5 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Striving for superiority: The human desire for status
Status inequality and social stratification cause much social ill. So why do status hierarchies pervade societies and social groups? One possible explanation lies in the individual desire for status. A recent review found the desire for status is a fundamental human motive – people seek to receive respect and deference from others. We found converging evidence that this desire is competitive in nature; people not only desire to be respected, they desire to be accorded more respect and deference than others. In a laboratory experiment, participants (n = 226) felt better when they alone had high status than when everyone had equal status. In a national survey, participants (n = 715) preferred having higher status than others, even if it meant that everyone had lower status on an absolute level. Status hierarchies might be ubiquitous in part because people are unsatisfied with egalitarianism and pursue positions of superior (and unequal) status
Recommended from our members
Striving for superiority: The human desire for status
Status inequality and social stratification cause much social ill. So why do status hierarchies pervade societies and social groups? One possible explanation lies in the individual desire for status. A recent review found the desire for status is a fundamental human motive – people seek to receive respect and deference from others. We found converging evidence that this desire is competitive in nature; people not only desire to be respected, they desire to be accorded more respect and deference than others. In a laboratory experiment, participants (n = 226) felt better when they alone had high status than when everyone had equal status. In a national survey, participants (n = 715) preferred having higher status than others, even if it meant that everyone had lower status on an absolute level. Status hierarchies might be ubiquitous in part because people are unsatisfied with egalitarianism and pursue positions of superior (and unequal) status
Revisiting the Instrumentality of Voice: Having Voice in the Process Makes People Think They Will Get What They Want
Research on procedural justice has found that processes that allow people voice (i.e., input) are perceived as fairer, and thus elicit more positive reactions, than processes that do not allow people voice. Original theorizing attributed these effects to beliefs that the provision of voice enhances people’s sense of process control, which people were assumed to value because it impacts their perceived likelihood of receiving desired outcomes (the instrumental perspective of procedural justice). Subsequent research questioned this perspective, arguing that outcome expectations do not account for the effects of voice. However, this subsequent research failed to directly examine the interplay of voice, outcome expectations, and reactions. The current studies revisit and extend research on this topic by asking whether manipulations of voice act as shared circumstance effects. Confirming an untested implication of the instrumental perspective, we show that giving everyone voice increases their belief, ex-ante, that they are likely to win an upcoming competition. However, this instrumental belief accounts for only part of the effects of voice on perceived procedural fairness and on general reactions to outcomes. Results suggest that voice does indeed have instrumental significance, an implication not adequately recognized in current justice theorizing. However, this instrumentality does not, by itself, explain why people value having a voice in processes that affect them