The status value theory of power and mechanisms of micro stratification: Theory and new experimental evidence.

This paper employs sociological theories of status and power to explore the mechanisms wherein status characteristics produce power in exchange relations. Theories in the status and exchange literature suggest that status characteristics produce power most strongly when actors possess (i) multiple differentiating status characteristics, and (ii) multiple resources. An experiment manipulating these factors finds that the former is related to expectations of competence while the latter induces perceptions of status value - mechanisms whereby status produces power. A second experiment manipulates the race and gender of the participants enabling white males to negotiate with African-American females in dyads. This study produces some of the largest dyadic power differences ever reported in micro sociology. These findings have implications for the mechanisms of power from Thye's (2000a) status value theory of power and Berger and Fisek's (2006) formal theory of status value. More generally, this research bears on the rudimentary foundations of social stratification in groups both small and large.

Status, emotional displays, and the relationally-based evaluation of criminals and their behavior.

This research uses status characteristics theory to expand our knowledge of the effects of status variables (e.g., race, education) and emotional displays on the antecedents of sentencing - evaluations of offender dangerousness and offense seriousness. We present a theoretical formulation that combines three areas of status characteristics research - reward expectations, individual evaluative settings and valued personal characteristics. The result is a quantitative measure that aggregates relative differences in demographic and emotional characteristics between offenders and their victims. The significance of this expectation advantage measure (e) in predicting evaluations of offender dangerousness and offense severity is tested using data from a vignette study. We find empirical support that expectation advantage significantly predicts these sentencing antecedents but not sentencing outcomes directly. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future status and criminological research.

Exchange and cohesion in dyads and triads: A test of Simmel's hypothesis.

This paper uses social exchange theory to address a classic question posed by Simmel (1964) regarding dyads and triads. The question is whether exchanges in a triad will generate more cohesion at the group level than exchanges in an isolated dyad. The main hypotheses, integrating several ideas from Simmel and social exchange theories, are as follows. First, triads generate less variability of behavior than dyads; that is, there is more uniformity or convergence in triads. Second, in the context of repeated exchange, we predict higher levels of cohesion in triads than in dyads. Third, positive emotion or affect has a stronger impact on cohesion in dyads than in triads, whereas uncertainty reduction has a stronger impact on cohesion in triads. To test these hypotheses, an experiment compared isolated dyads to dyads nested in a triadic exchange network. Subjects engaged in exchanges across a series of distinct episodes, using standard experimental procedures from research on relational cohesion (Lawler and Yoon, 1996) and exchange networks (Molm and Cook, 1995; Willer, 1999). Consistent with the hypotheses, the results reveal more convergence of behavior and higher cohesion in triads than in dyads; moreover, uncertainty reduction is the primary basis for cohesion in the triad, whereas positive affect was the primary basis for cohesion in the dyad. These results are discussed in relation to Simmelian dyad-triad dynamics and the theory of relational cohesion.