1 GEOG 1301 RESEARCH PAPER NATURAL REGIONS OF THE WORL

1
GEOG 1301 RESEARCH PAPER: NATURAL REGIONS OF
THE WORLD
Each student will compare and contrast the physical geography
of a pair of assigned natural regions (such
as the Sahara Desert or the Himalayas, for example). The region
pairs are listed below the assignment
instructions. This writing assignment is designed to provide
students with a more in-depth understanding
of prominent physical geography features in the two assigned
regions. Additionally, the assignment will
provide a more thorough understanding of the human/nature
interactions, environmental issues, and
interconnectedness of various components of nature that take
place within and around these regions.
Due Date: See syllabus schedule. Late Penalty: As stated in
syllabus.
Format:

The paper needs to be at least 5 full pages of writing total. It
needs to all be turned in as one single essay,
in paragraph form complete with introduction and conclusion
paragraphs and a thesis statement.
No more than 10% of this assignment should be quoted word-
for-word (even if in quotation marks).
See Page 3 for the list of questions to answer for the paper.
Papers are to be double-spaced, 12-font (Calibri, Times New
Roman, or Garamond) with 1-inch margins.
No cover page is required. Have your name written at the top of
the first page, with a title and page
numbers. The intro paragraph needs to have a specific thesis
statement that gives a brief-but-specific
overview of your analysis of the material in its entirety (Tip:
The thesis is best written AFTER doing all
the research and writing in the body of your paper).
The amount of writing on each of your two countries should be
roughly equal in length.
Any photographs, maps, tables, etc., need to be attached at the
end of the paper only, and they do not
count as part of the length of the paper. A cover page will not
count towards the paper length.

Writing about regions other than the ones assigned to you will
result in a 30% reduction of your score.
Grammar, Spelling:
It is expected that these papers are free of excessive
grammatical and spelling errors.
Sources:
Needed: At least 5 academic/scholarly sources. Use MLA, APA,
or Chicago Manual of Style which you
can Google to find websites with examples of these formats.
Scholarly sources include: Journal articles from college library
or college library website. Books
from researchers (at college library). “Dot-gov” websites. Most
encyclopedias Do not use
Wikipedia in the paper, as that information will not count as
part of the paper.
Non-scholarly sources include: News articles, pop culture
websites, magazines, or other forms of
mass media.

In-Text Citations and Bibliography:
To avoid plagiarism, all sources MUST be cited in the body of
your paper AND listed in a
bibliography, otherwise you will receive a score of ZERO for
the paper and potentially an F for the
2
entire course! Parenthetical citations are to be placed at the end
of EACH sentence where you received a
specific quote, idea, or a statistic from one of your sources.
A good rule of thumb is that if you have at least a couple
citations in each paragraph, you will probably
not be accused of plagiarizing (unless you often quote word-for-
word without quotation marks).
However, you will still lose points if you do not cite ALL of the
sentences which need citations.
Examples of in-text parenthetical citations:
http://www.aresearchguide.com/sampleparenth.html

Assistance:
Recommended starting points: - HCC Library’s Geography
Page:
https://library.hccs.edu/geography/home
- Google Scholar
- World Factbook from CIA.GOV (an online encyclopedia)
- Academic Search Complete (journal database)
- JSTOR (journal database)
Library Services: HCC librarians have made a special effort to
reach out to students, allowing them to
communicate with a librarian by email, live-chat, Instant
Messenger, and phone; to use databases and
ebooks from home; to request transfer of books to a campus
closer to the student's home, etc. The link to
the Library is provided on every HCC website at the top of each
page: http://library.hccs.edu/home
Libline: One of the links at the above library webpage is called
Libline. They call it their "lifeline for
students" because it provides a way for students to contact
librarians and to access online databases. See

http://libline.blogspot.com/
Upswing: Online Tutoring HCC offers 24-hour access to tutors
online. Students can get free tutoring for a
variety of subjects. Papers can be submitted for advice, with an
approximate 24-hour turn-around at
https://hccs.upswing.io/
3 Ways to Avoid an Automatic ZERO (and being reported to the
Dean):
1) Use parenthetical citations as needed inside the body of your
paper.
2) Include a Bibliography/Works Cited page at the end of your
paper.
3) Do not copy multiple paragraphs from other sources without
citing. Copying over
20% of your paper directly from another source, especially
without providing citations, is
an automatic F.
For those who turn in their paper on time: Any student scoring

below a 50 is allowed to revise
the paper (with a 15 point revision penalty) as long as they had
turned in their paper on time and
they show proof that they attended a session with the HCC
Writing Center. They must turn in the
revised paper a week before the Final Exam.
http://www.aresearchguide.com/sampleparenth.html
https://library.hccs.edu/geography/home
http://library.hccs.edu/home
http://libline.blogspot.com/
https://hccs.upswing.io/
3
The parts of the course paper (also include an introduction
paragraph with a thesis statement):
Be sure to support any of your own opinions with research that
you cite in the paper itself.
Part 1: Lithosphere
- For each region, what is one major geologic feature found
there (can include mountains, mountain

ranges, deserts, plains, coasts, etc)? Briefly describe these
features and how they came to look like how
they do today. How have they formed, been shaped over time,
etc?
- What do you see as some pros and cons for how are humans
using these features (tourism, nature
reserves, sacred land, mining, etc)? In other words, how has the
human impact been beneficial or harmful
to people and the natural environment in the region?
Part 2: Atmosphere
- For each region, describe the year-round climate found in the
majority of the region (climate charts
called “climographs” will help with this). If there is a wide
variety of climate types in one region, just
pick one city and describe its climate. Be sure to include
information about temperature, precipitation,
and seasonal changes.
- Aside from warmer temperatures, what are two ways long-term
climate change has impacted each of
your assigned regions (such as changes in weather, seasons,
wildlife, landforms, people, etc)? What is
being done about it (either local efforts or global efforts to help

reduce the impacts)?
Part 3: Hydrosphere
- What is one major body of water found within, or adjacent to,
each of your assigned regions? Briefly
describe them and where they are found within your regions.
- What do you see as some pros and cons for how are humans
using these hydrologic features (fishing,
boating, shipping, drilling, etc)?
Part 4: Biosphere:
- What are the most widespread biomes in your assigned
regions? (Check a biome map!) Briefly describe
these biomes and where they are found within your regions.
- What are a few of the most common species of wildlife (plants
or animals) in your assigned regions?
- Which major species are native to your regions, and w hich
ones came from elsewhere (called “exotic”
species)?
- What are some of the species listed as endangered in each
region? Why are they endangered?
Part 5: Putting It All Together / Concluding Paragraphs

