The perception of status: How we infer the status of others from their social relationships
File(s)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Betancourt, Nathan
Kovacs, Balazs
Otner, SMG
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
This paper investigates how we infer the status of others from their social relationships. In a series of experimental studies, we test the effects of a social relationship’s type and direction on the status judgments of others. We demonstrate empirically, possibly for the first time, a widely assumed connection between network structure and perceptions of status; that is, that observers do infer the status positions of group members from their relationships. Moreover, we find that observers’ status judgments vary with the direction and type of social relationship. We theorize that underlying this variance in status judgments are two relational schemas which differentially influence the processing of the observed social ties. Our finding that only the linear-ordering schema leads to status inferences provides an important scope condition to prior research on network cognition, and specifically on the perceptions of social status.
Date Issued
2018-09-01
Date Acceptance
2018-06-24
Citation
Network Science, 2018, 6 (3), pp.319-347
ISSN
2050-1242
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Start Page
319
End Page
347
Journal / Book Title
Network Science
Volume
6
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© Cambridge University Press 2018. This paper has been accepted for publication and will appear in a revised form, subsequent to peer-review and/or editorial input by Cambridge University Press.
Sponsor
Imperial College London
Subjects
social status
social hierarchy
network cognition
network perception
experiments
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2018-10-02