Status and competitive choice.

In this paper, we extend the logic of existing sociological theory on status to explain how status processes can inform selection in competitive choice situations. We argue that in the absence of knowledge about the specific abilities of others and assuming a desire to win, when given the opportunity to "pick their battles," people will draw on overt status differences as a basis for selecting a competitor from a pool of possible competitors. Results from three studies indicate that, as predicted, status differences affect competitor selection, with individuals choosing to compete against those who are relatively lower status based on diffuse characteristics. Moreover, consistent with expectation state theories, results from two studies show that the expectations that people form for their potential competitors based on status differences mediate this relationship. We conclude by discussing the implications of this research.

Predicting performance expectations from affective impressions: linking affect control theory and status characteristics theory.

Affect control theory (ACT) and status characteristics theory (SCT) offer separate and distinct explanations for how individuals interpret and process status- and power-relevant information about interaction partners. Existing research within affect control theory offers evidence that status and power are related to the affective impressions that individuals form of others along the dimensions of evaluation and potency, respectively. Alternately, status characteristics theory suggests that status and power influence interaction through the mediating cognitive construct of performance expectations. Although both theories have amassed an impressive amount of empirical support, research has yet to articulate theoretical and empirical connections between affective impressions and performance expectations. The purpose of our study is to address this gap. Elaborating a link between ACT and SCT in terms of their central concepts can serve as a stepping stone to improving the explanatory capacity of both theories, while providing a potential bridge by which they can be employed jointly.

The effects of scope condition-based participant exclusion on experimental outcomes in expectation states research: A meta-analysis.

Expectation states theory employs several scope statements to specify the situational conditions that must be met for any test of the theory to be considered valid (Foschi, 1997). Collective orientation and task orientation are two scope conditions that researchers frequently implement as selection criteria for a participant's inclusion in an analytic sample. Although excluding participants who fail to meet scope conditions is theoretically consistent, researchers have yet to establish how this practice affects experimental outcomes. I employ meta-analysis to compare studies within the expectation states tradition in which participants are excluded for failure to meet scope conditions to studies in which no similar exclusions are made. Results suggest that studies that exclude participants for scope violations demonstrate a decreased baseline tendency to reject influence. I contend that adopting a more universal approach to the measurement and application of scope conditions would be methodologically and theoretically beneficial to expectation states research.