- All four spheres of physical geography are interconnected. For
each of the assigned regions, what are
two ways that one sphere of physical geography impacts
another sphere of physical geography? For
example, how does the atmosphere affect the biosphere, or
how does the hydrosphere impact the
lithosphere? Be brief but provide specific examples from your
two regions based on your research.
- What do you see as the two most urgent environmental
concerns for each of the two regions to address,
and why? Explain your logic, citing information you
researched to support your opinion. What types
of programs/efforts exist to improve these issues (if you wrote
about the programs earlier in the paper,
just briefly mention them again, but you do not need to explain
about them again)?
4

Student Assigned Regions
Alvarado, Allan Madagascar, Maldives
Angel, Ra' Shad Caucasia (Caucasus), Arabian Desert
Ansatbayev, Dinmukhamed Sahara Desert, The Serengeti
Castillo, Silvia Ethiopian Highlands, Swahili Coast
Chaverria, Maria Great Lakes (USA), African Great Lakes
Cooney, Maria Horn of Africa, Congo Basin
Dean, Mya Scandinavian Mountains, Pannonian Steppe
Delagrange, Maxime Dolomites (Italy), Scottish Highlands
Delgado, Dominique Iceland, Canary Islands
Espinoza Escalera, Roxxen Azores, Svalbard
Flores, Cesar The Outback (Australia), South Shetland Islands
Fogo, Donald Tahiti, Tasmania
Gomez, Elidhet Fiji, Papua New Guinea
Hernandez, Valerie Japanese Alps, Gobi Desert
Jeffery, Elizabeth Himalayas, Ganges River Basin
Jiwani, Moaiz Tibetan Plateau, Kamchatka Peninsula

Khan, Abdul Siberia, Sundarbans
Levias, Brandon Llanos, Altiplano (both regions in South
America)
Maknojia, Alim Atacama Desert, Tierra del Fuego
Marediya, Zaineef Falkland Islands, Galapagos Islands
Munguia, Andy Brazilian Highlands, Amazon Basin
Percastre, Heriberto Patagonia, Pampas (both regions in
Argentina)
Phan, Bao Yukon (Canada), Cascade Mountains (USA)
Pineda, Jerlyn Mojave Desert, Canadian Shield
Ramirez, Joana Canadian Rockies, Great Plains (USA)
Ramos, Paulina Kodiak Island, Brooks Range (Alaska)
Reyes, Ariana Aleutian Islands, Kenai Peninsula (Alaska)
Rodriguez, Isabel National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska
(NPRA), Alaska Range
Schooley, Cameron Greenland, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
(ANWR)
Tagese, Gedion Sierra Nevada Mountains, Atlantic Coastal
Plain
Ventura, William Rocky Mountains (USA), Appalachian
Mountains

STATUS
& Expectation
States
ORGANIZING
01. EXPECTATION
STATES THEORY
Aims to explain how our
preconceived notions about
others, based on their
identities, are the basis
for status hierarchies in
small groups
Why Expectation States Theory
Matters
On the group level, we evaluate others’ competence &

credibility based
on status characteristics (socially significant characteristics,
rewards, & behavioral interchange patterns), which form the
basis for
status hierarchies
● These trends perpetuate themselves over time, resulting in
certain
types of individuals having more influence & power over others
● Status hierarchies based on perceptions of class, race, gender,
age, etc. may be fostered & perpetuated by what happens in
small
group interactions
STATUS DIFFERENCES
Higher status members are more
likely to be listened to,
received more positively, &
exert more influence
There may be backlash against
those of lower status in
positions of authority because
their power is perceived as
illegitimate
INCONSISTENT CHARACTERISTICS
While expectation states
theory does not address the
origins of status beliefs, the
focus is instead on how these

status beliefs influence
people’s attitudes,
perceptions, & behavior
EVERYDAY LIFE
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
“When the eyes say one thing,
and the tongue another, a
practiced man relies on the
language of the first.”
”
02.APPLICATION
& RESEARCH
Expectation states theory has
been subjected to rigorous
empirical evaluation, which
has generated considerable
evidence in support of the
theory
STATUS UNEQUAL GROUPS
When peers interact, they

look more while listening
than while speaking. When
male ROTC officers & cadets
interact, officers looked as
much while listening &
speaking. Cadets looked
substantially more while
listening than while
speaking
Eye Gaze
Replicated the previous
study on female dyads
differentiated by age &
educational attainment
High status females looked while
speaking nearly as much as while
listening; low status females
looked much more while listening
A
When the same high & low status
females were placed in subsequent
interaction with a new partner who

was their equal in status, they
reverted to the more usual
proportions among peers
B
One of the vocal cues most commonly studied in relation to
status is
the speed with which a person responds to a group task
● One study told female participants whether they were higher
or
lower than their partners in a task.
○ Subjects assigned high status were more likely to respond
before their partners on problem-solving trials
Another study examined loudness & speech rates of men &
women in same-
& mixed-sex groups
● Although there were no effects on speech rates, women spoke
louder
in a task-oriented discussion with women than with men
○ These results demonstrate that much nonverbal behavior
between
males & females in task situations reflects the status value

of being male or female rather than distinct, sex-role-based
behavior
STATUS EQUAL GROUPS
Subjects’ positions in the
initial eye-glance hierarchy
correlated positively &
significantly with the
participation rank they later
achieved during group
discussion
One study measured the
eye-glance hierarchies of
three-man & three-woman groups
Some researchers suggest that
eye contact behaviors reflect
perceived status differences
STATUS EQUAL GROUPS
One study argues that group
members with a minority
opinion can influence the
majority if they actively
present their point of view
with consistency &

confidence
In a follow-up, researchers found that a
confederate holding a minority opinion
was influential when he was seen
actively choosing a head seat before
interaction, but not when he was
assigned that seat
A
This shows that nonverbal behavior & the
nature of responses, relative to other
group members, leads to attributions of
confidence, independence, or competence
& increases the influence & status they
attain in a group of peers
B
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STATUS

