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We survey and organize over fifty years of theoretical research on status and expectation state processes. After defining some key terms in this theoretical approach, we briefly describe theories and branches in the program.

We also focus on a few theories that illustrate distinct patterns of theory growth, using them to show the variety of ways in which the research program has grown.

The program structure developed from a single set of theories on development and maintenance of group inequality in the 1960s to six interrelated branches by 1988. Between 1988 and today, the overall structure has grown to total 19 different branches. We briefly describe each branch, identifying over 200 resources for the further study of these branches.

Although the various branches share key concepts and processes, they have been developed by different researchers, in a variety of settings from laboratories to schools to business organizations. Second, we outline some important issues for further research in some of the branches. Third, we emphasize the value of developing new research methods for testing and applying the theories.

These theories have been used to explain phenomena of gender, racial, and ethnic inequality among others, and for understanding some cases of personality attributions, deviance and control processes, and application of double standards in hiring.

Status and expectation state processes often operate to produce invidious social inequalities. Understanding these processes can enable social scientists to devise more effective interventions to reduce these inequalities.

Status and expectation state processes occupy a significant segment of research into group processes. This chapter provides an authoritative overview of ideas in the program, what is known, and what remains to be discovered.

Identifies where status and identity processes converge in social interaction and when one process may become more consequential than the other.

Drawing upon existing experimental data, we illustrate how affect control theory and status characteristics theory make seemingly contradictory predictions in certain limited interactions and propose a theoretical framework to potentially reconcile these differences.

Three pivot points are identified at which status and identity processes meet and then one of the processes more strongly predicts interaction outcomes.

The chapter represents a starting point for future research examining situations where status and identity processes converge.

We suggest ways to empirically test related claims made by both theories in an array of circumstances.

Basic science, sometimes called “curiosity-driven research” at the National Science Foundation and other places, starts with a question that somehow stays in the mind, nagging for an answer. Such questions really are “puzzles”; they arise in an intellectual field or context, asking someone to fit pieces to an improving but incomplete picture of the social world. What makes a worthwhile puzzle is a missing part in understanding the picture, or a new piece of knowledge that does not seem to fit among other parts. Sometimes creative theorists can imagine a solution to one of the holes in the puzzle. If they are also empirical scientists, they devise ways to get evidence bearing on their ideas, and some of those ideas survive to give more complete and detailed pictures of the world. This chapter is the story of puzzles and provisional solutions to them, developed by dozens of men and women investigating status processes and status structures, using a coherent perspective, for over half a century.¹

To review three theoretical research programs accounting for the spread of status beliefs and their effects on inequality, and to identify similarities and differences in scope and theoretical principles in the three. We describe suggestions for further research that we hope readers may wish to pursue.

We summarize recent theory and research, identify areas of overlap and dissimilarity, and show how certain research topics could extend understanding of the processes and make connections among the three programs.

The three programs were built on ideas first codified more than five decades ago. Those ideas have been the foundation for empirical research and findings from that have been used to develop the theories, improving the range of situations addressed and the precision of predictions. While the programs here address similar issues, each presumes different initial conditions and behavioral outcomes. With some overlap, the programs also address different situations and propose different mechanisms for the spread of status.

Our review of the programs is necessarily incomplete, because work continues on the programs. The analyses and suggestions about important topics to pursue are ours, and others may identify other topics for theoretical and empirical development.

We hope that our interpretations of these programs make them more accessible to interested scholars who will extend the theoretical and empirical bases of the work. The processes described have implications for the status of immigrant groups, the social position of women, and the value attached to collector’s objects. We hope to foster applications of these theories to understand and alleviate some cases of unmerited inequality.

The processes involved affect mixed-gender interaction in businesses, hiring biases, anti-immigrant exclusion sentiments, influence and bargaining power of individuals, desirability of certain furniture and clothing styles, ability inferences, and other phenomena. We mention instances where these theories can help to understand processes and to develop interventions to produce desirable outcomes.

No readily accessible summary of these programs and no theoretical comparison of them has yet been developed. Formal theories such as these sometimes seem obscure and we hope to show how they apply to important actual situations. Of course, the interpretations and suggestions in this chapter are our own and the scholars whose work we discuss might interpret the work differently.

