Research examining face-to-face status hierarchies suggests that individuals attain respect and admiration by engaging in behavior that influences others' judgments of their value to the group. Building on this research, we expected that high-status individuals would be less likely to engage in behaviors that violate group norms and expectations, relative to low-status individuals. Adolescent participants took part in an interaction in which they teased an opposite-gender friend (Study 1) or an experiment in which taunting or cheering expectations were manipulated (Study 2). Consistent with the hypothesis, high-status boys and girls engaged in teasing behaviors consistent with their gender roles, relative to their low status counterparts (Study 1). In Study 2, high-status boys engaged in more direct provocation and off-record commentary while taunting, and more affiliative behavior while cheering on their partner, relative to low-status boys. Discussion focused on how expectation-consistent actions help individuals maintain elevated status.

In this paper we examined the content, structure, and dynamics of reputation, a person’s agreed-upon character that is constructed within social groups. In Study 1, we examined longitudinally the content and structure of an individual’s reputation as distributed across a newly forming group. In Study 2, we examined how the dynamics of reputation shape gossip, a form of reputational discourse. In keeping with theoretical claims about the function of reputation, trustworthiness and status potential proved to be central to reputation content that is shared across a social network and emerged over the course of a year (Study 1). Gossip, a form of reputational discourse, was found to focus upon individuals who are untrustworthy and of questionable and undeserved status (Study 2). We discuss how the results from these studies shed light on how reputation is essential to cooperation and cohesion within groups.

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