你能看见我的努力吗：社会地位感知对消费者繁简偏好的影响

文章通过5个实验(包括1个预注册实验)探讨了个体感知到的相对社会地位如何影响消费者对产品繁简设计的偏好。实验1和2发现处于相对低社会地位的个体会偏好设计繁复的产品。实验3和4探究了该效应的中介机制, 即繁复设计的产品可以传递出努力线索, 而相对低社会地位个体因为重视努力进而偏好繁复设计产品。实验5通过调节变量的方式进一步验证上述机制, 发现社会地位对繁简偏好的影响只存在于那些重视努力价值的个体身上。文章推进了消费者审美偏好, 主观社会地位和消费者努力等方向的研究进展。     

Asymmetric Explanations of Group Differences: Experimental Evidence of Foucault’s Disciplinary Power

Whilst the same group differences can be explained in many ways, explanations of group differences tend to spontaneously figure the distinctive attributes of lower‐status groups against a background norm of high‐status groups’ attributes. We suggest that this asymmetry occurs in the explanations of scientists and laypeople who have been influenced by the history of ‘disciplinary power’ which works to disempower lower‐status people by making them visible to the human sciences. We argue that social groups who are habitually studied first in research programs, more commonly encountered social groups, and prototypical social groups are all less likely than their counterparts to be marked in spontaneous explanations of empirical group differences. We present evidence that groups who are explicitly mentioned in such explanations are assumed to be lower in power. We describe some limitations to current knowledge about such asymmetric explanations and suggest some directions for further research, including our thoughts about how to integrate existing findings with the possibility of formulating cognitive alternatives to the status quo among minority groups.     

Relative deprivation based on occupation: An effective predictor of Chinese life satisfaction

Relative deprivation (RD) refers to the fact that individuals may feel deprived of some desirable thing in social comparison relative to a reference group. Occupational group is widely recognized as the essential reference group and generally used to compare differences in earnings and social position. Four waves' data from the Social Attitudes Survey of Urban‐Rural Residents (China) (SAS‐C; 2005/2007/2008/2009) were used to compute to Stewart's new measure of RD for different occupational groups and its relationship to life satisfaction (a cognitive component of subjective well‐being). Results showed that both economic RD (defined as individuals' RD of material benefits, such as income, wealth etc.) and social status RD (defined as individuals' RD on their evaluation of social status) consistently predicted Chinese life satisfaction for a period of time from 2005 to 2009; meanwhile, individual economic RD was moderately correlated to social status RD. The effects of RD and some demographic variables on life satisfaction are discussed and possible improvements for future research are suggested.     

Solo status revisited: Examining racial group differences in the self-regulatory consequences of self-presenting as a racial solo

The present study examined the impact of racial group membership on the self-regulatory consequences of self-presenting with racial solo status. Based on the strength model of self-regulation, we proposed that individuals who acquire more practice with solo status by virtue of their racial group membership, may find it less depleting relative to individuals with less practice. To examine this, White and racial minority (Black, Hispanic) students at a predominantly White university were asked to engage in a self-presentation task in which they were assigned either racial solo or nonsolo status. Persistence on a subsequent hidden objects task served as the measure of depletion. Results revealed an interaction between racial group membership and solo status. In particular, consistent with previous research, White participants were more depleted (i.e., persisted less) after self-presenting with solo (vs. nonsolo) status. Racial minority participants, however, were not similarly impaired by solo status. These results suggest that our social group memberships, by virtue of the experiences they typically confer, may play an important role in determining which social demands will be depleting for whom.     

The perceived value of team players: a longitudinal study of how group identification affects status in work groups

Theory and research on status attainment in work groups primarily focuses on members’ abilities and characteristics that make them appear competent as predictors of their status in the group. We complement the abilities perspective with a social identity perspective by arguing that another important determinant of a member’s status is based on the extent to which the member serves the group’s interests. Specifically, we assert that a member’s identification with the group affects performance on behalf of the group, which in turn affects other members’ assessment of the member’s status. We test this social identity perspective on status attainment by studying the influence of members’ group identification on their performance and status in the group, while controlling for the members’ abilities and status characteristics. In a three-wave longitudinal field study following 33 work groups during a six-month group project, we find that members’ identification enhances their performance on behalf of the group, which in turn increases their status within the group. As such, our study advances insights in the determinants of status attainment in work groups and points to the relevance of the social identity approach for research on the antecedents of status in work groups.     

