Narcissists crave respect and admiration. Do they attain the status and popularity they crave, or do they just think that they do? In two studies (Ns = 133 and 94), participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, described themselves on core personality traits (e.g., extraversion), and were described by an informant on those traits. Participants also provided self- and peer ratings of status and liking in small groups after an initial meeting and over the course of 4 months (Study 2). Relative to people lower, people higher in narcissism initially attained, but eventually lost status; yet, they were aware that they tended to lose status. Narcissists were not especially popular, although they tended to think they were more popular. These patterns differed among narcissism facets, providing further support for the idea that the mixed adaptiveness of narcissism may be due to the heterogeneity of the construct.

Informal groups form hierarchies and allocate social status in order to coordinate action and make collective decisions. Although researchers have identified characteristics of people who tend to get status, the extent to which these characteristics are context-dependent is unclear.In two studies, participants from the United States (N = 157) and Germany (N = 95) engaged in affiliative or competitive group interactions. We investigated whether the nature of the group's task moderated the relationship between status attainment and personality. As in previous research, we found that extraversion predicted status in both competitive and affiliative contexts.In contrast, agreeableness was only associated with status in affiliative contexts. These findings underscore the importance of examining the relationship between personality and social status in context. KEYWORDS: Status, Person Perception, Individual Differences, Interpersonal Processes, Personality STATUS ATTAINMENT ACROSS SOCIAL CONTEXTS Who Attains Status? Similarities and Differences Across Social ContextsStatus-based hierarchies are formed through dynamic processes that aim to facilitate collective decisions and coordinate actions. Without a formally assigned leader, group members distribute status amongst themselves and grant more status to some people than to others.Researchers have identified numerous strategies and characteristics that contribute to status attainment (e.g, Anderson, John, Keltner & Kring, 2001;Berger, Cohen & Zelditch, 1972;Cheng, Tracy, Foulsham, Kingstone & Henrich, 2013). But do these characteristics predict status across situations, or are they context-dependent?In the current investigation, we examined whether the same personality traits predicted status in groups performing different tasks. We were particularly interested in determining the degree to which individual differences in agreeableness and extraversion would be associated with status in affiliative versus competitive contexts. Previous investigations of status attainment have tended to neglect the role of different contexts, even though status differentiation processes may vary across situations. Individuals with status are instrumental in directing their group in social and organizational settings, and understanding when certain individuals tend to attain status may inform future research aimed at increasing group efficacy in these settings. Who Attains Status?When people interact in groups without formally designated leaders, they spontaneously form informal hierarchies based on social status-how much respect, esteem or influence group members confer onto one another (Berger, Rosenholtz & Zelditch, 1980;Magee & Galinsky, 2008). The primary function of a hierarchy is to facilitate efficient performance toward a common goal (Magee & Galinsky, 2008), and the person who attains status often becomes an informal leader who coordinates the group's actions. STATUS ATTAINMENT ACROSS SOCIAL CONTEXTSGroups allocate status based, in substantial part, on who will help the...

Between-subjects studies show that people with higher levels of shame tend to experience more negative drinking-related consequences than people with lower levels of shame. However, within-subjects studies of the association between daily fluctuations in shame and subsequent drinking have yielded mixed findings. This study aimed to resolve these inconsistencies by examining the association between daily fluctuations in shame, between-subjects differences in shame, and subsequent evening alcohol consumption in a sample of 70 community-dwelling drinkers. In addition, we examined whether the previous night's drinking predicted shame the next day based on the theory that shame may operate in a cyclical fashion in some people to maintain problematic drinking patterns. Multilevel model analyses showed a cross-level interaction in which individuals' average levels of ashamed mood moderated the effect of daily fluctuations in shame on solitary drinking. In contrast, previous day's drinking was only weakly related to shame the next day. This study contributes to existing literature by refining models of negative mood-related drinking and further elucidating the patterns by which shame serves as a trigger for drinking, particularly among high shame individuals. The authors interpret results in terms of self-control theory and demonstrate the importance of disaggregating between- and within-subjects variance when examining longitudinal data. (PsycINFO Database Record

A contribution to a special issue on Hormones and Human Competition.Testosterone is theorized to influence status-seeking behaviors such as social dominance and competitive behavior, but supporting evidence is mixed. The present study tested the roles of testosterone and cortisol in the hawk-dove game, a dyadic economic decision-making paradigm in which earnings depend on one's own and the other player's choices. If one person selects the hawk strategy and the other person selects the dove strategy, the player who selected hawk attains a greater financial pay-off (status differentiation). The worst financial outcome occurs when both players choose the hawk strategy (status confrontation). Ninety-eight undergraduate students (42 men) provided saliva samples and played ten rounds of the hawk-dove game with another same-sex participant. In support of the hypothesis that testosterone is related to status concern, individuals higher in basal testosterone made more hawk decisions - decisions that harmed the other player. Acute decreases in cortisol were also associated with more hawk decisions. There was some empirical support for the dual-hormone hypothesis as well: basal testosterone was positively related to satisfaction in the game among low basal-cortisol individuals but not among high basal-cortisol individuals. There were no significant sex differences in these hormonal effects. The present findings align with theories of hormones and status-seeking behavior at the individual level, but they also open up new avenues for research on hormone profiles at the collective level. Our results suggest that the presence of two or more high-testosterone members increases the likelihood of status confrontations over a limited resource that can undermine collective outcomes.

Resume Le langage adresse au nourrisson presente des caracteristiques particulieres qui se retrouvent de facon similaire en diverses cultures. La presente recherche vise a examiner les liens specifiques entre des comportements de l'enfant et les modulations prosodiques du langage maternel lors d'interactions en face a face. Quatorze meres sont observees en laboratoire avec leur nourrisson de 4 mois de facon a obtenir un corpus de 2 100 enonces maternels. Les analyses montrent une variation de la prosodie du langage maternel selon les comportements d'attention de l'enfant. Lorsque le beb£ est engage dans l'interaction (regard vers la mere avec expression neutre ou positive, regard conjoint), la mere a tendance a produire des enonc6s plus longs, de frequence fondamentale plus variable que lorsque le bebe est desengage (regard ailleurs ou alternant). On note aussi une plus grande frequence de courbes complexes et en cloche lors des regards positifs et conjoints de l'enfant. Celui-ci s'avere un partenaire actif dans l'echange verbal mere-enfant.