How Status Transfers from Task Groups to Informal Groups

• In Event: Social Psychological Theory

Abstract

While much research has focused on how status dynamics play out in task-focused settings like formal meetings, comparatively little research has given attention to how differing interactional contexts affect behavioral inequality. I draw on status characteristics theory to develop a theoretical model explicating the process through which status effects that arise in task settings transfer to informal social settings. Existing theories of status processes explain status inequality in contexts in which groups convene for a relatively short period of time and whose members are unlikely to interact with each other again (e.g., jury groups). I test the argument that when group members anticipate a future task-related interaction, they are motivated to maintain the group status structure during informal interaction, even when task considerations are seemingly irrelevant. I conduct a laboratory experiment to determine if status structures in task settings transfer to informal settings a) if actors anticipate working together again and b) if task-based interactions occur first. Pilot results show findings in the predicted direction. In conditions in which participants expected a future task interaction, the status effect diminishes but remains in informal settings. In conditions in which participants do not expect a future task interaction, the status effect disappears. These findings show that anticipation of a future task interaction leads people to maintain, in some part, the status structures that are relevant to task interactions even when engaged in informal interaction. This contributes to social psychological perspectives on the replication of inequality by expanding the explanatory scope of expectation states into informal social interaction.

Author

• Zara Jillani, University of Georgia