Status Cues Research Articles

Would male conspicuous consumption capture the female eye? Menstrual cycle effects on women's attention to status products

In line with evolutionary principles of reproduction and mate selection, the current research shows that women's attention to status cues fluctuates across their menstrual cycle. Specifically, we show that women pay more attention to status products in a visual display around ovulation than in other phases of their menstrual cycle. Pill use eliminates these cycle phase effects. The results are discussed in relation to research on female mating goals and conspicuous consumption.

Fighting Zebrafish: Characterization of Aggressive Behavior and Winner–Loser Effects

Aggression is a key component of the behavioral repertoire of animals that impacts on their Darwinian fitness. The available genetic tools in zebrafish make this species a promising vertebrate neurogenetic model for the study of neural circuits underlying aggressive behavior. For this purpose, a detailed characterization of the aggressive behavior and its behavioral consequences is first needed. In this article we establish a simple protocol that reliably elicits the expression of fighting behavior in zebrafish dyads and characterized it. The agonistic behavior expressed during dyadic fighting behavior has a temporal structure, indicating the existence of an underlying architecture prone to genetic manipulation. Social interactions have consequences for subsequent behavior with a potential fitness impact, which stresses the validity of this species for the study of aggression. These effects of experience seem to be mediated by different mechanisms in winners and losers. Winners increase the probability of winning subsequent fights without changing their fighting behavior, suggesting the existence of social status cues. On the other hand, losers decrease the probability of winning subsequent fights by decreasing their motivation to escalate fights. Together, these results are a first step to the development of a quantitative framework for the study of aggressive behavior in zebrafish.

I know how! You know how! We know how! the multinational matter of language use in task teams

The need for high-performance multinational teams is now a reality for many organisations dealing with the increasing complexities of global business. It is a reality that organisations often struggle to achieve, and so a deep understanding of how to create a strong shared team culture in such circumstances is imperative. A key element in the development of a strong shared team culture is that of a shared language. Work integrating language into the frameworks of international management and global teams, however, remains in its infancy. In this theory-building paper, language is placed centre stage. This paper begins to identify the implications of particular language choices for the work performance of multinational teams. Leveraging previous research on status cues, theory is built in this paper around the differential use of task indicative cues spoken in a shared language across multinational work team members. The paper reviews literature on language in the international sphere, multinational teams, and status cues across cultures including the differential use of task indicative cues before sections on theory-building and implications for management practice are presented.

HOW POWER INFLUENCES THE CONSEQUENCES OF DOMINANCE EXPRESSIONS IN NEGOTIATIONS.

Two experiments examined how the relative power of people who express dominance within negotiations influences the consequences of that dominance. Expressing dominance improved negotiators’ ability to claim value when the negotiators were relatively powerless but not when they were relatively powerful. In contrast, expressed dominance improved dyadic value creation only when the relatively powerful negotiator expressed dominance. Specifically, dyads in which only the high-power negotiator behaved dominantly created more joint value in integrative negotiations than did dyads in which neither, both, or only the low-power negotiator behaved dominantly. The coordination benefits attributable to dominance complementarity (Wiltermuth, Tiedens, & Neale, 2010) were therefore better achieved when there was a congruency between a negotiator’s power and the status cues the negotiator sent through non-verbal and para-verbal behavior.

Computational prediction of the Crc regulon identifies genus-wide and species-specific targets of catabolite repression control in Pseudomonas bacteria

BackgroundCatabolite repression control (CRC) is an important global control system in Pseudomonas that fine tunes metabolism in order optimise growth and metabolism in a range of different environments. The mechanism of CRC in Pseudomonas spp. centres on the binding of a protein, Crc, to an A-rich motif on the 5' end of an mRNA resulting in translational down-regulation of target genes. Despite the identification of several Crc targets in Pseudomonas spp. the Crc regulon has remained largely unexplored.ResultsIn order to predict direct targets of Crc, we used a bioinformatics approach based on detection of A-rich motifs near the initiation of translation of all protein-encoding genes in twelve fully sequenced Pseudomonas genomes. As expected, our data predict that genes related to the utilisation of less preferred nutrients, such as some carbohydrates, nitrogen sources and aromatic carbon compounds are targets of Crc. A general trend in this analysis is that the regulation of transporters is conserved across species whereas regulation of specific enzymatic steps or transcriptional activators are often conserved only within a species. Interestingly, some nucleoid associated proteins (NAPs) such as HU and IHF are predicted to be regulated by Crc. This finding indicates a possible role of Crc in indirect control over a subset of genes that depend on the DNA bending properties of NAPs for expression or repression. Finally, some virulence traits such as alginate and rhamnolipid production also appear to be regulated by Crc, which links nutritional status cues with the regulation of virulence traits.ConclusionsCatabolite repression control regulates a broad spectrum of genes in Pseudomonas. Some targets are genus-wide and are typically related to central metabolism, whereas other targets are species-specific, or even unique to particular strains. Further study of these novel targets will enhance our understanding of how Pseudomonas bacteria integrate nutritional status cues with the regulation of traits that are of ecological, industrial and clinical importance.