Status‐based expectancies for aggression,with regard to gender differences in aggression in social psychological research

Meta‐analyses of social psychological research have identified gender differences in aggression [Bettencourt and Miller, 1996; Eagly and Steffen, 1986], which have been understood to date in terms of social role theory [Eagly, 1987]. The present studies examined the hypothesis that women's lower status relative to men can account for these observed differences. Participants in Study 1 were presented low‐ and high‐status targets, with status unconfounded with gender, and reported their perceptions of these targets' aggression. Perceptions were for features addressed in the meta‐analyses. As expected, low‐ relative to high‐status individuals were generally perceived in a manner analogous to how women relative to men are portrayed in the meta‐analyses. Participants in Study 2 reported on their perceptions of women's and men's aggression; findings also generally conformed to those of the meta‐analyses. Findings are discussed in terms of a status account of gender. Aggr. Behav. 31:000–000, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The effect of group status on children's hierarchy-reinforcing beliefs

Members of advantaged groups are more likely than members of disadvantaged groups to think, feel, and behave in ways that reinforce their group's position within the hierarchy. This study examined how children's status within a group-based hierarchy shapes their beliefs about the hierarchy and the groups that comprise it in ways that reinforce the hierarchy. To do this, we randomly assigned children (4–8 years; N = 123; 75 female, 48 male; 21 Asian, 9 Black, 21 Latino/a, 1 Middle-Eastern/North-African, 14 multiracial, 41 White, 16 not-specified) to novel groups that differed in social status (advantaged, disadvantaged, neutral third-party) and assessed their beliefs about the hierarchy. Across five separate assessments, advantaged-group children were more likely to judge the hierarchy to be fair, generalizable, and wrong to challenge and were more likely to hold biased intergroup attitudes and exclude disadvantaged group members. In addition, with age, children in both the advantaged- and disadvantaged-groups became more likely to see membership in their own group as inherited, while at the same time expecting group-relevant behaviors to be determined more by the environment. With age, children also judged the hierarchy to be more unfair and expected the hierarchy to generalize across contexts. These findings provide novel insights into how children's position within hierarchies can contribute to the formation of hierarchy-reinforcing beliefs.

Research Highlights

• A total of 123 4–8-year-olds were assigned to advantaged, disadvantaged, and third-party groups within a hierarchy and were assessed on seven hierarchy-reinforcing beliefs about the hierarchy.
• Advantaged children were more likely to say the hierarchy was fair, generalizable, and wrong to challenge and to hold intergroup biases favoring advantaged group members.
• With age, advantaged- and disadvantaged-group children held more essentialist beliefs about membership in their own group, but not the behaviors associated with their group.
• Results suggest that advantaged group status can shape how children perceive and respond to the hierarchies they are embedded within.

     

Punishing hubris: the perils of overestimating one's status in a group

Individuals engage in status self-enhancement when they form an overly positive perception of their status in a group. We argue that status self-enhancement incurs social costs and, therefore, most individuals perceive their status accurately. In contrast, theories of positive illusions suggest status self-enhancement is beneficial for the individual and that most individuals overestimate their status. We found supportive evidence for our hypotheses in a social relations analysis of laboratory groups, an experiment that manipulated status self-enhancement, and a study of real-world groups. Individuals who engaged in status self-enhancement were liked less by others and paid less for their work. Moreover, individuals tended to perceive their status highly accurately. Mediation analyses showed that status self-enhancers were socially punished because they were seen as disruptive to group processes.     

Group status, perceptions of threat, and support for social inequality

Members of high-status groups have been shown to favor social inequality, but little research has investigated the boundary conditions of this phenomenon. In the present article we suggest that perceived intergroup threat moderates the relationship between group status and support for social inequality (i.e., social dominance orientation), especially among highly identified group members. In Study 1, Democrats and Republicans rated their party’s relative status and were later exposed to a leading US. Presidential candidate from the opposing party (high threat) or their own party (low threat). In Study 2, university students were made to believe that their school had high or low status and were then presented with threatening or non-threatening information about a rival institution. The results of both studies supported the prediction that status only increases preferences for group-based inequality under conditions of high threat and high ingroup identification.     

