Status, Authoritarianism, and Sociometric Choice

Interactions Among Same-Status Peers

“…Finally, insight could be gained into how behaviors between status peers affect the experiences of group members at other status levels. Because highest-status members are given more attention and influence in shaping group norms (Berger et al, 1977; Masling et al, 1955) and their actions may engender stronger attributions of intentionality (Fragale, Rosen, Xu, & Merideth, 2009), the behavior between highest-status members may be contagious, affecting interaction throughout the hierarchy, whereas behavior between low or middle status members is not. Future studies that are explicitly designed and sufficiently powered to examine both peer and cross-level behaviors within the same study are needed to examine these considerations.…”

“…This structuring affords high status individuals significant advantages. When high and lower status group members interact, those with higher status are granted more control over group decisions and communication patterns (Bales, 1951;Berger, Fisek, Norman, & Zelditch, 1977) and are listened to, looked up to, and offered more influence over others (Masling, Greer, & Gilmore, 1955;Nelson & Berry, 1965). Low status group members, however, carry more blame for group failures (Weisband, Schneider, & Connolly, 1995) and feel more negative emotions such as fear, shame, and anxiety (Kemper, 1991;Mazur, 1973;Tiedens, 2000).…”

Leader indulgence and group performance.

“…The 16-item Equalitarian Index (EI) developed by Havron, Fay, and McGrath (1952) was described as a measure of the extent to which one accepts the rules and mores of a system according to their merits. In an independent study Masling, Greer, and Gilmore (1955) gave eight psychologists a description of the authoritarian and equalitarian personalities based on the work of Sanford (1950). The judges were then asked to categorize the responses to the items in the EI as either authoritarian or equalitarian.…”

“…However, B is not indebted to A, hence there may be no exchange of indulgence from A. Masling et al (1955) have contended, on the basis of the analysis of these data and other data in a cross-validating study with a Navy population, that sociometric choices given to a person in the structured leadership position reflect, in part, choices given to the status position rather than to the particular individual. Such choices do not permit one to infer a feeling of indebtedness or obligation on the part of the respondent to the leader.…”

Prestige as a factor in determining the effect of attitude sililarity-dissimilarity on attraction1

“…In a senes of mvestigations it has consistently been found that when Ss are asked to evaluate a stranger on the basis of various attitudes and behefs attributed to him, attraction toward the stranger is a linear function of the proportion of those attitudes which are similar to those of S (Byrne, 1961, 1962, Byrne & Nelson, 1965a, Nelson, 1965 It has been proposed that similar and dissimilar attitude statements function, respectively, as positive and negative reinforcements for the leamed drive to be logical and accurate in assessmg the environment (Byrne, 1961, Gobghtly & Byrne, 1964, McDonald, 1962, Neweomb, 1956 One of the potentially important parameters of this relationship between attitudes and attraction which has not been mvestigated is that of the prestige or status of the individual expressmg similar or dissimilar attitudes A number of sociometnc studies have reported a positive relationship between prestige as defined by socioeconomic status and number of fnendsbip choices received withm a group (Bonney, 1944, Grossman & Wrighter, 1948, Loomis & Proctor, 1950, Lundberg, 1937 Similarly, prestige or status as defined by mihtary rank has been found to be positively correlated with sociometric choice status (Kipms, 1957, Maslmg, Greer, & Gilmore, 1955 In other social psychological research, prestige or status vanables have been foimd to exert a significant infiuence on several different types of response For example, violation of the prohibition of a stop light followmg violation by a model is significantly greater when the model is dressed to represent high social Status than when dressed as a lower status mdividual (Lefkowitz, Blake, & Mouton, 1955) Similarly, aesthetic judgments are found to be mfiuenced by prestige suggestion as represented by bogus evaluations of the matenal by experts (Bemberg, 1953, Famsworth & Beaumont, 1929 In contrast to sociometnc and social psychological mterest m the effects of prestige, m almost all of tbe experimental research on attraction tiie stimulus person is either implicitly or explicitly identified as a member of tiie S's peer group (Aronson & Lmder, 1965, Backman & Secord, 1959, Berkowitz & Howard, 1959, Byrne, 1961, Deutscb & Solomon, 1959, Jones & Daugherty, 1959…”