When Does Status Transfer between People? A Crowdsourced Experiment on the Scope of Status by Association

It is well known in social psychology that people are judged by the company they keep, but when and how does that company affect how individuals are evaluated? This article extends expectation states theory to explain associative status. The theory predicts that the status value of former coworkers will “spill over” to positively predict a person’s status position in a new task with new coworkers. A series of crowdsourced experiments finds that status spreads to a person from a former interaction partner. The status of one’s associates predicts deference behavior only when the previous and current task contexts rely on similar abilities. Meanwhile, explicitly evaluated status and performance expectations respond to the status of associates regardless of how interaction contexts are related. The present findings highlight the importance of role relationships and task contexts as moderators that regulate whether status transfers from one person to another.

Can You Really Study an Army on the Internet? Comparing How Status Tasks Perform in the Laboratory and Online Settings

Laboratory experiments have a long history within sociology, with their ability to test causality and their utility for directly observing behavior providing key advantages. One influential social psychological field, status characteristics and expectation states theory, has almost exclusively used laboratory experiments to test the theory. Unfortunately, laboratory experiments are resource intensive, requiring a research pool, laboratory space, and considerable amounts of time. For these and other reasons, social scientists are increasingly exploring the possibility of moving experiments from the lab to an online platform. Despite the advantages of the online setting, the transition from the lab is challenging, especially when studying behavior. In this project, we develop methods to translate the traditional status characteristics experimental setting from the laboratory to online. We conducted parallel laboratory and online behavioral experiments using three tasks from the status literature, comparing each task’s ability to differentiate on the basis of status distinctions. The tasks produce equivalent results in the online and laboratory environment; however, not all tasks are equally sensitive to status differences. Finally, we provide more general guidance on how to move vital aspects of laboratory studies, such as debriefing, suspicion checks, and scope condition checks, to the online setting.

The Elephant in the Room: Examining the Connections between Humility and Social Status

Humility is most frequently discussed as a socially-valuable trait, and being perceived as humble is generally considered beneficial. Although there has been extensive scholarship expounding the concept of humility, previous work has yet to fully examine the role(s) of social status and stratification in regards to the perception of others’ humility and being humble. In this sense, there is an elephant in the room that must be acknowledged in order to advance humility theory. In this paper, we provide brief overviews of humility, social status and stratification, and utilize expectation states theory as a flashlight to explore the potential connections between humility and social status from a more sociological perspective. We then showcase where the “elephant” may be hiding in the humility literature (focusing specifically on race and gender), attempting to shed light on potential next steps for future research

Gender, motherhood, and the perception of just earnings: Results of a multifactorial (vignette) study

Gender pay gaps and wage penalties for mothers are well-established phenomena. Their persistence may be partially explained by the fact that the unequal distribution of rewards between genders is often perceived as just and legitimate. The goal of our study was to establish to what extent and under what conditions motherhood and fatherhood status affect perceptions of just inequalities. Using expectation states theories, we predicted that there would be greater acceptance of the unequal distribution of rewards between women and men with the same job experience in top-level occupations compared with bottom and mid level occupations. We also predicted that being a male or female parent would further accentuate the relationship between gender and occupational prestige, leading to acceptance of even greater income gaps between mothers and fathers. A vignette study conducted in 2017 on a representative sample of Polish respondents active in the labor force, which yielded approximately 38,000 observations, provides evidence partially conforming to our predictions. That is, willingness to tolerate differences in just earnings for men and women is higher in the high occupational status categories than in the medium and low occupational status categories. The effects of parenthood are less clear. Although the legitimized difference in earnings varies by age and parenthood status, we found rather moderate levels of motherhood penalties and much higher premiums for fatherhood, especially at the early stages of men’s careers. In addition, contrary to our predictions, mothers in high-prestige occupations were not penalized more than mothers in low and medium prestige occupations. Perceptions of legitimized inequalities between genders were independent of respondents’ characteristics.

Sentiments as Status Processes? A Theoretical Reformulation from the Expectation States Tradition

Do the ties that bind also create social inequality? Using an expectation states theoretical framework, we elaborate status characteristics and behavior-status theories to explore how sentiments, network connections based on liking and disliking, may affect processes entailing status, the prestige based on one’s differentially valued social distinctions. Within task groups, we theorize that positive and negative sentiments may themselves be status elements capable of evoking performance expectations within dyadic configurations typically modeled by expectation states theorists. Having a reputation for being liked or disliked “imported” into the group may enact status generalization. Alternatively, a status element based on sentiments may emerge during task group interaction as group members ascertain if alters are liked or disliked. Finally, we conclude by discussing how our theorizing motivates future theories and empirical studies.

