The Social Construction of Status Value

人们对个人的地位价值，即个人的能力和价值持有一致的信念。然而，令人费解的是，这些信仰往往主要基于这些人所属的无序或名义上的类别，如性别和种族。该提案审查了可获得这种协商一致的地位价值的互动过程。一种理论认为，如果给定的名义特征与经济资源的分布之间存在关联，它就会限制人口内部的面对面互动。在资源和名义特征上不同的人之间的接触中，这些限制导致了该特征和身份类型信念之间的关联。当个人将这种身份关联带到其他接触中并根据它对待人时，对互动的结构性限制允许它广泛扩散，并成为双方同意的。具体地说，将进行两个实验来验证这一理论。第一个实验将显示，与具有不同薪酬水平和不同名义特征的人共事的个人参与者是否会形成预期状态，然后转移到以后的情况，即该个人与其他人只在名义特征上不同，而在薪酬水平上没有差异。第二个实验考察了这一过程的一个更“高级”阶段，探索在哪些情况下，名义特征可能会获得较低的地位价值，即使对于那些获得了较高资源价值的人来说也是如此。该项目将有助于更好地了解微观社会进程与反映宏观社会经济安排的资源分配之间的联系。它还将为关注不平等和公平问题的研究人员和政策制定者提供信息。

People hold consensual beliefs about the status value, that is, about the competence and worthiness, of individuals. It is puzzling, however, that these beliefs are often based largely upon the unordered or nominal categories, such as gender and ethnicity, to which these individuals belong. This proposal examines the interactive processes by which such consensual status values may be acquired. A theory is proposed that argues that if a correlation occurs between a given nominal characteristic and the distribution of economic resources, it constrains face-to-face interaction within the population. In encounters between people differing in both resources and the nominal characteristic, these constraints lead to an association between that characteristic and status-type beliefs. When individuals bring this status association to other encounters and treat people according to it, the structural constraints on interaction allow it to diffuse widely, and it becomes consensual. Specifically, two experiments will be conducted to test this theory. The first experiment will show whether or not an individual participant who works with a person who has a different pay level and a different nominal characteristic will form expectations states which then transfer to a later situation where that individual differs from the other person only in nominal characteristics but not in pay level. A second experiment examines a more "advanced" stage of the process, exploring situations in which the nominal characteristic might acquire low status value even for people who have obtained a high value of the resource. This project will contribute better understanding of the linkage between social processes at the micro-level and the distribution of resources reflecting social and economic arrangements at the macro-level. It will also provide information for researchers and policy makers who are concerned with issues of inequality and equity.