Leadership modes: Success strategies for multicultural teams

Summary Organizing work in multicultural teams has gone from rhetoric to reality, leaving international organizations with challenging tasks and little strategic guidance. A wealth of multicultural team research reaches the conclusion that management matters, but less is known about team leadership. Drawing on recent leadership research, we focus on leadership modes and multicultural team composition. Two identified dimensions – ‘focused versus distributed leadership’ and ‘vertical versus horizontal leadership’ – are utilized to develop four leadership modes (‘single’, ‘paired’, ‘rotated‘, and ‘shared’). Multicultural team composition is examined in terms of ‘faultlines’ and ‘status cues’. We formulate propositions predicting which team leadership mode will enhance team outcomes given different multicultural team composition and we argue that leadership modes should be an informed strategic choice.

A Meta-Analysis of Gender Group Differences for Measures of Job Performance in Field Studies

There are multiple views in human resource management and organizational behavior concerning gender differences in measures of job performance. Some researchers suggest that males generally are evaluated higher than females across a variety of situations that include job performance measurement. At the same time, the presence of specific status cues in expectation states theory (EST; similar to the concept of individuating information) suggests that measures of job performance will be more similar than different for males and females. Previous analyses are unclear in their results for the measurement of the construct of job performance because they have included, and/or focused on, additional constructs (e.g., hiring suitability, leadership performance aggregated with leadership satisfaction) or have used student samples in lab experiments. The authors of this article conducted a meta-analysis of job performance measures from field studies. They found that females generally scored slightly higher than males (mean d = −.11, 80% credibility interval of −.33 to .12). Other analyses suggested that, although job performance ratings favored females, ratings of promotion potential were higher for males. Thus, ratings of promotability may deserve further attention as a potential source of differential promotion rates. These findings and processes are discussed within the context of EST.

Relational effects on knowledge integration: the differential effects on search and transfer

The paper investigates the effect of homophily and status differences on knowledge integration among individuals involved in product development activities. By distinguishing between search and transfer as two integral parts of the knowledge integration process, the paper addresses the question of how cognitive and motivational barriers to knowledge integration operate differently through the search and the transfer processes respectively. A study of 434 knowledge integration activities among 49 participants in four software development teams suggests that while search is directed both by homophily and by status differences among team participants, only status differences affect the perceived value of knowledge transfer activities. Further, the study indicates that there is not necessarily a correspondence between the status cues that direct search activities and the status cues that drive the perceived value of knowledge transfer activities among team participants.

Larger than Life: Humans' Nonverbal Status Cues Alter Perceived Size

BackgroundSocial dominance and physical size are closely linked. Nonverbal dominance displays in many non-human species are known to increase the displayer's apparent size. Humans also employ a variety of nonverbal cues that increase apparent status, but it is not yet known whether these cues function via a similar mechanism: by increasing the displayer's apparent size.Methodology/Principal FindingWe generated stimuli in which actors displayed high status, neutral, or low status cues that were drawn from the findings of a recent meta-analysis. We then conducted four studies that indicated that nonverbal cues that increase apparent status do so by increasing the perceived size of the displayer. Experiment 1 demonstrated that nonverbal status cues affect perceivers' judgments of physical size. The results of Experiment 2 showed that altering simple perceptual cues can affect judgments of both size and perceived status. Experiment 3 used objective measurements to demonstrate that status cues change targets' apparent size in the two-dimensional plane visible to a perceiver, and Experiment 4 showed that changes in perceived size mediate changes in perceived status, and that the cue most associated with this phenomenon is postural openness.Conclusions/SignificanceWe conclude that nonverbal cues associated with social dominance also affect the perceived size of the displayer. This suggests that certain nonverbal dominance cues in humans may function as they do in other species: by creating the appearance of changes in physical size.

Dominance and Submission: The Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex and Responses to Status Cues

Status hierarchies constitute a fundamental organizing principle of human society. However, little is known about the neural systems that process nonverbal cues that indicate status. Preliminary neuropsychological work has suggested a role for the ventrolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VLPFC/VMPFC) and the superior temporal cortex (STC). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to delineate the nature of these roles. Analyses revealed signal changes in the right VLPFC in connection with two primary functions attributed to status cues. Status cues moderate behavior and the right VLPFC showed increased signal for high-status relative to neutral and low-status cues. The VLPFC also showed increased signal for high-status cues displayed by individuals of the opposite gender to the perceiver; this may be relevant to the role status cues play in moderating mate choice behavior. Connectivity results indicated significant positive connectivity between the VLPFC and both the VMPFC and the STC. We suggest that the VLPFC retrieves information from these regions when processing hierarchy cues to facilitate socially adaptive behavior.