This chapter examines how individuals’ perceptions of others’ task competence, treatment of other group members, tendency to conform, and work group identification depend on both status and identity commitment. We integrate tenets of both role identity theory and status characteristics theory in formulating propositions concerning which of multiple status attributes are utilized when assessing others’ task competence and treating other group members, when a solo low-status group member is less likely to conform with the group, and when a solo high-status group member has low identification with his or her group. Our theory development highlights the value of integrating these theories in understanding group phenomenon for both research and practice.

The Spread of Status Value theory describes how new diffuse status characteristics can arise out of the association of initially non-valued characteristics to existing status characteristics that are already well-established in a society. Our objective is to extend this theory so that it describes how still other status elements, which have become of interest to researchers such as “status objects” (Thye, 2000) and “valued roles” (Fişek, Berger, & Norman, 1995), can also be socially created.

Our approach involves reviewing research that is relevant to the Spread of Status Value theory, and in introducing concepts and assumptions that are applicable to status objects and valued roles.

Our major results are an elaborated theory that describes the construction of status objects and valued roles, a graphic representation of one set of conditions in which this creation process is predicted to occur, and a design for a further empirical test of the Spread of Status Value theory. This extension has social implications. It opens up the possibility of creating social interventions that involve status objects and valued roles to ameliorate dysfunctional social situations.

Our elaborated theory enables us to understand for the first time how different types of status valued elements can, under appropriate conditions, be socially created or socially modified as a result of the operation of what are fundamentally similar processes.

The use of routines in the decision-making process of individuals, groups and organizations is a well accepted yet taken for granted phenomenon. One goal of organizations is to develop group routines that are efficient, but at the same time flexible. However, this presents a paradox because routines that are efficient at one point in time, or for a particular task, may persist, be unquestioned, and become increasingly inefficient for the group and the organization. This chapter develops a formal theory that describes the processes by which the legitimation of particular group structures impacts the development and use of group routines. The theory presented draws from theories of legitimation, expectation states theory, and institutional theory. The theory formally depicts three sources of legitimation: a referential belief structure (set of cultural beliefs) about expertise and leadership, authorization or superordinate support of a leader, and endorsement (support by group) of a leader. Specifically, the theory addresses: (1) how different sources of legitimation make groups more or less hierarchical; and (2) how the different sources of legitimation make group routines more or less flexible.

This chapter seeks to theoretically answer the question: under which circumstances do groups succeed under female leadership? Further, is it possible to conceptualize the engineering of groups such that group success under female leadership is a likely outcome?

In this chapter, I draw on identity control theory (Burke & Stets, 2009; Stets & Burke, 2005) and role congruity theory (Eagly, 2003) to discuss the implications for female leaders of the discrepancy between the female gender identity and the leader identity. Next, I draw upon status characteristics theory (Berger et al., 1972) to further illustrate the negative consequences of being a female leader. Then, drawing on group processes research, I make the explicit link between the negative expectations for female leaders on group performance through the endorsement of group members. Finally, I utilize innovative research using institutionalization of female leadership to propose a possible solution for improving group performance.

I present nine testable hypotheses ready for empirical test.

I propose that training materials underscoring the skills that females have as leaders can subvert the development of conflictual expectations facing female leaders, thus removing the deleterious effects on group performance. That is, if group members receive training that emphasizes the competencies and skills women bring to the group’s task and to the leadership role, then group performance will not be threatened.

In this chapter, I detail a procedure for incorporating status characteristics with more than two ordered states, or graded status characteristics, into status characteristics theory. I revise theoretical definitions and assumptions accordingly. The new procedure adds a weighting function to the existing mathematical structure of the theory. I show that estimates using the new procedure are consistent with findings drawn from four experiments that were run in the standard setting for status characteristics theory. I also show that the procedure explains more variation and improves global model fit when predicting expectations using newly collected vignette data. I conclude with a general discussion of the procedures and implications for other expectation states theories and for research conducted outside the laboratory.

According to status construction theory, a social attribute becomes imbued with status value through its association with valued resources. Yet, explanations for such associations have received scant attention. I propose that social identity processes may lead agents controlling resources to over-allocate to in-group members. This generates a doubly dissimilar situation in which actors are differentiated both with respect to a nominal characteristic and resources, leading the characteristic to become imbued with status value. I find support for this elaboration in a sample of newly founded organizations. I discuss the implications of this elaboration for further developments in status construction theory.