Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Status and Power
Status and Power
1.Status position
a. each position carrying cultural
contents (norms, ideologies,
values), prestige or honor,
authority and other characteristics
Social structures may be identified
as:
2. Network
a. positions conceptualized as nodes
that reveal relationships with other
nodes
Social structures may be identified
as:
b. the network as a whole is analyzed in terms of properties:
1.density – level of
connectedness among all
nodes
2.centrality – degree to
which connections among
nodes run thru one or few
key nodes
3.bridges – positions
connecting cliques
4. cliques – extent of overall
network reveals subsets of
high density relations among
Flow of emotions among individuals
may be determined by:
Power
Expects to gain power + received power =
positive emotions (e.g. self-confidence)
Expects to gain power + did not receive power =
negative emotions (e.g. lose self-confidence,
increased level of fear and anxiety)
Expects to lose power + did not lose power = mild
positive emotions (e.g. satisfaction, gain in
confidence)
Expectations vs Reality
EXPECTATION EMOTIONS
S REALITY
Expectations
Status
Expects to gain status + gains status = positive
emotions + positive sentiments toward those
who gave them status
Expects to gain status + did not receive status
+ blames self = shame and sadness
Expects to gain status + did not receive status
+ blames others = anger and aggressiveness
IV. Power and Status and the Power-
Status Theory of Emotions
Literature on Power and Status
1. Started with Empedocles: asks about the dynamic quality of
nature in Love and Strife
Freud : Eros (life) Thanatos (death)
emerged during a period of methodological innovation and
empirical investigation during and following World War II to
understanding military leadership
2. Principal tool of discovery: Factor Analysis
a mathematical technique for determining underlying patterns in
large sets of observed data or co-related variables
Developed by Spearman (1904) and later refined by Thurstone
(1934)
used at first to study whether intelligence was unitary or
composed of different basic "factors" (e.g., verbal
intelligence, mathematical intelligence)
became a leading method by which analysts in many
sciences explored how many factors or basic dimensions
Literature on Power and Status
3. Carter’s seminal work
a. Answered: “What are the characteristics which can be
evaluated by observing people interacting?"
b. Factor analysis used as one method for generating a
smaller set of constructs from a larger set of observables
c. found that three dimensions accounted for the
variance in ratings of the group behavior of
college males on 19 variables
d. Despite differences in group size, tasks, social locations
of subjects, and types of measurement, they found
essentially the same three factors or dimensions:
Prominence and Achievement
Group Goal Facilitation
Group Sociability
From Carter’s Work
Issues that arise: three constructs instead of two
For sociological theory, we must consider:
Division of labor
Reproduction and parenting
Socially constructed further specialization of tasks, with wide variation
between groups in the particulars
Division of labor consists of a distribution of tasks, or what can be
thought of as technical activities, assigned to different actors to
accomplish the goals of the group
Carter's Group Goal Facilitation factor accounts support the
analysis based on the division of labor
includes traits and behaviors as: efficiency, cooperation, adaptability,
pointed toward group solution, helpful, effective intelligence, and enable
group members to recognize their function
However, other considerations:
humans do more than task or technical activities. They also act toward
each other—something we call social relations. This is the arena in which
the details of who gets how much of the available rewards and benefits and
by what means are settled.
Power
1. Ability to force others to do even when
they do not want to do it
2. With a relatively stable power structure, an
actor with more power will be able to obtain
his or her way more often and in more
domains than the other actor(s)
Status
1. Known as authentic voluntary compliance
(status-conferral or status)
2. People willingly and gladly defer to, accept,
approve, support, respect, admire, and,
ultimately, love others without compulsion
or coercion
3. An actor with high status is one who
receives many benefits and rewards
from the other actor(s) in the relationship
Representation of Power and Status
A and B are any two actors. Pa and Pb are A's
and B's power, and Sa and Sb are A's and B's
status
Power and Status as Macro-
Dimensions
Power-status theory is applicable to large groups and to
interaction between large groups and to the emotions
generated both within and between large groups.