& Expectation
States
ORGANIZING
01. EXPECTATION
STATES THEORY
Macro-level applicability
MACRO-LEVEL APPLICABILITY
From an expectation states
theory perspective, social
inequality arises when
members of one group are
perceived to have greater
status & prestige than
members of another group
Social Change
Social Change
DISTINCTION

Distinction occurs
when members of a
group systematically
perceive that some
members have a
structural advantage
LEGITIMIZATION
Systematic perceptions
develop as individuals
reinforce these
beliefs in
interactions with
members of both high &
low status groups
DISRUPTION
By understanding how
these beliefs form &
lead to certain groups
becoming marginalized,
EST provides insight
for breaking these
patterns

02.EXPECTATION
STATES
THEORY
Critiques
CRITIQUES
EST suggests that status cues create
performance expectations, which lead to
interaction inequalities
Socially significant
characteristics
Social rewards
Behavioral
interchange patterns
Performance
expectations
Behavioral inequality/
status hierarchies
Critics argue that performance expectations could possibly be
caused
by neural impulses instead of cognitive processes
CRITIQUES

Despite the large amount of
research utilizing models of
cognition & status stereotypes,
they are subject to certain
limitations that account for their
failures to address important
features of social cognition
CRITIQUES
One critique challenges
the images of humans as
mechanistic or
rationalistic information
processors
Humans use heuristics, make sloppy
assumptions about the world, & are
influenced in their thinking by
emotional, motivational, & other
factors
A
Many decision-making processes are
characterized by a limited amount
of rationality
B

EXAMPLE ONE
One study showed that humans
tend to use heuristics under
conditions of uncertainty that
can produce erroneous judgments
Another study argues that much
social interaction is mindless &
involving less cognitive activity
than is often assumed because
people routinely follow scripts
EXAMPLE TWO
EST does not adequately
address different approaches
to human cognitive processes,
resulting in an overly narrow
depiction of what cognition
encompasses
CRITIQUES
CRITIQUES
Limited Scope Conditions
Status organizing processes occur in a broader range of
settings than those defined by the scope conditions of EST
(i.e., collectively-oriented task groups)

● For example, the settings where individuals take socially
important mental ability tests, such as the SAT, ACT, & GRE,
which
are all highly task-oriented but clearly lack a collective
orientation
Example
One study demonstrated that
individuals randomly assigned
to low status conditions, in
experiments, scored lower on
a test of mental ability than
those assigned to high status
conditions. They contend that
any attempt to measure mental
ability needs to account for
the way that salient status
processes actually interfere
with test taking performance
Task-oriented without a
collective orientation
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Social Psychology Quarterly
2000, Vol. 63, No. 2, 95-115
The Effects of Status-Organizing and Social Identity Processes
on Patterns of Social Influence*
WILL KALKHOFF
CHRISTOPHER BARNUM
The University of Iowa
Two theories of social influence, status characteristics theory
(SCT) and social identity
theory (SIT), have achieved an uncommon degree of theoretical
cumulation. SCT
focuses on the influence of status-differentiated actors in goal-
oriented settings, while
SIT addresses the influence of in-group versus out-group
members in intergroup con-
texts. We explore the joint effect of status and social identity.
Using a modification of
SCT's standardized experimental setting, we found that status-
organizing and social
identity processes operated concurrently: group membership
combined with a diffuse
status characteristic in a manner consistent with the
aggregation assumption of SCT
The study has implications for the theoretical integration of

SCT with SIT The avenue
we suggest would describe how status-organizing and social
identity processes are
interrelated through their interactive effect on the legitimation
of informal power and
prestige orders.
Social influence has interested social
psychologists for many years. From the clas-
sic studies of conformity and obedience to
explorations of persuasion, status, and in-
group bias, researchers employing the con-
cept of social influence have provided us
with fascinating, non-obvious findings on
how human actors lead one another to mod-
ify their actions and beliefs.
Two theories involving social influence
have achieved an uncommon degree of the-
oretical cumulation. These are status charac-
teristics theory (e.g., Berger, Cohen, and
Zelditch 1972; Berger et al. 1977) and social
identity theory (e.g., Hogg and Abrams 1988;
*Authors contributed equally. We gratefully
acknowledge the support for this project received
from the Center for the Study of Group Processes at
the University of Iowa. We also sincerely appreciate
the helpful feedback we received from participants
in the Group Processes sessions of the American
Sociological Association (August 1997, 1998). Also,
Lisa Troyer, Michael Lovaglia, Barry Markovsky,
Martha Foschi, Joseph Berger, and Kristen
Marcussen offered especially helpful suggestions on
earlier versions of this paper. Not least, we wish to
thank Lynn Smith-Lovin and the anonymous SPQ

