When Status Equals Make Status Claims

Abstract

Several studies have shown that second-order expectations, an interactant's perceptions of a coactor's self-other expectations, can affect the receiving actor's performance expectations and behavior. Using new theoretical developments, we report new data and further tests of three models concerning effects of coactors' expressed expectations. Prior work focused on interaction of individuals differing in status; here we study interacting status equals. Results show that a simple aggregation model, with parameters estimated in an earlier study, predicts results very accurately.