At the societal level:
Power – freedom
Status – justice
Social movements are normally motivated by one or
another of these interests (Kemper 2001)
Not as much empirical work than other small-group
settings, but considerable complexity is observed at
this level, but the essential technical activity and
power (freedom) and status (justice) factors
Relational Meta-processes
In any given relationship, one might or might
not be satisfied with his or her power or status
standing vis-a-vis the other person(s):
When satisfied – one aims to maintain that
state (status quo) to which may entail modest
adjustments of conduct
When dissatisfied— one is motivated to
change either his or her standing or the
standing of the other actor. This sets in motion
processes for the enhancement (or reduction) of
the power or status configuration of the
relationship.
Status Deficit
Those with status deficit may engage in the
following:
1. Formal Attainment
According to
Universalistic Criteria –
enhancing status through
achievements
2. Normative Appeals –
seeking norms of fairness or
justice
3. Extreme and Dangerous
Attainments – fatal status-
Status Deficit
4. Claims to Deep
Emotional
Experience –
raving & ranting
5. Early Adopter –
first to introduce a
high-status
practice, but may
be unpopular to
those invested in
status quo
6. Exemplary
Status Deficit
8.Humility – in the hope of being
recognized for it
9.Victimhood and Complaints –
If victimizers are group
members, it may reduce the
victim's status even further; a
listener is a status-equal; status
superiors may be interested;
status inferiors likely to gloat
10.Jesting and Joking – a highly
desired social lubricant
11.Nostalgia Retrieval
12.Games, Contests, and
Recreational Activity
Power-Status Theory of
Emotions
Power-Status Theory of Emotions derives from
the proposition that a "large class of emotions
results from real, imagined or anticipated
outcomes in social relationships"
a. Real outcomes – happen in "real time" (i.e.,
in the immediate framework of interaction)
b. Imagined outcomes – include scenarios of
what-might-be or what-might-have-been or
are recalled from past interaction
c. Anticipated outcomes – those that are
projected as a result of future interactions
12 Possible Outcomes
A's power can rise (+), decline (-), or
remain the same (0)
B's power can rise (+), decline (-), or
remain the same (0)
A's status can rise (+), decline (-), or
remain the same (0)
B's status can rise (+), decline (-), or
remain the same (0)
Insights
1. the multiplicity of outcomes should lessen the
complexity of human emotions
2. the complexity of interaction outcomes, gives a
useful theoretical explanation into the
question of mixed emotions or mixed feelings
and that interaction outcomes will always occur in
four different relational channels
3. one outcome is often regarded as dominant
and hence reduces any interference from any less
intense emotions that derive from what occurs in
the other three relational channel
4. emotions will be assigned to relational channel
outcomes
3 Possible Agencies and 3 Possible
Directions
1. Self
2. Other
3. Third party – might be a person, or an
abstraction, such as God, or fate, or luck,
or "the way things are”
Kinds of Emotions
1. Structural emotions – aroused by
individuals’ relative stable power and
status within social structures
2. Anticipatory emotions – aroused by
peoples’ expectations for power and
status
3. Situational/consequent emotions –
aroused by on-going interaction and
changes in individuals’ power and status;
often short-term
Structural Emotions
Adequate Excessive Insuffici
ent
Own Power Safety Guilt Fear/
anxiety
Others’ Safety Fear/ Guilt
Power anxiety
Own Satisfied, Shame/ Sadness-
Status Contented, Embarrass depressio
or Happy ment n OR
Anger
Others’ Contentme Fear Guilt
Anticipatory Emotions
Consequent Emotions
Relational Channel: A's status
B's Anticipatory Emotion: Serene confidence
Interaction Outcome: Status loss by A
Agent: Third Party
Structural Summary: Liking for A
B's consequent emotion directed to parallel: Consternation,
Sadness
B's consequent emotion directed to A: Sympathy
B's consequent emotion directed to third party: Anger
Structural Summary: Dislike for A
B's consequent emotion directed to parallel: Schadenfreude
(pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune)
B's consequent emotion directed to A: Contempt
B's consequent emotion directed to third party: Liking
Love and Liking
Unfaithful love Romantic Love
Parent-Infant Love