reviewers who provided excellent suggestions and
commentary. Address correspondence to Will
Kalkhoff, Department of Sociology, University of
Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242; E-mail: william-
[email protected]
Tajfel and Turner 1979; Turner 1982, 1985;
Turner et al. 1987). Although they emerged
from two different camps of social psycholo-
gy, status characteristics theory (hereafter
SCT) and social identity theory (hereafter
SIT) have generated especially well-devel-
oped programs of research. By examining
influence processes as described by SCT and
SIT and by exploring the extent to which
they operate concurrently, we may shed new
light on influence processes.
At the core of such a consideration is
the fact that SCT and SIT specify different
operating principles of social influence.
According to SCT, influence follows from
actors' expectations that certain members of
a task collectivity will be more competent at
a task. Specifically, influence occurs when
less competent (lower-status) task members
defer to the recommendations made by
more competent (higher-status) task mem-
bers. By contrast, social identity theorists
argue that influence follows from uncertain-
ty that results when a disagreement arises
between self and others categorized as simi-
lar to self (i.e., in-group members). Because
people believe that the opinions of in-group
members are likely to match those which
they themselves would express, uncertainty
is reduced when in-group members achieve

agreement. Thus, to reduce uncertainty, a
95
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96 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
person will view in-group members' respons-
es as more accurate than those of out-group
members (Hogg and Turner 1987; Turner
1991;Turner and Oakes 1986, 1989).
Because SCT and SIT specify distinct
processes of social influence, an immediate
question for research is whether status-orga-
nizing and social identity processes operate
concurrently to produce social influence. To
assess this problem, one must examine the
separate effects of the two processes in a
common setting. To investigate the interplay
between status-organizing and social identi-
ty processes, we conducted a laboratory
experiment guided by the following ques-
tions: (1) If status-organizing and social
identity processes influence behavior sepa-
rately in a common setting, then is the
strength of their effects comparable? (2) Do
status-organizing and social identity process-
es operate concurrently in a setting? (3) If

status-organizing and social identity process-
es operate concurrently in a setting, then
how do they concurrently affect patterns of
influence? The answers to these questions
may set the stage for the more rigorous task
of formally integrati ng SCT with SIT.
We begin with an overview of SCT and
SIT, and then describe the details of the
experimental method used to investigate our
questions. After presenting the results of the
study, we conclude by suggesting some of the
study's implications for future research.
STATUS CHARACTERISTICS THEORY
SCT is a branch of expectation states
research that was developed to explain par-
ticipation inequalities in task- and collective-
ly oriented settings' where actors are
initially distinguishable as to culturally eval-
uated attributes (Berger, Rosenholtz, and
Zelditch 1980). Such attributes are known as
"status characteristics." Two types of status
characteristics exist: specific and diffuse.
1 Task orientation occurs when individuals are
motivated to solve a problem that they perceive has
correct and incorrect outcomes. Collective orienta-
tion occurs when individuals consider it necessary
and legitimate to consider each other's suggestions in
attempting to solve a task problem (Berger et al.
1972). Task and collective orientation define the
"scope," or domain of applicability, of SCT.
Although actors use both of these to infer

one another's ability at a task, specific status
characteristics entail a more explicit, more
bounded range of competencies.
Mathematical ability or physical strength are
examples of specific status characteristics.
By comparison, diffuse status character-
istics also are associated culturally with
some specific skills, but (more important)
they carry general expectations for compe-
tence that are unlimited in range. Men in the
United States, for example, are expected
according to cultural stereotypes to be bet-
ter than women at fixing cars and worse at
nurturing, but they are also expected to be
generally more able than women at almost
any task. Therefore, sex functions as a dif-
fuse status characteristic.
SCT specifies five logically connected
assumptions that link status characteristics
with interaction patterns in task settings.2
First, the theory assumes that a status char-
acteristic must be "salient" in order to serve
as a basis by which actors in a task setting
form expectations of competence. If a status
characteristic differentiates members of a
task setting or is perceived as relevant to the
task, it will be salient. For example, sex in a
task group composed of males and females
differentiates members, while mechanical
ability is relevant to a group attempting to
fix a broken-down automobile.
Second, if a status characteristic is
salient and has not been explicitly "disasso-

ciated" from a task, actors in the setting will
form expectations of competence for one
another that are consistent with the states of
the characteristic. Disassociation is any con-
vincing act or claim that breaks the link
between the task and the status characteris-
tic. If sex is the discriminating status charac-
teristic in a setting, then men in the setting
will be expected to have more task ability
than women in the setting as long as the
actors do not encounter strong evidence
indicating the irrelevancy of sex for the spe-
cific task at hand.
More formally, status characteristics the-
orists use graph-theoretic techniques to
model the link between actors, status charac-
2 For a more complete discussion of the assump-
tions of SCT, see Berger et al. (1980).
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STATUS AND SOCIAL IDENTITY 97
teristics, expectations, and task outcomes.3
Using this modeling technique, SCT posits
that stronger expectation states are pro-

duced by status characteristics that are
linked more directly to a task. Because spe-
cific status characteristics relevant to a task
are linked more directly to task outcomes,
they produce stronger expectation states
than diffuse status characteristics. For exam-
ple, if several actors are attempting to solve
an arithmetic problem, information that dif-
ferentiates them in terms of mathematical
ability (a specific status characteristic) would
produce stronger expectation states and
hence stronger influence effects than would
information differentiating their level of
education (a diffuse status characteristic).
The third assumption of SCT describes
what occurs when actors exit or enter an
ongoing task engagement. It is assumed that
performance expectations produced from
status information in one encounter are pre-
served, even when particular actors change.
For example, if a man interacts with a
woman in one task encounter (and if sex is
the only salient status characteristic), the
man will form higher performance expecta-

tions for himself. However, if the woman
leaves the task setting and is replaced by a
new male interactant, the first man will
retain somewhat higher performance expec-
tations for himself as a result of his interac-
tion with the (lower-status) woman (Webster
1996).
The fourth assumption of SCT describes
how actors form expectations of competence
in situations where multiple status character-
istics are salient. It is assumed that actors
combine status information by way of a prin-
ciple of "organized subsets." According to
this principle, individuals first combine into
cognitive subsets all positively evaluated sta-
tus information and all negatively evaluated
status information for each actor separately,
including self. Specifically, each additional
piece of similarly evaluated status informa-
tion that enters a given subset has less
weight than if it had entered alone (the
attenuation principle). Next, the principle of
organized subsets specifies that actors com-
3 For a presentation of the graph-theoretic formu-
lation of SCT, see Berger et al. (1977).
bine the subsets to produce aggregated
expectations, a single quantity for each

