Creating and Transferring Status Beliefs

Cecilia L.Ridgeway斯坦福大学广泛共享的地位信念是组织地位不平等的关键，无论是在社会群体之间，如职业、种族或性别之间，还是在个人之间。地位信仰是一种文化信仰，它将更大的社会价值和一般能力与属于一种公认的社会差异类别的人(例如，专业人士、白人、男性)联系在一起，而不是属于另一种差异类别的人(劳工、有色人种、女性)。广泛持有的地位信念不仅标志着对社会不同群体的文化上的尊重和尊重，还塑造了在个人之间发展起来的地位等级制度。身份信念是如何发展起来的？虽然可能有许多方法，但地位建构理论提出了一套足以创造、传播、维持或潜在地破坏关于广泛承认的社会差异的地位信念的过程。这个项目试图通过测试地位构建理论的一个中心论点来增加我们对社会差异的地位信念是如何产生和传播的知识。该理论认为，来自不同社会阶层的人之间的日常接触是关于社会差异的地位信念发展和传播的重要背景。在这样的相遇中，参与者有机会将他们在相遇中的影响和尊重与他们的社会差异联系起来，无论其真正来源是什么，并形成对这种差异的地位信念。一旦人们形成了这样的信念，他们就会把它们带到后来与其他类别的人的相遇中。通过根据新的地位信念对待其他人，人们将这些信念传授给至少一些其他人，创造了一个扩散过程，在人群中传播这些信念。在该理论规定的结构条件下，这可能导致关于社会差异的广泛共享的地位信念以前的研究表明，人们确实从与社会不同的其他人的相遇中形成地位信念，如果他们将这些信念转移到随后的相遇中，他们可以像该理论所主张的那样，将这些信念传播给其他人。但人们会自发地将新的地位信念从一次相遇转移到另一次相遇中吗？如果广泛持有的地位信念要在人群中出现，他们就必须这样做。将进行两个阶段的实验来研究这个问题。在第一阶段，受雇的本科生志愿者将被诱导形成对社会差异的地位信念，方法是复制以前研究中产生这种影响的程序。在一两天后的第二阶段，这些受试者将与来自另一个社会群体的新伙伴合作。受试者对新伴侣的顺从和影响行为将表明他们是否像该理论所说的那样，将自己的地位信念转移到新的邂逅中。这项研究除了解决一个重大的社会问题外，还将产生几个更广泛的影响。它将通过让一名研究生和多达12名本科生作为实验者、联盟成员、调度员和程序员来促进教育和培训。与以前的相关项目一样，预计这些学生中将有3人或更多是少数族裔，大约一半将是女性。所有人都将接受第一手的研究培训。研究结果将在社会学期刊和学术报告中广泛传播。

SES-0417404Cecilia L. RidgewayStanford UniversityWidely shared status beliefs are the key to the organization of status inequality, whether it be between social groups in society, such as occupations, races, or the sexes, or between individuals. Status beliefs are cultural beliefs that associate greater social worthiness and general competence with people who belong to one category of a recognized social difference (e.g., professional, whites, men) than those who belong to another category of that difference (laborers, people of color, women). Not only do widely held status beliefs signal the respect and honor culturally attached to different groups in society, they also shape the status hierarchies that develop among individuals. How do status beliefs develop? Although there may be many ways, status construction theory proposes one set of processes that are sufficient to create, spread, maintain, or potentially undermine status beliefs about a widely recognized social difference. This project seeks to increase our knowledge of how status beliefs about social differences are created and spread in society by testing a central argument of status construction theory. The theory argues that everyday encounters between people from different social categories are important contexts for the development and spread of status beliefs about social differences. In such encounters, there is a chance that participants will associate their influence and esteem in the encounter, whatever its true source, with their social difference and form status beliefs about the difference. Once people form such beliefs, they carry (i.e., transfer) them to their subsequent encounters with those from the other category. By treating others according to the new status beliefs, people teach these beliefs to at least some others, creating a diffusion process that spreads the beliefs through the population. Under structural conditions specified by the theory, this can lead to widely shared status beliefs about the social difference Previous research has shown that people do form status beliefs from encounters with socially different others and that if they transfer these beliefs to subsequent encounters, they can spread them to others as the theory argues But do people spontaneously transfer new status beliefs from one encounter to another, as they must if widely held status beliefs are to emerge in the population? A two-phase experiment will conducted to study this question. In the first phase, paid undergraduate volunteers will be induced to form status beliefs about a social difference by replicating procedures from previous studies that had that effect. In the second phase a day or two later, these subjects will work with a new partner from the other social group. Subjects' deference and influence behavior toward the new partner will indicate whether they have transferred their status beliefs to the new encounter, as the theory argues.The research will has several broader impacts in addition to addressing a significant social issue. It will promote education and training by involving a graduate student and up to a dozen undergraduates as experimenters, confederates, schedulers, and coders. As in previous related projects, 3 or more of these students are expected to be racial or ethnic minorities and about half will be women. All will receive first hand research training. Results of the research will be disseminated broadly in sociological journals and scholarly presentations.