The Formation and Spread of Status Beliefs

[摘要]本项目支持理论和实验工作，以推进未被评估的个人特征获得地位价值的既定理论。这一理论关注的是如何理解一个人的属性——比如眼睛的颜色或惯用手——如何具有社会价值和表现能力的内涵——就像现在我们社会中的性别和肤色所拥有的那样。在这项工作中，关注的是某些结构条件，如不同的财富，如何导致将地位价值附加到相关人员的显著特征上。该理论提出，经济不平等导致了特定的互动模式，而正是这些模式，在该理论规定的条件下，导致了对能力和能力缺乏的假设。然后，根据理论中指定的模式，推断出的能力差异会传播开来，从而形成对具有不同特征的个体的社会价值的一般理解。如果交互器在创建状态时质疑假定的状态评估，则状态创建过程可能会被阻塞。换句话说，该理论认为，互动模式可以创造局部现实，在这种现实中，分类差异得到了双方同意的评估。这个实验将检验这个论点。四人小组的参与者会无意中听到一名队友对待另一名队友的方式，该理论认为这种方式可以推断出地位差异。第三个队友将支持或挑战影响力等级。如果这个理论是正确的，那么社会支持将导致地位的创造，而挑战将阻碍地位的创造。研究结果将用于修正PI和她的学生在过去十年中一直在发展的地位建构理论。

AbstractSES 9911331Cecilia L Ridgeway This project supports theoretical and experimental work to advance an established theory of the ways in which unevaluated personal characteristics can acquire status value. The theory is concerned with understanding how a property of an individual-say, eye color or handedness-can take on connotations of social worth and performance capacities-such as those now possessed by gender and skin color in our society. In this work, the concern is how certain structural conditions, such as differing wealth, can lead to attaching status value to distinguishing characteristics of the people involved. The theory proposes that economic inequality leads to specific interaction patterns, and it is those patterns that can, under conditions specified by the theory, lead to presumptions of ability and its lack. The inferred ability differences then spread, according to patterns specified in the theory, to create general understandings regarding the social value of individuals possessing differentiating characteristics. The status creation process can be blocked if an interactant challenges the presumed status valuation while it is being created. In other words, the theory argues that interaction patterns can create local realities where categorical difference becomes consensually evaluated. The experiment will test that argument. Participants in four-person teams will overhear a teammate treat another teammate in ways the theory claims should lead to inferences about status difference. A third teammate will either support or challenge the influence hierarchy. If the theory is correct, social support will lead to status creation, and challenge will block it. Results will be used to modify the theory of status construction that the PI and her students have been developing over the past decade.