member of the collectivity. Because status
characteristics are culturally shared evalua-
tions of attributes, it is further assumed that
each actor arrives at the same set of aggre-
gated expectations for all members of the
collectivity.
The final assumption of SCT is that once
actors have formed aggregated expectations
for self and other, an actor's "power and
prestige" position in the collectivity will be a
direct function of his or her expectation
advantage over others in the collectivity. An
actor's expectation advantage is that actor's
aggregated expectations minus the aggregat-
ed expectations for each other actor (i.e.,
separately). The greater an actor's expecta-
tion advantage over others, the higher the
actor's rank in the collectivity's power and
prestige order. A key indicator of an actor's
position in a power and prestige order is the
degree to which that actor secures agree-
ment from others over contested issues (i.e.,
an actor's level of influence over the collec-
tivity's decisions). A principle derivation of

SCT is as follows: In task settings, higher-
status actors will exert more influence than
lower-status actors over decisions made by
the task collectivity.
SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY
In contrast to SCT's focus on individu-
als' status characteristics as determinants of
participation behavior in task settings, the
goal of SIT is to understand the effect of
"category membership" on people's percep-
tions and behavior. The theory stems from
two classic experiments conducted by Tajfel
(1959) and Tajfel and Wilkes (1963). The
purpose of these experiments was to investi-
gate whether people's perceptions of physi-
cal objects are altered by categorization, the
explicit classification of objects into groups.
Subjects in these experiments were required
to judge the similarity of several physical
objects. In one experimental condition, the
objects were divided into two sets and were
presented as separate groups. In a second
condition, the same objects were divided
into sets but were not explicitly categorized.
Tajfel discovered that when the sets were
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categorized, people's perceptions of the
objects were distorted. They tended to per-
ceive greater similarity within the sets and
less similarity between sets. Tajfel proposed
that this "accentuation effect" occurred
because people relied on a "peripheral
dimension" (the category labels) as an aid in
judging the "focal dimension" (the objects).
Categorization, then, is a cognitive function
that individuals use to organize a complex
environmental state.
Soon after these early experiments,
Tajfel and his colleagues (Doise 1978; Doise,
Deschamps, and Meyer 1978; Tajfel 1969,
1978, 1981; Tajfel, Sheikh, and Gardner 1964;
Turner 1975,1978a, 1978b) used the accentu-
ation effect to explain perceptions of social
phenomena. The categorization of individu-
als generates the accentuation effect: people
perceive increased similarity within groups
and decreased similarity between groups.
Categorization essentially generates stereo-
typical perceptions. These stereotypes are
both descriptive and prescriptive: they
define the group's designating characteris-
tics as well as it's normative behaviors.
According to SIT, categorization is guid-

ed by self-enhancement motives (Hogg,
Terry, and White 1995; Tajfel 1981). People
strive to achieve a positive view of self.
Therefore, because group memberships pro-
vide people with meaningful self-definitions,
an evaluator who is comparing groups will
strive to achieve a positive definition of his
or her own group in relation to other rele-
vant groups. For example, members of a col-
lege basketball team who know that their
team is relatively poor at making free
throws, but relatively strong at making out-
side shots, will tend to make comparisons
with opposing teams in terms of outside
shooting.
Social identity theorists, however,
emphasize that intergroup comparisons are
embedded in a structure of power and status
relations. The process of social comparison
provides individuals with information about
their place in this structure. In a social con-
text, an in-group that possesses comparative-
ly low status provides an individual with a
negative social identity; an in-group with
comparatively high status provides an indi-
vidual with a positive social identity (Tajfel
1974; Tajfel and Turner 1979). Because peo-
ple desire positive social identity, members
of low-status groups are motivated either to
leave their group or to achieve a positive
reevaluation of the group (Tajfel 1974,1978;

Tajfel and Thrner 1979). If the structure of
the existing system is permeable-that is, if
it allows an individual to pass freely from a
lower-status to a higher-status group-indi-
viduals in a lower-status group are likely to
engage in social mobility (Tajfel and Turner
1979). If the structure is nonpermeable, indi-
viduals in a lower-status group can only
attempt to produce social change.
The type of social change that emerges
depends on whether the system possesses
secure or insecure status (Tajfel 1978; Tajfel
and Turner 1979). If the structure is secure
(i.e., legitimate and stable), group members
cannot conceive of alternatives to the sys-
tem. Hence they are likely to use social cre-
ativity (e.g., changing comparison groups or
changing the dimension of evaluation) to
enhance in-group status. If the structure has
insecure status, group members are able to
envision alternatives to the existing order
and are likely to engage in social competi-
tion (e.g., by attempting to change the social
structure).
To manage the natural complexity of
categorization, much SIT research has
employed a "minimal group" experimental

design (Billig 1973; Billig and Tajfel 1973;
Turner 1978a). This design utilizes subjects
who are of the same age, sex, and race so
that only the categories manipulated by the
experimenter become the basis for inter-
group discrimination. Typically, subjects are
putatively separated into groups on the basis
of some trivial criterion such as the flip of a
coin or stated preferences for a painting.
(The actual method of assignment is ran-
dom.) Subjects then are assigned code num-
bers that correspond to their group
membership and are asked to distribute
points to others in the experiment, two per-
sons at a time. Those who receive points are
anonymous to the distributor except for
their group memberships. Subjects use spe-
cial allocation matrices to distribute points
(Hogg 1987; Tajfel and Billig 1974; Tajfel et
al. 1971). The matrices determine whether
subjects give points to two in-group mem-
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
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bers, two out-group members, or an in-group
member and an out-group member. Subjects
choose one of several distribution strategies;

