Content area
Abstract
The theory of status characteristics (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch, 1966; Berger and Zelditch, 1977) says that status determines the way group members evaluate each other's ability. According to this theory, every item of status information which describes group members is combined into an aggregate rank for each individual in the group. An alternative theory is proposed by this dissertation based on the idea that group members primarily care about how the group task is performed. It is argued that the evaluation of members' ability is based on how members perform the group task and that status information is used as a means of forming evaluations only when members do not have access to performance information. It is also argued that the mechanism which group members use to process information about each other is not one of combining, but one of balance.
An experiment was devised which tests these alternative theories. University students at the undergraduate level were asked to imagine themselves in a situation which called for them to evaluate the ability of two individuals in their task group. The experimental manipulation consists of describing these individuals by different sets of performance and status information. The dependent variable is the certainty with which subjects select either of these individuals to perform an important task. It was found that subjects did not combine the different items of status and performance information into a single aggregate, as predicted by the theory of status characteristics. Instead, subjects tended to focus on performance information and, in most cases, treated status information as if it wasn't there.
