature has suggested that adolescents may not adaptively integrate value into estimates of how much cognitive control they should deploy. Moreover, much work in adolescent neurodevelopment casts social valuation processes as competing with, and in many cases overwhelming, cognitive control in adolescence. Here, we test whether social incentives can adaptively increase cognitive control. Adolescents (Mage =14.64, 44 male, N=87) completed an incentivized cognitive control task in which they could exert cognitive control to receive rewards on behalf of real peers who were rated by all peers in their school grade as being of either high- or low-status. Using Bayesian modeling, we find robust evidence that adolescents exert more cognitive control for high- relative to low-status peers. Moreover, we demonstrate that social incentives, irrespective of their high- or low-status, boost adolescent cognitive control above baseline control where no incentives are offered. Findings support the hypothesis that the cognitive control system in early adolescence is flexibly modulated by social value.

Perception of managers' influence depending on status, power, and company performance.

This research examines others' perception of the influence of managers working in successful or unsuccessful companies who possess or lack status (to be respected by others) and power (control of valued resources). Study 1 shows that high-status managers were judged as more influential in the firm than their low-status peers, regardless of the company's situation. Study 2 finds that in a context of economic uncertainty, a manager with high status and power is perceived to be more capable of affecting the firm. The effect of power seems to be secondary since when a manager has low status, having high power does not significantly benefit the influence attributed to him or her. Furthermore, dominance (assertive behavior), not warmth, mediated the relationship between status and the attributed influence. Overall, these findings confirm that status is a very potent source of social influence, status and power are distinct constructs with different effects, and dominance rather than warmth is a key personal dimension linked to successful leadership.

Popularity, likeability, and peer conformity: Four field experiments

Adolescents tend to alter their attitudes and behaviors to match those of others; a peer influence process named peer conformity. This study investigated to what extent peer conformity depended on the status (popularity and likeability) of the influencer and the influencee. The study consisted of two phases. In Phase 1, 810 12- to 15-year-old adolescents participated in an experiment to measure peer conformity to one of four hypothetical peer groups designed to vary in levels of popularity and likeability. In Phase 2, a subsample of 269 12- to 13-year-old adolescents participated in three additional experiments in which peer conformity to actual classmates was measured. Results showed that participants were more likely to conform to high status peers than to low status peers, that influencer's level of popularity was stronger associated with peer conformity than their likeability, and that influencee's status (either popularity or likeability) played a lesser role in these effects than initially expected. Further, peer status as a mechanism of peer influence did not operate in the same way for boys and girls. Conclusions from the experiments regarding the degree and direction of peer conformity were discussed.

Affective associations with negativity: Why popular peers attract youths’ visual attention

Visual attention to high-status peers is well documented, but whether this attentional bias is due to high-status individuals’ leadership and prosocial characteristics or due to their more agonistic behaviors has yet to be examined. To identify the affective associations that may underlie visual attention for high-status versus low-status peers, 122 early adolescents (67 girls; Mage=11.0years, SD=0.7) completed a primed attention paradigm. Visual attention was measured using eye tracking as participants looked simultaneously at photographs of two classmates: one nominated by peers as popular and one nominated by peers as unpopular. Prior to each trial, the early adolescents were presented with a positive prime, the word “nice”; a negative prime, the word “stupid”; or no prime. Primary analyses focused on first-gaze preference and total gaze time The results showed a stronger first gaze preference for popular peers than for unpopular peers in the no-prime and negative prime trials than in the positive prime trials. The visual preference for a popular peer, thus, was attenuated by the positive prime. These findings are consistent with the notion that youths may visually attend to high-status peers due to their association with more negative characteristics and the threat they may pose to youths’ own social standing and ability to gain interpersonal resources.

Structure Matters: The Role of Clique Hierarchy in the Relationship Between Adolescent Social Status and Aggression and Prosociality.

Peer cliques form an important context for the social development of adolescents. Although clique members are often similar in social status, also within cliques, status differences exist. How differences in social status between clique members are related to behaviors of its individual members is rather unknown. This study examined to what extent the relationship of individual social status (i.e., perceived popularity) with aggression and prosocial behavior depends on the level of internal clique hierarchy. The sample consists of 2674 adolescents (49.8 % boys), with a mean age of 14.02. We focused specifically on physical and relational aggression, and practical and emotional support, because these behaviors have shown to be of great importance for social relationships and social standing among adolescents. The internal status hierarchy of cliques was based on the variation in individual social status between clique members (i.e., clique hierarchization) and the structure of status scores within a clique (pyramid shape, inverted pyramid, or equal distribution of social status scores) (i.e., clique status structure). The results showed that differences in aggressive and prosocial behaviors were particularly moderated by clique status structure: aggression was stronger related to individual social status in (girls’) cliques where the clique status structure reflected an inverted pyramid with relatively more high status adolescents within the clique than low status peers, and prosocial behavior showed a significant relationship with individual social status, again predominantly in inverted pyramid structured (boys’ and girls’) cliques. Furthermore, these effects differed by types of gender cliques: the associations were found in same gender but not mixed-gender cliques. The findings stress the importance of taking into account internal clique characteristics when studying adolescent social status in relationship to aggression and prosociality.

