In part 2 of this book, we are concerned with theoretical and empirical research on the theory of status characteristics and expectation states. This theory is one of the major branches of the expectation states program. Expectation states theory, as a theoretical research program, consists of a set of interrelated theories with a set of empirical models that are based on the theories in the program. Furthermore, these theories are developed within the framework of a distinctive set of working strategies (see chapter 5).
In the next section of this chapter we describe some of the research on power and prestige orders in small groups that is background to research on status characteristics theory. We also briefly describe some of the collateral research on distributive justice and self-evaluation processes. These originally evolved as independent branches in the program but more recently, as we shall describe, have become more closely connected to the theory of status characteristics.
In the sections that follow this background we examine the articles on status processes that are presented in part 2 of this book. In each case we review the objectives of the research, describe some of the new concepts and principles that it introduces, and then place the particular work in the larger context of status research in the expectation states program. The expectation states program continues to evolve, and in the final section of this chapter we consider some of the most recent theoretical and empirical developments that are occurring in the program.
Background
The initial concern of expectation states theory was with the emergence and maintenance of power and prestige orders in problem-solving groups. Already by the early 1950s, Bales and his associates had found that inequalities in participation and influence regularly occurred in small, informal, task-oriented groups whose members were initially equal in status. Once these inequalities emerged, they tended to be highly stable. With the possible exception of sociometric rankings, the various inequalities studied by Bales and others were highly intercorrelated. (See Bales 1950; Bales et al. 1951; Bales 1953; Bales and Slater 1955; Heinicke and Bales 1953). Research by Harvey (1953), Sherif, White, and Harvey (1955), and Whyte (1943) had also demonstrated that established inequalities in power and prestige were correlated with membersā evaluations of specific performances. Independent of actual performance, higher-status members are typically evaluated as performing better than lower-status members.
Because the inequalities observed by small groups researchers were highly intercorrelated, expectation states theorists conceptualized them as the components of a unidimensional power-prestige order. This order consists in (1) chances to contribute to the solution of the groupās problem (action-opportunities); (2) attempts to solve the groupās problem (performance outputs); (3) communicated evaluations of problem solving attempts (reward actions); and (4) changes of opinion when confronted with disagreements (influence). Expectation state theorists refer to this set of inequalities as the observable power and prestige order.
Berger (1985, 1960) and Berger and Connor (1969, 1974) sought to explain the conditions under which this order was likely to occur, the intercorrelation of the inequalities in this order, and the stability of the order. They argued that the order is likely to occur when the group is strongly oriented to solving a task that is valued (where success and failure outcomes are distinguished by its members); when it is assumed by the members that some characteristic or ability is instrumental to the task (success or failure at the task is not a matter of chance); and when members of the group were collectively oriented (it is necessary and legitimate to take each memberās behavior into account).
Given these conditions, Berger and his colleagues assumed that individuals who begin as equals develop differences in underlying (and unobservable) performance expectations for self and others out of their task-related behaviors. Performance expectations are stabilized anticipations of future task performances and are based on evaluations of past behavior. These expectations in turn determine the different types of subsequent task-related behaviors. The intercorrelation of inequalities in the power and prestige order is explained by arguing that they are all functions of these underlying performance expectations. The stability of the power and prestige order is explained by arguing that once they have emerged, performance expectations determine subsequent behaviors that maintain these expectations. If the behaviors of the power and prestige order are functions of performance expectations and if performance expectations are maintained by the very behaviors they determine, then the power and prestige order will be stable.
