What makes people feel respected? Toward an integrative psychology of social worth.

Abstract

People care a great deal about their social worth in other people’s eyes, and social worth is an important factor in many social scientific theories. At the same time, social worth phenomena are scattered across diverse literatures under different conceptual labels, with little correspondence between them. In the present article, we attempt to integrate social worth research by focusing on three core questions: (1) What is the meaning of social worth in a particular interaction or relationship? (2) How do people evaluate their social worth in the eyes of their partner? and (3) How do people react when they are credited with different forms of social worth? According to the theoretical framework we propose, the particular meaning of social worth depends on a person’s goals for an interaction, and we draw on interdependence theory to map how different situations afford the activation of different goals. To evaluate their social worth in a partner’s eyes, a person judges whether the role they are accorded by the partner satisfies their own interaction goals. This comparison can yield an affirmation, a disconfirmation, or a violation of the person’s social worth expectations. A person’s reactions to these social worth experiences can be understood as attempts to regulate the situation’s interdependence structure following the partner’s feedback. We review social worth-related research from different research areas to show the framework’s wide applicability and integrative potential.

Felt respect in political discussions with contrary-minded others

“…Is status or relatedness the same as respect? Our view is that these other constructs can contribute to a respect experience – in other words, many different things can make people feel respected if they satisfy the person’s motives in a given interaction (for a more elaborate account of this view, see Rothers and Cohrs, 2023).…”

“…Some successful examples of such a strategy include research on stereotypes (Koch et al, 2016), envy (Lange et al, 2018), or conversational receptiveness (Yeomans et al, 2020). In the case of respect, such conceptual openness seems especially warranted given the lack of consensus about what respect is, or how it relates to similar constructs such as status or belonging (see Rothers and Cohrs, 2023).…”

Felt Respect in Political Discussions With Contrary-Minded Others

“…We show that in controversial political discussions, additional motives matter for feelings of respect and disrespectsuch as knowledge, fairness, or autonomy. In addition, our analysis suggests that future research should examine how the importance of different motives for feelings of respect depends on characteristics of the interaction situation (see also Rothers & Cohrs, 2022).…”

“…We suggest that future research focuses on the interpersonal motives that are afforded by different situations and how they shape what makes people feel respected. We hope this can provide a conceptual framework for research on respect that is both broadly applicable and situation-specific (Rothers & Cohrs, 2022).…”

Social worth as a source of subjective well-being: Empirical evidence and theoretical explanations

“…This chapter focuses on the well-being consequences of feeling valued by others. The study of social worth examines these experiences in many different flavors -we will discuss research on the consequences of being ascribed high status, feeling to belong, feeling liked, respected or recognized, just to name a few (for a conceptual elaboration on the similarities and differences among social worth constructs, see Rothers & Cohrs, 2023b). At the same time, the study of social worth is as much interested in the opposite of social worth: situations where people feel that they are not valued appropriately by others.…”