these include giving both the in-group and
the out-group member numerous points, giv-
ing each only a few points, or giving either
the in-group member or the out-group mem-
ber most of the points.
Results of experiments employing the
minimal group paradigm have consistently
found that subjects exhibit behavior advan-
tageous to in-group members (Billig and
Tajfel 1973; Brown and Turner 1981; Hogg
and Abrams 1988; St. Claire and Turner
1982; Turner 1978a, 1978b). Turner (1975)
argues that behavior in minimal groups is an
almost automatic result of social competi-
tion. That is, subjects are more concerned
with relative group standing than with the
acquisition of resources.4
Self-Categorization Theory and Social
Influence
Generally considered an extension of
SIT, Turner's self-categorization theory
(Turner 1985, 1991; Turner et al. 1987; Turner
1991) elaborates the process of categoriza-
tion (Hogg et al. 1995). Turner (1985) argues
that the self is a set of cognitive representa-

tions. Furthermore, these representations
exist on a continuum of abstraction ranging
from "personal identifications" through
"social identifications" to "superordinate
identifications" (Brown and Turner 1981;
Turner 1985, 1991). Personal identifications
are instances of behavior that are not influ-
enced by group behavior; they are idiosyn-
cratic. Social identifications are instances of
social behavior that are determined by
group membership. Superordinate identifi-
cations are the most abstract, existing at a
4 Sherif et al. (1961) argued that group members'
personality characteristics are not necessary for the
development of intergroup hostilities. Instead the
authors believed that competition between groups
for scarce resources is sufficient to generate such
hostility. Turner (1975) calls this type of competition
"realistic competition." He argues, however, that
realistic competition is not a necessary condition for
intergroup hostility. Such hostilities can emerge from
"social competition" (which occurs if two or more
group identities are salient) even if no realistic com-
petition exists.
global level; that is, they tend to exist at a
level beyond group comparisons, such as the
level of humanity. All social behavior resides
on this theoretical continuum. Most behav-
ior is located near the middle, where both

personal and group influences are active
(Tajfel 1978). Thrner focuses mostly on the
impact of group behavior or social identifi-
cations.
According to Turner, a person deter-
mines whether a collection of people is a
group by comparing them to a prototype
(Turner 1985; Thrner et al. 1987). A proto-
type is a cognitive depiction of a group's
defining characteristics. It can be regarded as
comprising the levels of characteristics that
an ideal-typical member of the group would
possess. Prototypes are learned or are con-
structed from information in the immediate
situation. An evaluator will perceive a col-
lection of people as a group insofar as they
are similar to the prototype. The evaluator
also determines whether an individual is a
member of the group by assessing his or her
similarity to the prototype.
Because of the highly dynamic aspect of

a person's social identity, people in most
social contexts are simultaneously members
of several different groups. Self-categoriza-
tion theorists, however, argue that only a
limited number of groups influence a per-
son's behavior at any time. Salient groups
tend to be those which are most "accessible"
to the individual and those which best "fit"
perceptual input (Hogg and McGarty 1990;
Oakes, Haslam, and Turner 1994; Turner
1985; Thrner et al. 1987). A self-categoriza-
tion is accessible if an individual is motivat-
ed or prepared to think in terms of the
category.
A self-categorization "fits the stimulus
data" insofar as (1) the categorization, given
a set of relevant dimensions for comparison,
minimizes intracategory differences and
maximizes intercategory differences along
the dimensions (comparative fit); and (2) the
stereotypical content of the categorization is
congruent with the behavior of the interac-
tants in the setting (normative fit). For
example, the categorization youth/adult is
likely to become salient in a setting where
the interactants tend to think of the world in
terms of these categories (accessibility);
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020

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where the attitudes expressed by youths and
adults in the setting (a relevant dimension
for comparison) can be organized by the cat-
egorization such that there are greater dif-
ferences between the groups and smaller
differences within the groups along this
dimension (comparative fit); and where the
youths are behaving defiantly toward the
adults who are behaving authoritatively
(normative fit).
The salience of group membership (as
determined by accessibility and fit) gener-
ates an accentuation effect. An important
result of this perceptual bias is "depersonal-
ization." When depersonalization occurs,
individuals shift to thinking of themselves in
terms of the stereotypical attributes that
define their social identity, and tend less to
think of themselves as unique individuals.
Depersonalization is the basis of all group
phenomena including ethnocentrism, cohe-
sion, cooperation, and influence.
To explain influence in particular, self-
categorization theorists invoke several addi-
tional assumptions (see Hogg and Turner
1987; Turner 1991; Turner and Oakes 1986,

1989). On the basis of Festinger's (1954)
social comparison theory, it is assumed that
people rely on agreement with similar others
to determine what is true about reality.
Individuals perceiving disagreement
between their own opinion and that of simi-
lar others experience uncertainty. The uncer-
tainty produced by in-group disagreement
governs a process of mutual influence
among group members (in essence, the
reduction of uncertainty). Because a person
believes that the, opinions of in-group mem-
bers are likely to match those which he or
she would give, uncertainty is reduced when
in-group members achieve agreement. Thus
one can deduce from self-categorization the-
ory that individuals will regard in-group
responses as more accurate, more appropri-
ate, or more desirable than out-group
responses (Hogg and Turner 1987; Turner
1991; Turner and Oakes 1986, 1989).
Evidence from a series of studies (Hogg and
Turner 1987) supports this prediction from
self-categorization theory.
Since its inception, SIT has increased
our understanding of group processes. The
theory explains a wide range of phenomena,
and many of its hypotheses have enjoyed
considerable empirical success. At times,
however, the discursive presentation of the
theory has made its domain of applicability
difficult to determine. Barnum (1997) pro-
vides a useful articulation of the theory's