Me Versus Us: Concealing High Status Identities from Lower Status Peers

Scholars commonly portray status in terms of its manifold benefits and positive consequences. Given this, people may reveal high status identities whenever given the opportunity. However, the present studies provide evidence that when disclosing a high status identity elevates the self above one’s peers, people avoid disclosure. Across 3 experiments, we manipulated the status of a peer to be either similar to or lower than participants’ status, and then measured disclosure of a high status identity. In all 3 studies, we found that individuals are less likely to disclose a high status identity when interacting with a lower status peer, compared to a higher status peer. Study 1 demonstrates that lower disclosure reflects a desire to minimize threats to the self and others, avoid rejection, and preserve a sense of belonging. Study 2 shows that even when participants are not held accountable for disclosing a high status identity to a peer, they are still unwilling to do so. Study 3 reveals that increasing the level of competitiveness of the context does not eliminate the effect of peer status on disclosure; participants are still hesitant to disclose a high status identity even when it would be personally beneficial to do so.

Особенности интеллектуального развития и статус в группе детского сада у детей дошкольного возраста

The article presents the results of a study of intellectual development of high-status, middle-status and low-status members of the educational preschool groups. It is shown that the intellectual development of high status and middle status 4-5 years old children is higher than their low-status peers, especially in such aspects as perception, attention, and memory. This integral indicator of high status subjects corresponds to the average or high level of intelligence, and for most of the subjects of this category is characterized by a high level. An integral component of intellectual development of middle-status children is comparable to the one in high-status. In fact, there is only one, but not least, difference between the two categories: among high-status children there is no kids whose integral indicator of intellectual development is below average. Integral indicator of intellectual development of most low-status subjects corresponds to the low intelligence level. We analyzed a dialectical relationship of intellectual, social, and psychological development of preschool children according to the concept of «interpersonal situation of development». The article presents methodical maintenance of structure definition of interpersonal relations in the preschool educational groups. The study proposed a number of scientific and practical recommendations.

Diverging performances: the detrimental effects of early educational selection on equality of opportunity in Hungary

The Hungarian system is ideal to test the effect of early-selection on inequality of opportunity, since students are selected at three different ages. The early-selective academic tracks skim off the best students first at age 10, then at age 12, and finally at age 14 all students enter secondary level. The paper first shows that higher socioeconomic status students are more likely to attend the early-selective academic tracks, even if previous test scores are controlled for. The second part of the empirical analysis looks at the value-added of the separate tracks between 6th and 8th grade, and between 8th and 10th grade, and shows that their mathematical and reading performance diverges, even if skill and status selection is taken into account. Since higher socioeconomic status students are more likely to attend academic tracks than their lower status peers, the divergence in test scores translates to increasing inequality of opportunity. The Section 3 of the empirics looks at whether this process is a Pareto improvement, or whether there are groups in society that lose by the early-selection. It is shown that those who are left in general schools in areas where the best students can opt-out to early-selective tracks perform worse in mathematics than similar students in general tracks with no option of leaving. That is, selection harms those who are left behind. The paper speculates that these results are due to the different peer and teacher quality of the different tracks.

Birds of a Different Feather: How Do Cross-Ethnic Friends Flock Together?

This study examined how homophily (similarity) and propinquity (availability) simultaneously predict both unidirectional and reciprocal cross-ethnic friendships among early adolescents in ethnically diverse classrooms. In a sample of sixthgrade students, liking nominations were used as the indicator of friendship, and both unidirectional and reciprocal cross-ethnic liking nominations were strongly influenced by propinquity, particularly within friendship networks. Homophily appeared to have a greater influence on reciprocal cross-ethnic liking. Similar to previous research, high status (“cool”) early adolescents were more likely to make unidirectional cross-ethnic liking nominations with lower-status peers. However, this effect diminished as classroom ethnic diversity increased, suggesting a unique relationship between classroom ethnic composition, peer status, and intergroup liking. The findings suggest that similarity, the availability of cross-ethnic peers in social networks, and peer status are salient predictors of cross-ethnic friendships, although the influence of each varies depending on whether the friendship is unidirectional or reciprocal. Implications for research on cross-ethnic friendships were discussed.

