Creating and Transferring Status Beliefs

SES-0417404塞西莉亚·L.广泛共享的地位信念是组织地位不平等的关键，无论是社会中的社会群体之间，如职业，种族或性别，还是个人之间。 地位信念是一种文化信念，它将更大的社会价值和一般能力与属于公认的社会差异的一类人（例如，专业人士，白人，男性）比那些属于另一个类别的差异（劳动者，有色人种，女性）。 广泛持有的地位信念不仅标志着社会中不同群体在文化上的尊重和荣誉，而且还塑造了个体之间发展的地位等级。 地位信念是如何形成的？ 虽然可能有很多方法，但地位建构理论提出了一套足以创造、传播、维持或潜在破坏关于广泛认可的社会差异的地位信念的过程。 这个项目旨在通过测试身份建构理论的一个中心论点来增加我们对社会差异的身份信念是如何产生和在社会中传播的知识。 该理论认为，来自不同社会类别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。 在这样的遭遇中，参与者有可能将他们在遭遇中的影响力和尊重与他们的社会差异联系起来，无论其真正来源如何，并形成关于差异的地位信念。 一旦人们形成这样的信念，他们就携带（即，转移）他们与其他类别的人的后续遭遇。 通过根据新的地位信念对待他人，人们至少将这些信念传授给其他一些人，创造了一个在人群中传播信念的扩散过程。 在该理论所规定的结构条件下，这可能导致人们对社会差异产生广泛认同的地位信念。以前的研究表明，人们确实会在与社会上不同的其他人相遇时形成地位信念，如果他们将这些信念转移到随后的相遇中，他们就可以像该理论所认为的那样将它们传播给其他人。 但是，人们是否会自发地将新的地位信念从一次遭遇转移到另一次遭遇，就像如果广泛持有的地位信念要在人群中出现，他们就必须这样做一样？本研究将分两个阶段进行。 在第一阶段，受薪大学生志愿者将被诱导形成社会差异的地位信念，方法是复制先前研究中产生这种效果的程序。在第二阶段，一两天后，这些受试者将与来自另一个社会群体的新伙伴一起工作。 受试者对新伴侣的顺从和影响行为将表明他们是否已经将自己的地位信念转移到新的相遇中，正如该理论所认为的那样。除了解决一个重要的社会问题外，这项研究还将产生几个更广泛的影响。 它将促进教育和培训，涉及一名研究生和多达十几名本科生作为实验者，同盟者，编程者和编码者。 与以往的相关项目一样，预计这些学生中有3名或3名以上是少数种族或族裔，约一半是妇女。 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.