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

Abstract

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 accuratethat 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.

When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence

“…In laboratory experiments, groups ostracized individuals who claimed more status than the group believed them to deserve and paid them less for their work (Anderson, Ames, & Gosling, 2008;Anderson, Srivastava, Beer, Spataro, & Chatman, 2006). Taken together, these findings suggest groups might penalize overconfident members with lower status.…”

“…Both insiders and outsiders perceived overconfident individuals to have higher status in the group, confirming that individuals generally agree on who has status in groups (cf. Anderson et al, 2006). By examining outside observers' perceptions of overconfident individuals, Study 2 ensured that neither appeasement efforts by overconfident individuals' nor system justification tendencies by groups accounted for the results in Study 1.…”

The trouble with overconfidence.

“…However, we ought to point out that there are situations in which people may be motivated to report that they are worse than others. Such is the case with social status, where overestimating one's status can lead to ostracism and intragroup conflict (Anderson, Srivastava, Beer, Spataro, & Chatman, 2006). And while there are some domains in which overconfidence can be adaptive, it can also undermine effort and performance (Stone, 1994;Vancouver, Thompson, Tischner, & Putka, 2002) and it can lead to greater disappointment when performance falls short of inflated expectations (McGraw, Mellers, & Ritov, 2004).…”

Social comparison in the brain: A coordinate‐based meta‐analysis of functional brain imaging studies on the downward and upward comparisons

“…The fundamental mechanisms underlying social comparison have always drawn psychologists' interest [Anderson et al, 2006;Dvash et al, 2010;Lindner et al, 2014;Moore et al, 2014;Mussweiler et al, 2004;Swencionis and Fiske, 2014;Taylor and Lobel, 1989]. The social comparison theory posits that people are driven to compare themselves to others for accurate self-evaluations [Festinger, 1954].…”