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Sentiment has been shown to affect status processes, but the mechanism is unclear. This article presents evidence in support of one of two competing approaches—sentiments as constituent elements of expectations or sentiments as moderators of expectations—that conceptualize the effect of interpersonal sentiments on status behaviors, as studied within the framework of expectations states theory. I create an experimental design, based on the standard experimental setting developed by expectations states theorists, to adjudicate between these two approaches. Subjects' levels of responsibility for team outcome and sentiment vary between the four experimental conditions, in accordance with the Camilleri and Berger model for decision making. Data reveal support for the "sentiment as moderator" model. I propose further directions for formalizing these findings.

We explore the capacity of positive sentiments, those enduring affective states one achieves when one likes another, to impact status structures. Do positive sentiments combine with existing aspects of interaction to create status hierarchies and potentially change the social order, or do they moderate the effects of extant structure by dampening the magnitude of status differences? Using the theoretical framework of Status Characteristics Theory (SCT) and the Camilleri-Berger model of decision-making, we designed an experiment to adjudicate between these two potentialities. Participation in the study consisted of 168 students. Results found support for the notion that positive sentiments moderate the effects of structural factors on indicators of social status; interestingly, this moderation effect varies by gender. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, and new directions for research concerning sentiment and status processes.

Do the ties that bind also create social inequality? Using an expectation states theoretical framework, we elaborate status characteristics and behavior-status theories to explore how sentiments, network connections based on liking and disliking, may affect processes entailing status, the prestige based on one's differentially valued social distinctions. Within task groups, we theorize that positive and negative sentiments may themselves be status elements capable of evoking performance expectations within dyadic configurations typically modeled by expectation states theorists. Having a reputation for being liked or disliked "imported" into the group may enact status generalization. Alternatively, a status element based on sentiments may emerge during task group interaction as group members ascertain if alters are liked or disliked. Finally, we conclude by discussing how our theorizing motivates future theories and empirical studies.

Early theoretical work on social exchange focused on how exchange relations generate social structural outcomes. Specifically, gift giving was said to evoke status structures. No experimental evidence exists to verify or refute the notion that gift giving during exchange processes generates status hierarchies. We present experimental results demonstrating the emergence of status inequalities directly from social exchanges in dyads. Our findings support the assertion that the receiving of a gift causes the recipient to feel deferential toward the exchange partner. More formally, we demonstrate how gift giving, linked to a behavioral interchange pattern, has the capacity to induce differential performance expectations. These results are a first step toward testing the theory that status is an emergent property of exchange.

Organizations mediate societal cultural belief systems and group-level encounters by filtering, and sometimes transforming, social information regarding which status characteristics are salient during group encounters embedded within organizations. This study uses status characteristics theory to add to our understanding of social status within organizations by explaining why organizations matter in determining which status characteristics will be activated within task groups. By analyzing status rankings within an organization of open source software programmers, we find that the organization develops its own unique shared belief system, which inculcates actors with beliefs about status characteristics that are potentially unique within the boundaries of the organization. Specifically, in this study we find that through a process of status generalization, organizational members create new status markers (location) that are potentially only meaningful for the given social situation, and they selectively nullify others (education and age). To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first work in the expectation states tradition to demonstrate an outcome for an organization-level selection process for status characteristics. This paper adds to status characteristics theory by empirically analyzing how organizational contexts create boundaries around groups in which new and extant status characteristics are activated and in which predefined characteristics inherited from more global, society-level contexts are deactivated.

AbstractDuring the process of emotion management, individuals perceive that they are feeling emotions that differ from what is expected within the situation. Consequently, they use cognitive, physical, and/or other means either to display more appropriate emotions or to change their emotions on a deeper level to be consistent with what is customarily expressed. Beginning with the first examinations of emotion management in 1979 by the pioneer Arlie Hochschild, emotion scholars have produced over 6,000 studies of this phenomenon. We join this vibrant research program by proposing new avenues of research using an interdisciplinary strategy. First, we explore possibilities for emotion management research within its "home base" of sociology; then, we branch out to the areas of morality and political science. In so doing, we craft new and unexpected pathways for advancements in theory, theory adjudication, and methodology, for the future of emotion management research.

In this study we examine medical interview asymmetry using the expectation states approach. Physicians lead clinical interviews because of a feature inherent in those interviews, namely the status difference between doctor and patient. This power differential varies: it is greatest when the biomedical aspects of the interview are emphasized. These observations are consistent with status characteristics theory (SCT), which is based on the expectation states approach to understanding the emergence of power-prestige orders in groups facing shared tasks. From an SCT perspective, when the required scope conditions are met the status characteristics of doctor and patient trigger expectation states that result in inequalities relevant to the biomedical tasks of the interview. We examine interactions between medical students and standardized patients from the perspective of SCT. We observe the emergence of vocal spectrum inequalities when the interview task is biomedical. Other nonverbal behavioral outcomes emerge as well, which are consistent with the asymmetry literature.