Bales was largely concerned with the emergence of status orders in groups whose members initially were alike in status. But for informal problem-solving groups whose members were initially unequal, somewhat different resuits were found. The power and prestige order in these groups tended to correlate with status distinctions that are significant in the larger social structure. Furthermore and importantly, the power and prestige order appeared to be created almost instantaneously in these groups. These results were found to hold true for a large number of such status distinctions: age, gender, race, occupation, ethnicity, education, and organizational position. The relation of external status to the groupās power and prestige order did depend on how well the members knew each otherāthe effect of external status decreasing with increasing familiarity among group members (Strodtbeck, James, and Hawkins 1958; Heiss 1962; Leik 1963). Most importantly, this relation of external status distinctions to the groupās power and prestige order was found to hold whether the status distinction had a prior established relation to the groupās task or did not have a prior relation to the groupās task or goal (Caudill 1958; Croog 1956; Hurwitz, Zander, and Hymovitch 1960; Mishler and Tropp 1956; Strodtbeck, James, and Hawkins 1958; Strodtbeck and Mann 1956; Torrance 1954; Zander and Cohen 1955; Ziller and Exline 1958).
One of the objectives of the original theory of status characteristics was to account for these findings from the study of status-differentiated groups. It did this by arguing that the various types of status distinctions that had been investigated were status characteristics. As status characteristics they embodied differential evaluations and general and specific performance expectations. Under specified task conditions, the evaluations and expectations embodied in these characteristics became salient and, if not already so, became relevant to the groupās goal or task. Then, using the general expectation arguments that had been developed previously, it was argued that the power and prestige orders in these groups were probabilistic functions of these performance expectations (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch 1966, 1972). For empirical tests of this original formulation, see Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch (1972), and Berger, Fisek, Norman, and Zelditch (1977).
The original theory of status characteristics and expectation states was constructed to apply to situations involving two interactants possessing states of a single diffuse status characteristic and interacting within relatively restricted scope conditions. The second stage of the theory, developed by Berger and Fisek (1974), expanded the scope of the theory to include situations in which actors may possess any number of status characteristics. The third stage, developed by Berger, Fisek, Norman, and Zelditch (1977), covers multicharacteristic situations that may involve more than two actors and actors of different types (for a summary of these scope conditions, see chapter 1). The third formulation also embodies a formal model that enables us to describe in a rigorous manner an extremely large number of different status situations, and allows us to make predictions of differences between differences and therefore of the effects of different kinds and amounts of status information.
The concepts and assumptions developed in this third stage represent the ācoreā concepts and assumptions of the current status characteristics theory. The content of these concepts and assumptions are spelled out in considerable detail in the articles that follow. However, at this stage, it is of value to indicate how they function in describing status organizing processes. They are used to describe the situation and conditions under which status characteristics become significant items of information to actors (the salience assumption); to describe the process by which initially nonrelevant characteristics become task- or goal-relevant (the burden-of-proof assumption); to describe how the status structure changes with the introduction of new tasks, new characteristics, or new actors (the sequencing assumption); to describe how multiple items of status information are organized into expectation states (the principle of organized subsets); and to describe how expectations states are translated into behavior (the basic expectation assumption).
In the chapters presented in part 2, it is the core concepts and assumptions that are (a) subject to experimental tests (chapter 10); (b) ābuilt uponā in developing theoretical extensions (chapters 7, 8, and 9); and (c) applied (in conjunction with those in theoretical extensions) to describe and explain the operation of some concrete status characteristic such as gender (chapter 11).
Aside from research on power and prestige and status characteristics, two other branches developed at an early stage in the program, one concerned with distributive justice, and the second with the effect of sources of evaluations on the formation of self-other expectations.
The status value theory of distributive justice was concerned with how individuals determine the justice or injustice in the distribution of rewards and how they react to different types of injustice situations, Berger et al. (1968, 1972). The theory argues that individuals use referential structures, which are generalized consensual beliefs that are part of their cultural setting, to form expectations for rewards in their local situations of interaction. These cultural beliefs describe how statuses and rewards are assumed to be typically associated in the individualās larger social environment. (For more on referential structures, see below.) Once such expectations for rewards are formed, the actual allocation of rewards is then judged in relation to these expectations. The outcome of such assessments of the relation of expected to actua...