Debate practices in French political party forums

During the last French presidential election, political party web forums have become a major place of political debate. In order to evaluate the use of this e-governance technology, we analysed the three main party forums (Socialist, Conservative and Liberal) between November 2006 and April 2007. We analysed the total levels of participation and interactivity and the pragmatic features of a sample of 'political debate' threads. Our results point out the influence of institutional instructions on debate forms. The availability of status cues also seems to have specific effects as shown in the 'computer-mediated groups' studies.

The Impact of Language Variety and Expertise on Perceptions of Online Political Discussions

An experimental design was employed in the investigation of the impact of two status cues, language style and source expertise, on people's perceptions of online political discussants and their intentions and motivations to participate in local online political discussion fora. Specifically, the colloquial form of Singapore English, known as Singlish, was manipulated, together with information about the expertise of a discussant, in a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design, with the discussion issue manipulated as a within-subjects variable. Eighty undergraduates, 42 male and 38 female, participated in the study. Overall, the results of this study provide very limited support for the significant effects of status cues on perceptions and participation. The implications of the results of this study for theories of computer-mediated communication and linguistics in the context of the Internet are discussed.

The effects of the menstrual cycle on social decision making

The cyclic change in hormonal profiles between the two main phases of the menstrual cycle mediate shifts in mate preference. Males who advertise social dominance are preferred over other men by females in the follicular phase of the cycle. The present study explored assignment of high or low status resources to dominant looking men by females in either phase of the menstrual cycle. Thirteen females who reported that they were free from any kind of hormonal intervention and experienced a 28 day cycle, were invited to participate in a mock job negotiation scenario. Participants were asked to assign either a minimum, low, high or maximum social status job package to a series of male ‘employees’ that were previously rated to look either dominant or non-dominant. The results showed that during the follicular phase of the cycle participants assigned dominant looking men more high status job resources than the non-dominant looking men. However, during the luteal phase the participants assigned low status resources to the non-dominant looking men. Females are not merely passive observers of male status cues but actively manipulate the environment to assign status.

Status cues and the formation of expectations

This paper presents an elaboration and formalization of the theory of nonverbal cues and status ( Berger et al., 1986; Ridgeway et al., 1985) which is a theory within the expectation states theoretical research program. This elaboration and formalization also integrates the theory of nonverbal cues and status with the theory of status characteristics and expectation states ( Berger et al., 1977). The concepts of weak and strong cue gestalts generated by status cues, and a new kind status typification, that of apparent competence–incompetence, are introduced. The results of four experiments conducted in the Nemeth and Wachtler (1974) situation, and four experiments conducted in the standardized experimental situation of expectation states theory are examined and shown to be consistent with the formulation. Thus a more complete mathematical formulation of status organizing processes which now includes status cue processes as well as the processes formalized earlier, that is, status characteristics processes, behavior-expectation processes, and communicated evaluation processes has been obtained.

Status claims, performance expectations, and inequality in groups

We state and test two new theoretical assumptions regarding effects of explicit status claims upon others' performance expectations and the consequent group hierarchy: (1) that any such claim is aggregated with other status information, and (2) that the weight of the effect of a claim is a direct function of the status position of the person expressing it. Added to the core assumptions of theories of status generalization, the new assumptions account for phenomena also called “second-order expectations” and “status cues.” Results from a six-condition experimental test support the ideas, and permit comparing our assumptions with two variant mechanisms. We consider some uses of the extended theory, including interventions to control status effects within groups and legitimating and de-legitimating group hierarchies.

Recognizing and Utilizing Expertise in Work Groups: A Status Characteristics Perspective

This paper develops and tests a theory of expertise recognition and utilization in groups that focuses on the critical role of members' status cues as indicators of task expertise. The theory draws on status characteristics theory and past research on groups to propose that while attributions of expertise in work groups will be informed by both specific (i.e., task-relevant) and diffuse (i.e., social category) status cues, the strength of this association will be contingent on the type of cue as well as on characteristics of the group context. So, whereas specific status cues will better predict attributions of expertise in decentralized, longer-tenured groups, diffuse status cues will better predict attributions of expertise in centralized, shorter-tenured groups. Further, attributions of expertise should fully mediate the relationship between members' status cues and intragroup influence. A multilevel test of these hypotheses in a sample of self-managed production teams in a Fortune 100 high-technology firm provides strong support. Group-level analyses confirm that the alignment of intragroup influence with specific status cues is positively associated with group performance.