Departure Status: The effect of leaving a misconduct firm on director labor market outcomes

Following revelations of financial misconduct, those sitting on the board of directors typically lose seats on other boards. A growing body of literature seeks to understand the factors that impact individual outcomes following revelations of misconduct. One such factor is director departure from the misconduct firm, an ambiguous signal that can be seen as either pro-active distancing on the part of the director or scapegoating on the part of the firm. I argue that the market interpretation of departure from the misconduct firm is moderated by the status of both the individual director and the fraud firm. Using a sample of U.S. corporations that restated earnings between 1997 and 2003, I find that high-status directors fare significantly better on the market for directors than do their lower-status peers when they dissociate from the restating firm. In addition, those departing high-status boards fare worse than others when they dissolve ties before their terms expire. Taken together, my results suggest t...

Adolescents’ Conformity to Their Peers’ Pro‐Alcohol and Anti‐Alcohol Norms: The Power of Popularity

Research on adolescent development suggests that peer influence may play a key role in explaining adolescents' willingness to drink, an important predictor of drinking initiation. However, experiments that thoroughly examine these peer influence effects are scarce. This study experimentally examined whether adolescents adapted their willingness to drink when confronted with the pro-alcohol and anti-alcohol norms of peers in a chat room session and whether these effects were moderated by the social status of peers. We collected survey data on drinking behavior, social status, and willingness to drink among five hundred thirty-two 14- to 15-year-olds. Of this sample, 74 boys participated in a simulated Internet chat room session in which participants were confronted with preprogrammed pro-alcohol or anti-alcohol norms of "grade-mates" which were in fact preprogrammed e-confederates. Accordingly, we tested whether participants adapted their willingness to drink to the norms of these grade-mates. To test whether adaptations in participants' willingness to drink would depend on grade-mates' social status, we manipulated their level of popularity. The results indicated that adolescents adapted their willingness to drink substantially to the pro-alcohol (i.e., more willing to drink) as well as anti-alcohol (i.e., less willing to drink) norms of these peers. Adolescents were more influenced by high-status than low-status peers. Interestingly, the anti-alcohol norms of the popular peers seemed most influential in that adolescents were less willing to drink when they were confronted with the anti-alcohol norms of popular peers. Additionally, the adolescents internalized these anti-alcohol norms. This study gives more insight into peer influence processes that encourage or discourage alcohol use. These results could be fundamental for the development of prevention and intervention programs to reduce alcohol use among the adolescents.

Childhood social status in society and school: implications for the transition to higher levels of education

While research into educational inequalities emphasises childhood socio‐economic status, this study adds another dimension of status into the analysis; namely, the child’s own social position among its peers. The aim was to examine whether socio‐economic status and peer status can both be linked to educational transitions and, if so, whether they constitute overlapping paths. In a second step of analyses, the relationship between peer status and adult unemployment was investigated. Data were derived from a longitudinal study using a 1953 cohort born in Stockholm, Sweden. Our results suggest that children with higher socio‐economic status and children with higher peer status are consistently more likely than their lower status peers to proceed to the next level of education, and that the effects of socio‐economic status and peer status hardly overlapped at all. Furthermore, educational differences by peer status seem to involve consequences for the studied subjects’ contemporary labour market opportunities.

A Comparison of the Effects of Organismic and Setting Variables on the Social Interaction Behavior of Children with Developmental Disabilities and Autism

In this investigation, the effects of four setting events and two organismic variables on the social behavior of children with developmental disabilities and autism were compared. In Study 1, social interactions within dyads composed of one student with disabilities and one nondisabled peer were compared to triads composed of two nondisabled peers and one child with disabilities. In addition, differential effects of peer tutoring and peer initiation interventions were determined. In Study 2, the effects of high- and low-status peers within triadic social interaction groupings were examined to determine effects on both the students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers. The results suggest that peer dyads, the cooperative peer intervention, and triads composed of two high-status nondisabled peers were most effective in promoting positive social interactions for the participants with disabilities. Furthermore, there seemed to be no real benefit to low-status peers related to participation in this second investigation. Results are discussed in relation to the effective and efficient use of programs designed to effect social competence and inclusion.

Analysis of risk to children participating in a sociometric task.

Fourth and 5th graders (N = 119) were individually interviewed regarding their reactions to completing group-administered, positive and negative peer nomination techniques. Results were consistent with previous findings of no obvious harm; but, additional, unique information regarding children's discussions was identified. For example, 7 children reported that 6 low-status peers were talked about behind their backs. However, these 7 children further reported that, to the best of their knowledge, none of the 6 low-status peers found out about the negative comments. No child reported having hurt feelings or having knowledge of anyone else having hurt feelings. Overall, 17% of the children (n = 20) reported that they were complimented by others; high-status peers were significantly more likely to be complimented. It was determined that the condition of minimal risk of harm, harm not greater than children might encounter in daily life, was not breached Directions for further research are discussed.