The origins of deference: When do people prefer lower status?

Anderson, Cameron; Willer, Robb; Kilduff, Gavin J.; Brown, Courtney E.

doi:10.1037/a0027409

Cited by 119 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…For example, Smith, Wigboldus, and Dijksterhuis (2008), as well as Mast, Hall, and Schmid (2010), found that a subset of individuals preferred lower power roles that also came with lower status (e.g., an assistant in an art gallery rather than the gallery owner). Similarly, in one of the aforementioned studies by Anderson, Wilier, et al (2012), some participants preferred a status rank lower than near the top of the hierarchy. At first blush this result seems to suggest that some people prefer lower over higher status, which in turn would suggest the desire for status is an individual difference variable rather than a universal motive.…”

Section: Situation Selection: Preferring Environments That Afford Higmentioning

confidence: 91%

Is the desire for status a fundamental human motive? A review of the empirical literature.

Anderson

Hildreth

Howland

2015

Psychological Bulletin

Self Cite

818

748

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The current review evaluates the status hypothesis, which states that that the desire for status is a fundamental motive. Status is defined as the respect, admiration, and voluntary deference individuals are afforded by others. It is distinct from related constructs such as power, financial success, and social belongingness. A review of diverse literatures lent support to the status hypothesis: People's subjective well-being, self-esteem, and mental and physical health appear to depend on the level of status they are accorded by others. People engage in a wide range of goal-directed activities to manage their status, aided by myriad cognitive, behavioral, and affective processes; for example, they vigilantly monitor the status dynamics in their social environment, strive to appear socially valuable, prefer and select social environments that offer them higher status, and react strongly when their status is threatened. The desire for status also does not appear to be a mere derivative of the need to belong, as some theorists have speculated. Finally, the importance of status was observed across individuals who differed in culture, gender, age, and personality, supporting the universality of the status motive. Therefore, taken as a whole, the relevant evidence suggests that the desire for status is indeed fundamental.

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Section: Situation Selection: Preferring Environments That Afford Higmentioning

confidence: 91%

Is the desire for status a fundamental human motive? A review of the empirical literature.

Anderson

Hildreth

Howland

2015

Psychological Bulletin

Self Cite

818

748

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As already mentioned, power engenders overconfidence in one's abilities , Sivanathan & Galinsky, 2007, which leads individuals to feel entitled to higher status (Anderson, Willer, Kilduff, & Brown, 2012). However, power also causes individuals to afford little status to others: they give less credit to others' contributions (Kipnis, 1972) and are more rude and disrespectful (Keltner et al, 1993).…”

Section: The Effects Of Power On Group Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Failure at the top: How power undermines collaborative performance.

Hildreth

Anderson

2016

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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All too commonly, we see groups of leaders fail to accomplish their stated goals when working together -legislators who cannot agree on a bill, heads of state who cannot draft meaningful environmental policy, or boards of trustees who make disastrous decisions for their school. The current research examines whether groups of leaders fail as often as they do in part because of the power each leader is accustomed to possessing. Multiple studies found high power individuals, when working in groups, performed worse than did other groups: individuals randomly assigned power in an initial task were less creative when they then worked together in groups on a subsequent task (Study 1A). Individuals with higher power who worked together in groups were also less likely to reach agreement on a difficult negotiation task, whether these groups comprised actual executives from an extant organization (Study 2) or students randomly assigned power in the laboratory (Study 3). Mediation analyses suggest that groups of high power individuals performed worse because they fought over their relative status in the group, were less focused on the task, and shared information with each other less effectively.Keywords: power, groups, status, conflict, performance, creativity, negotiation FAILURE AT THE TOP 3 Individuals in positions of leadership are given inordinate power. They have disproportionate control when they interact with those they lead and their ideas, decisions, and opinions hold more sway than those of others. But, what happens when leaders have to interact and work with other leaders? How does the power they are accustomed to possessing shape their effectiveness when working with others who also hold power? This question is critical because it is often the case that important decisions and problems are addressed not by individual leaders but by groups of leaders -in government legislatures, boards of directors, or meetings between heads of state, for example. If groups of leaders fail, the damage can be profound. Legislators who cannot agree on a fiscal budget risk severe economic costs, boards of trustees who set bad policies for their university can reduce the quality of their education, and leaders of disputing countries who cannot resolve their differences risk escalating their conflict into war.The research literature has been surprisingly quiet on this question. Although a substantial body of research has examined how the possession of power can shape myriad cognitive, affective, and motivational processes (for reviews, see Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003;Guinote & Vescio, 2010), this work has focused heavily on how the possession of power affects people in individual tasks or making individual decisions. Relatively little research has examined the effects of power in interactive or group contexts, let alone examined contexts in which powerholders interact and work with each other.The current research aimed to fill this lacuna.On the one hand, one might hypothesize that power would help groups of leaders...

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“…Being at the top comes with the luxury of material, psychological, and social benefits (Anderson, Willer, Kilduff, & Brown, 2012). This explains why individuals in higher standing positions are highly sensitive to a possible status loss and strongly motivated to maintain their position (Blader & Chen, 2011;Y.…”

Section: Verticality Norm Violators and Maintenance Of Hierarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

How norm violations shape social hierarchies: Those who stand on top block norm violators from rising up

Stamkou

Kleef

Homan

et al. 2016

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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Norm violations engender both negative reactions and perceptions of power from observers. We addressed this paradox by examining whether observers’ tendency to grant power to norm followers versus norm violators is moderated by the observer’s position in the hierarchy. Because norm violations threaten the status quo, we hypothesized that individuals higher in a hierarchy (high verticality) would be less likely to grant power to norm violators compared to individuals lower in the hierarchy (low verticality). In 14 studies ( Ntotal = 1,704), we measured participants’ trait verticality (sense of power, socioeconomic status, testosterone) and manipulated state verticality (power position, status, dominance). A meta-analysis revealed that higher ranked participants granted less power to norm violators than lower ranked individuals, presumably because the former support social stratification. Interestingly, these effects occurred for trait but not state verticality. Overall, negative reactions to deviants may be driven by hierarchy-maintenance motives by those in privileged positions.

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The origins of deference: When do people prefer lower status?

Cited by 119 publications

References 69 publications

Is the desire for status a fundamental human motive? A review of the empirical literature.

Is the desire for status a fundamental human motive? A review of the empirical literature.

Failure at the top: How power undermines collaborative performance.

How norm violations shape social hierarchies: Those who stand on top block norm violators from rising up

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