Social Identity and Intergroup Conflict

This paper explores why people identify with social groups and what this identification signifies for their sense of self, status in society and intergroup conflict. We describe various theories of social identity to elucidate ways in which individuals can negotiate their different social identities, and what this means for intergroup relations. We consider the implications for both majority and minority group members, and those from high and low status groups. We show that social identification is an essential part of an individual’s social existence, and that such identification is inextricably related to intergroup conflict. While overarching common identities have been hailed as a possible panacea for conflict, we demonstrate that such identities have differential effects for minority and majority group members. There is a serious tension between the assimilationist preference that the majority wishes for minority members to adopt, and the integrationist position that the minority group themselves prefer. We conclude with a call to focus research efforts on how to balance the needs of the many and the few in pluralist and unequal societies.     

Sex differences in interaction style as a product of perceived sex differences in competence

Males' and females' interaction styles were observed while they worked in four-person, mixed-sex groups on a discussion task. In some groups, members were only given information about each others' names and gender. In this circumstance, men were perceived by themselves and other group members to be higher in competence than women. Further, men engaged in a greater amount of active task behavior than women (e.g., giving information, giving opinions), and women exhibited a greater amount of positive social behavior than men (e.g., agreeing, acting friendly). In other groups, members' competency-based status was manipulated by providing false feedback that they were high or low relative to their group in intellectual and moral aptitude. High status members were then perceived to be more competent than low status ones and, further, high status individuals engaged in more active task and less positive social behavior than low status ones. In this condition, no sex differences were obtained on perceived competence or on active task or positive social behavior. Overall, these findings support the idea that the gender differences obtained in interaction when status was not specified were partially a function of group members' belief that the sexes differ in competence. Direct information concerning members' intellectual and moral competence apparently blocked the perceived gender-to-competence link, and status alone affected perceived competence and interaction style.     

消费决策过程如何彰显社会地位?基于最优化决策策略的视角

彰显社会地位是消费者行为的一项基本动机。以往的消费心理学研究大量聚焦产品特征如何彰显社会地位(即令观察者产生高社会地位的推断), 却很少探讨消费决策过程这一购买决策中不可忽视的重要因素对社会地位推断有何影响。本研究试图构建一个基于最优化决策过程信息的社会地位推断模型, 系统探讨: (1)最优化决策过程能否及如何彰显消费者的社会地位; (2)彰显社会地位动机是否为消费者进行最优化决策的原因之一; (3)最优化决策过程如何通过社会地位推断影响观察者后续的消费行为。本研究将为社会地位推断研究提供新的视角, 扩展最优化决策研究的外延, 并从全新的角度揭示最优化决策的内涵。     

Investigating whether group status modulates the relationship between individual differences in epistemic motivation and political conservatism

Previous research has found that individual differences in epistemic motivation predict political conservatism. However, meta-analyses indicate substantial heterogeneity in this association and such variation remains underexamined. Using a large, pre-existing dataset, we investigated whether group status—a group’s social value—modulates this relationship. We used several assessments of epistemic motivation (need for structure, need for cognition) and group status (race, gender, social class). We found that the epistemic motivation-ideology relationship was stronger for women (versus men) and for members of lower (versus higher) social class groups, although the relationship strength differences were relatively small. The relationship did not consistently vary across racial group status. Group status appears to be a small, but not consistent, moderator of the epistemic motivation-ideology relationship.     

Personal and Political: Post-Traumatic Stress Through the Lens of Social Identity,Power, and Politics

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has always been controversial and highly politicized. Here, using a social identity approach, we review evidence that trauma and its aftermath are fundamentally linked to social position, sociopolitical capital, and power. We begin this contribution by demonstrating how a person's group memberships (and the social identities they derive from these memberships) are inherently linked to the experience of adversity. We then go on to consider how it is through group memberships that individuals are defined by their trauma risk and trauma histories—that is, a person's group memberships and their trauma are often inherently linked. Considering the importance of group memberships for understanding trauma, we argue that it is important to see these, and group processes more generally, as more than just “demographic” risk factors. Instead, we argue that when groups are defined by their trauma history or risk, their members will often derive some sense of self from this trauma. For this reason, attributes of group memberships are important in developing an understanding of adjustment and adaptation to trauma. In particular, groups' status, their recourse to justice, and the level of trust and solidarity within the group are all central to the impact of traumatic events on individual-level psychological resilience. We review evidence that supports this analysis by focusing on the exacerbating effects of stigma and social mistrust on post-traumatic stress, and the value of solidarity and strong identities for resilience. We conclude that because of these group-related processes, trauma interweaves the personal with the political and that post-traumatic stress is fundamentally about power, positionality, and politics.     