Judging severity of unethical workplace behavior: Attractiveness and gender as status characteristics

This research focuses on the role of gender and physical attractiveness in judging severity of unethical workplace behavior. Scenarios with possible ethical dilemmas (commonly referred to as “gray areas” of behavior) were displayed to 4,483 subjects. Our findings show that “gray area” behavior was evaluated as more ethical if performed by male employees compared with women. We also found that attractiveness moderated the connection between gender and tolerance toward unethical work behavior. People judge more severely the same unethical action by plain-looking employees rather than attractive-looking employees, in accordance with the attractiveness-leniency effect—but only for women perpetrators. The physical attributes of men were not found to be relevant. We explore a number of explanations for this discrimination based on Expectation States Theory and Social Role Theory. JEL CLASSIFICATION: C91; J71.

Gender in Coed Team Sports: A Social Psychological Perspective

Coed team sports typically offer different experiences for women and men. Though scholars have documented gender imbalances in participation within such teams, the social psychological processes at play and the broader consequences of unequal participation have rarely been explored. In this paper, the authors revisit coed team sports through the lens of status construction theory and expectation states theory to suggest that coed teams reinforce gendered notions of worth, prestige, and competence in the field of sport. The authors draw on research showing that mixed-sex settings where people must cooperate to achieve a common goal are especially prone to the reproduction of gender stereotypes. This paper builds bridges between two subfields of sociology and illuminates gender dynamics in a coed sport that has not been previously studied (futsal).

Gendered hate speech in YouTube and YouNow comments: Results of two content analyses

Online hate speech in general, and gendered online hate speech in particular, have become an issue of growing concern both in public and academic discourses. However, although YouTube is the most important social media platform today and the popularity of social live streaming services (SLSS) such as Twitch, Periscope and YouNow is constantly growing, research on gendered online hate speech on video platforms is scarce. To bridge this empirical gap, two studies investigated gendered online hate speech in video comments on YouTube and YouNow, thereby systematically replicating a study by Wotanis and McMillan (2014). Study 1 investigated YouTube in the form of a content analysis of N = 8,000 publicly available video comments that were addressed towards four pairs of female and male German-speaking YouTubers within the popular genres Comedy, Gaming, HowTo & Style, and Sports [Fitness]. Study 2 examined YouNow, with a quantitative content analysis of N = 6,844 publicly available video comments made during the video streams of 16 female and 14 male popular German-speaking YouNowers. Study 1 successfully replicated the findings of Wotanis and McMillan (2014) that compared to male You-Tubers, female YouTubers received more negative video comments (including sexist, racist, and sexually aggressive hate speech) (H1a). In addition, they received fewer positive video comments regarding personality and video content but more positive video comments regarding physical appearance (H2a). Study 2 partly confirmed the earlier findings: It found that, compared to male YouNowers, the video comments received by female YouNowers were more sexist and sexually aggressive, but not generally more hostile or negative (H1b). They received more positive video comments regarding their physical appearance but did not receive fewer positive video comments regarding their personality or the content of their videos (H2b). With some exceptions, the findings of study 2 were comparable to the findings of study 1 (RQ1). In both studies, most effect sizes were small. Overall, females on the video platforms YouTube and YouNow seem to be disproportionately affected by both hostile and benevolent sexism expressed in viewer comments. The results are in line with the Expectation States Theory and the Ambivalent Sexism Theory. The total number of public hate comments was probably underestimated because inappropriate comments can be deleted by moderators and users. Future research directions and practical implications are discussed. Supplementary material can be retrieved from https://osf.io/da8tw

Cracking the Black Box: Capturing the Role of Expectation States in Status Processes

A fundamental task for sociology is to uncover the mechanisms that produce and reproduce social inequalities. While status characteristics theory is the favored account of how social status contributes independently to the maintenance of inequality, it hinges on an unobserved construct, expectation states, in the middle of the causal chain between status and behavior. Efforts to test the mediation mechanism have been complicated by the implicit, often unconscious, nature of status expectations. To solve this “black box” problem, we offer a new conceptualization and research approach that capitalizes on the accuracy and precision of neurological measurement to shed new light on the biasing role of expectations in the status–behavior relationship. Results from an experimental study provide a unique illustration of ways in which social status is inscribed in the brain and how, in turn, these inscriptions are related to behavioral inequalities that emerge during interaction.