scope conditions. According to Barnum, SIT
applies to contexts where a person is evalu-
ating two or more others, where one of the
others is in the same group as the evaluator,
and where group membership serves as a
basis for discriminating actors. We refer to
such contexts as evaluative contexts.
STATUS AND SOCIAL IDENTITY
Both status-organizing and social identi-
ty processes generate social influence. No
existing research, however, systematically
addresses the interplay of the two processes.
One likely reason for the lack of research
comparing SCT with SIT is the academic
divide between U.S. and European social
psychology. Another likely reason is the fact
that these theories describe (as we have
shown) different processes of social influ-
ence. At the micro level, the account of
social influence offered by SCT is patently
"individualistic" (Turner and Oakes 1986).
An individual is influential insofar as she or
he possesses (or is presumed to possess)
valid information. In short, influence repre-
sents "a change in individuals produced by
[presumably more competent] individuals"
(Kiesler and Kiesler 1969:26). In contrast,
SIT locates influence in the transitory expe-
rience of self as group member via deper-
sonalization. Yet, although it may not be
advisable to attempt an integration of these
very different theories (Hogg et al. 1995), a

comparison is warranted because SCT and
SIT overlap in their domain of explanation
(social influence). At this point it would be
premature to conclude that the theories
have nothing to contribute to one another,
nor to a new theory of social influence that
combines elements of both. One immediate
question for research is whether status-orga-
nizing and social identity processes operate
concurrently to produce social influence.
To design an empirical setting that will
permit examination of this question, we
must clarify two issues. First, are the scope
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
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conditions of SCT and SIT compatible? It
would appear that they are. On the one
hand, the task- and collective orientation
requirements of SCT are not violated in
evaluative contexts (required by SIT).
Meeker (1990) clarifies the meaning of the
scope conditions of SCT. She argues that

task orientation requires only that actors
envision some point in the future when they
will know whether they have succeeded at
their task, and that actors view their present
activities as related to the future outcome.
Collective orientation requires only that
actors in a task setting attend to one anoth-
er's acts and understand that it is reasonable
to seek and give suggestions. The existence
of subgroup memberships in a task setting
does not entail violation of these require-
ments. The crucial difference between SCT
and SIT concerns the assumptions made by
each theory about the information used by
actors to determine which suggestions to fol-
low. There is no theoretical reason to expect
that the scope of SIT precludes that of SCT.
It is less obvious, however, that evalua-
tive contexts can be achieved where actors
are oriented toward the successful attain-
ment of a common goal. In the classic
Robbers' Cave experiment, Sherif et al.
(1961) found that interposing superordinate
goals reduced the antagonism that had
developed between two groups of boys at a
summer camp. More recently, Worchel

(1986) found that the effort to achieve a
superordinate goal substantially reduced the
salience of the distinction between in-group
and out-group. The question, then, is
whether a salient distinction between the in-
group and the out-group is maintained in
settings where actors are task- and collec-
tively oriented.
Here it is useful to distinguish between
superordinate goals and shared goals. A
superordinate goal can be defined abstractly
as an objective held in common by a set of
actors that cannot be achieved by any subset
of actors without the support or cooperation
of the others. In the Robbers' Cave experi-
ment, for example, Sherif and his colleagues
disabled the system supplying water to the
boys' camp. To restore the system, the two
groups of boys had to work together. By
contrast, a shared goal can be regarded as an
objective that a set of actors has in common.
This definition makes no reference to the
necessity that actors work together in a com-
plementary fashion to achieve a goal.
The distinction between superordinate
and shared goals is subtle but important.

Although SCT requires all actors in a task
setting to be motivated to succeed at their
task and to take into account each other's
suggestions, it does not require settings
where higher- and lower-status actors must
cooperate in a particular fashion in order to
succeed at a given task. Expectation states
still may influence behavior in settings
where actors strive to achieve a superordi-
nate goal (e.g., when a lower-status actor
performs his or her particular task role in
accordance with suggestions from a higher-
status actor), but SCT also applies to other
types of goal-oriented settings. As long as
the goal orientation of a task collectivity
does not revolve around the interposition of
a superordinate goal, we have no reason to
believe that the salience of the distinction
between in-group and out-group within a
task collectivity will be reduced.
Given that the scope conditions of SCT
and SIT are compatible, it is reasonable to
examine the interplay of status-organizing
and social identity processes. This point rais-
es the second question: What is the distinc-
tion between group membership and a
status characteristic? As stated above, a sta-

tus characteristic must have two or more
states, and each state must be associated
with a culturally shared value assessment. A
culture must commonly perceive it as better
to possess one state of the characteristic
than others. For example, intelligence oper-
ates as a status characteristic if members of a
culture believe it is better to be brilliant than
dull (Berger et al. 1977).
By contrast, group membership need
not be associated with a shared value assess-
ment. In the minimal group paradigm,
groups created in a laboratory constitute ad
hoc or trivial group membership. In addi-
tion, sociohistorical factors are eliminated in
minimal group studies, or the experimenter
otherwise controls social beliefs about group
prestige, stability, legitimacy, and/or perme-
ability. Even when these factors are elimi-
nated (e.g., when categorizations are not
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
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linked to a consensual status system),S trivial
group membership still generates in-group
favoritism (including influence) by the

processes we have described. SCT presently
does not account for this fact because nomi-
nal characteristics, according to the theory,
are not linked to shared expectations of
competence.
In our initial examination of SCT and
SIT, then, we compare a single diffuse status
characteristic with social categories estab-
lishing trivial group membership. To assess
the independent and joint effects of status-
organizing processes based on a diffuse sta-
tus characteristic and of social identity
processes based on trivial group member-
ship, we must exam at least four configura-
tions of the two pieces of information.
Consider a setting where an actor, p, is
faced with two others, o1 and o2. In one con-
figuration, o1 shares (trivial) membership in
p's group, while 02 is a member of the out-
group. (The status of the three actors is held
constant.) In the second configuration, ol
possesses a more highly valued state of a dif-
fuse status characteristic than does p, while
02 possess the less highly valued state of that
characteristic relative to p. (The group mem-
bership of the three actors is held constant.)
In the third configuration, 0i is of higher sta-
tus than p and shares membership in p's
group, while 02 is of lower status than p and
is a member of the out-group. In the final
configuration, the status assignments of 01
and 02 are the same (relative to the third
configuration), but the group membership