Who is a thinker? With age,higher SES American children increasingly associate social status with divisions in labour

This exploratory report investigates how children, aged 6- to 12-years, reason about divisions in labour. It focuses on understanding when in development children might associate higher status groups with intellectual as opposed to physical labour. It explores this question by introducing a sample of mostly mid/high-SES American children to a novel factory setting and then asking them who is likely to have one of two jobs: a ‘builder’ (physical labour), or ‘thinker’ (intellectual labour) job. Older children were more likely than younger children to associate an individual's higher social status with intellectual labour work as opposed to physical labour work. Children also explained their reasoning, and with age their explanations focused more on social factors like the role of access to ‘choices’ or opportunities in shaping the nature of others' work.     

Knowing your place: self-perceptions of status in face-to-face groups

Status is the prominence, respect, and influence individuals enjoy in the eyes of others. Theories of positive illusions suggest that individuals form overly positive perceptions of their status in face-to-face groups. In contrast, the authors argue that individuals' perceptions of their status are highly accurate--that is, they closely match the group's perception of their status--because forming overly positive status self-perceptions can damage individuals' acceptance in a group. Therefore, the authors further argue that individuals are likely to refrain from status self-enhancement to maintain their belongingness in a group. Support for their hypotheses was found in 2 studies of status in face-to-face groups, using a social relations model approach (D. A. Kenny & L. La Voie, 1984). Individuals showed high accuracy in perceiving their status and even erred on the side of being overly humble. Moreover, enhancement in status self-perceptions was associated with lower levels of social acceptance.     

Social anxiety and the shame of psychosis: a study in first episode psychosis

Social anxiety disorder (SaD) or social phobia is a co-morbid affective disorder in schizophrenia, present in up to one in three individuals. We employ 'social rank' theory to predict that one pathway to social anxiety in schizophrenia is triggered by the anticipation of a catastrophic loss of social status that the stigma of schizophrenia can entail. A group of 79 people with a first episode of psychosis were assessed for social anxiety: hypotheses were tested comparing 23 socially anxious and 56 non-anxious patients on measures of cognitive appraisals of shame/stigma of psychosis and perceived social status, controlling for depression, psychotic symptoms and general psychopathology. Participants with social anxiety experienced greater shame attached to their diagnosis and felt that the diagnosis placed them apart from others, i.e., socially marginalised them and incurred low social status. We propose a stigma model of social anxiety that makes testable predictions about how the shame beliefs may contaminate social interaction and thereby exacerbate and maintain social phobia.     

Expectations and perceptions at school transitions: The role of peer status and aggression

This study integrated research on aggression, peer status, and social and academic functioning across the middle- and high-school transitions. We examined how peer status and aggression are related to adolescents' expectations about their academic and social functioning in a new school system before the transition into that system, and their perceived academic and social functioning after the transition. Social preference, perceived popularity, overt and relational aggression, and social and academic expectations were assessed in Grades 5 and 8; identical peer status and aggression constructs and perceived social and academic functioning were assessed in Grades 6 and 9. Results indicated moderate correlations between adolescents' social and academic expectations and perceived functioning across both school transitions. Girls reported higher social and academic functioning than boys did in most cases. Perceived popularity was consistently positively associated with academic and social expectations for middle and high school, whereas social preference was associated with perceived social functioning in both middle school and high school. The link between aggression and outcome variables varied by age and was moderated by gender and peer status.     

Social status as a cue for tacit coordination

The present paper investigates how and when social status may serve as a cue for tacit coordination. In three experimental studies, we demonstrate that low status individuals are inclined to defer to the preferences of high status individuals, thereby facilitating coordination success. Furthermore, we investigate the boundary conditions of this effect. More specifically, we show that social status only facilitates coordination success when the people involved have asymmetric (or conflicting) preferences (Study 2), and when there is a clear social hierarchy (Study 3). In the general discussion, we relate these findings to earlier research on dominance hierarchies, social power, deference and perspective-taking and we provide suggestions for future research.