Effects of sex, sensitivity and status on cue recognition in the weakly electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus

Maintaining a stable social organization necessitates that animals recognize their own dominance status relative to the status of other group members. The weakly electric brown ghost knifefish emits a sexually dimorphic sinusoidal electric organ discharge (EOD) for electrolocation. Dominant males discharge at the highest and females at the lowest EOD frequencies (EODFs). Each individual is most sensitive to its own EODF, which can be modulated for communication. To examine how sensitivity and social status influence an individual's response to different cues, we recorded the electrical signals emitted by 10 males and seven females in response to playbacks of sine waves mimicking a wide range of con- and heterospecific EODFs. While all individuals emit small chirps (LoCs) mostly to stimuli around their own EODF, they are more likely to emit rises (gradual nonchirp signals) to frequencies to which they are less sensitive; males similarly emit larger chirps (HiCs) to frequencies more distant from their own, especially to female mimics. Males with ‘dominant’ EODFs are less likely to emit rises, stimuli in the female range elicit more rises from both sexes, and females emit rises to male EOD mimics. Although low-ranking male EOD mimics elicit more LoCs from all males, males with lower-ranking EODFs chirp less at high EOD mimics than males with high-ranking EODFs chirp at low EOD mimics. We conclude that (1) although much of the variation in an individual's response is attributable to its sensitivity, individuals recognize sexual and status cues and have some internal representation of their own social status, and (2) whereas LoCs appear to function in intrasexual aggression, HiCs and rises could be used in both courtship and submissive signalling. Copyright 2003 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The faces of desirable mates and dates contain mixed social status cues

Digitized images of adult faces were manipulated to test the effects of facial status cues on social perceptions and the desire to form relationships. Large, immature-looking eyes and mouths signaled submissiveness, whereas small, mature-looking eyes and mouths signaled dominance. As predicted, dominance cues made faces look less warm and submissiveness cues made faces look less powerful, relative to unchanged faces. Although feature manipulations successfully reduced the warmth and power of faces, they did not amplify them. Moreover, changed faces were judged as having less potential than unchanged faces as dates and mates, even when perceptions of normalcy, masculinity/femininity, and health were controlled. Further analyses suggested that normal faces optimize status cues thereby conveying a charismatic mix of warmth and power.

The Effect of Occupational Status Cues on Memory for Male and Female Targets

In an experiment examining the influence of status cues on memory, participants read trait descriptions and formed impressions of either four male or four female targets: two labeled as professors and two labeled as graduate students. They then attempted to recall which traits had described each target. Because pretests confirmed that professors were perceived as having higher status than graduate students, we predicted better recall for male professors than male graduate students. Pretesting also indicated that men were viewed as having higher status than women; consequently, we expected occupation cues to have less impact on the female target condition due to the lower status and possible lesser individuation of the female targets overall. As predicted, there were significantly fewer memory errors for male professors than for male graduate students; however, occupational status did not significantly affect memory for female targets.

Status, Power, and Legitimacy: Strategies and Theories

Status, Power, and Legitimacy presents methodological, theoretical, and empirical essays by Joseph Berger and Morris Zelditch, Jr.--two of the leading contributors to the Stanford tradition in the study of micropro-cesses. This three-part volume brings together major contributions to the development of this tradition, in addition to a number of newly written essays published here for the first time. Berger and Zelditch integrate the essays and relate them to a larger body of theory and research as they explore the importance of a generalizing orientation in sociology. Their view of theory as flux and process, the blending of social process with theory-building, produces a picture of the social world in line with the great tradition of George Herbert Mead, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel. Status, Power, and Legitimacy explores the relation between the scope of a theory and testing, applying, and developing it; the relation between abstract, general theories and empirical generalizations; and how to use an understanding of this relation to construct theories that are neither historically nor culturally bound. In the first part, Berger and Zelditch discuss strategies of theory construction, the development of abstract, general theories of social processes, and the different ways in which theories grow. Status processes are the focus of the second part, which includes: the formation of reward expectations; the role of status cues in interaction; the evolution of status expectations; and the application of status characteristics theory to male-female interaction. Lastly, the authors dissect power and legitimacy: the effect of expectations on power; the legitimation of power and its effect on the stability of authority; and legitimation under conditions of dissensus. This volume is a fine theoretical effort of great depth and breadth. Berger and Zelditch review the background of each paper, place the new concepts and principles introduced by each paper in context and examine subsequent research generated by the paper. They carve out new research areas in the social world of class, status, power, and authority. This volume will be of interest to those in the fields of sociology and, in particular, social theory.