assignments are reversed: 01 is of higher sta-
tus and a member of the out-group, while 02
is of lower status and a member of p's group.
Table 1 summarizes the four configurations
of status and trivial group membership.
The first two configurations can be used
to examine the independent effects of social
identity processes based on trivial group
membership, and of status-organizing
processes based on a diffuse status charac-
teristic. SIT predicts that actors are more
likely to accept the responses of in-group
members (than of out-group members) as
accurate, appropriate, or desirable. Thus,
5 In SCT research, such categorizations are called
"nominal characteristics" (see, e.g., Ridgeway 1991).
with reference to Configuration 1, p will
accept influence more often from o1 than
from o2 when disagreements among the
three actors arise.
SCT predicts that actors are more likely
to follow the suggestions of higher-status
actors than lower-status actors. Thus, with
reference to Configuration 2, p will accept
influence more often from o1 than from o2
when disagreements among the three actors
arise. Furthermore, if the magnitude of the
effect of a diffuse status characteristic is
equal to that of trivial group membership,
then, with reference to Configurations 1 and
2, the in-group actor's influence will be
equal to that of the higher-status actor, and

the out-group actor's influence will be equal
to that of the lower-status actor.
Configurations 1, 2, 3, and 4, taken
together, can be used to examine whether
the influence processes attending to status
and social identity operate concurrently, or
whether one of the processes operates to the
exclusion of the other. If status operates to
the exclusion of social identity, then, with
reference to Configurations 2, 3, and 4, the
degree to which the higher-status actor's
influence exceeds that of the lower-status
actor will remain constant. Alternatively, if
trivial group membership operates to the
exclusion of status, then, with reference to
Configurations 1, 3, and 4, the degree to
which the in-group actor's level of influence
exceeds that of the out-group actor will
remain constant.
Finally, the alternative to the exclusion
hypotheses is that status-organizing and
social identity influence processes operate
concurrently. If the exclusion hypotheses are
rejected, then we can make observational
statements about the concurrent effect of
the two processes by examining the influ-
ence outcomes that arise from the four con-
figurations of status and group membership
information.
METHOD
To examine the independent and con-
current effects of status-organizing processes

and social identity processes on patterns of
social influence, we developed an experi-
mental setting in which status and group
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
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initial choice to go along with that of Partner
1, p(C1). By focusing only on trials where
subjects changed their initial response
(either to Partner 1 or Partner 2), the proba-
bility that a subject will change her initial
choice to go along with that of Partner 2,
p(C2), is equal to 1 - p(C1). Therefore, it is
sufficient to focus on one partner or the
other when using the logistic regression
approach (Balkwell et al. 1992).
If a choice between the two partners-
regardless of group membership and sta-
tus-were tantamount to a toss-up, then the
constant ml = log(g1/g2) =log(g2/g2) 0 ,
because the baseline change rates summa-
rized by g, and g2 would be essentially the
same. If we call the common change value
uc, then the Balkwell (1991) logic implies the

following:10
p(C1) - gFt exp(qel)
1' Ut exp(qel) + gFt exp(qe2) (1)
exp[q(el - e2)]
1 + exp[q(el - e2)]
In this formula, el - e2 is Partner l's
expectation advantage (calculated with the
function values that appear in Fisek,
Norman, and Nelson-Kilger 1992), and q is a
parameter to be estimated from the data.
The formula translates to a logistic regres-
sion model without an intercept parameter.
We estimated Equation (1) using SPSS,
and obtained a maximum-likelihood esti-
mate for the beta coefficient (q). Having
obtained the estimate for q, we used
Equation (1) to compute expected frequen-
cies (i.e., the expected number of trials on
which subjects change to Partners 1 and 2
for each condition). We compared these
expected frequencies with the observed fre-
quencies (i.e., the actual number of trials on
which subjects changed to Partners 1 and 2
for each condition), and assessed the
model's goodness of fit using a likelihood-
ratio chi-square test. Furthermore, we calcu-
lated an R2 measure using the formula that
appears in Balkwell (1991). This measure
indicates the improvement in fit provided by
Equation (1) over the theoretically naive

10 We thank a reviewer for this suggestion.
model assuming p(C1) = p(C2). The results of
the logistic regression are reported in Table
4.
From these results, it is clear that status
characteristics theory have a very good over-
all capacity to account for the observed data.
The average discrepancy between the
observed and the predicted responses is
.0358, which is within a margin attributable
to chance (LR chi-square = 4.72, df = 3, p =
.19). Moreover, the fit of this model is sub-
stantially better than that of a theoretically
naive model (R2 = .94). These results are
comparable to those obtained by Balkwell et
al. (1992) for their two-partner vignette
study. Most important, however, this analysis
indicates that trivial group membership
based on the social identity process com-
bined with a diffuse status characteristic in
our study in a manner consistent with the
aggregation principle of status characteris-
tics theory.
DISCUSSION
Our study produces four key findings.
First, employing a modification of the stan-
dardized experimental setting for SCT, we
found support for the basic claims of both
SCT and SIT. A higher-status partner exert-
ed more influence over subjects than did a
lower-status partner, net of trivial group

membership; a partner portrayed as sharing
subjects' aesthetic preference (in-group)
exerted more influence over subjects than
did an alternative portrayed as possessing a
different aesthetic preference (out-group),
net of status.
Second, from analyses of self-report
items, we found that the higher-status part-
ner (versus the lower-status partner) and the
in-group partner (versus the out-group part-
ner) derived their greater levels of influence
from different sources. The higher-status
partner was more influential than the lower-
status partner because she was perceived by
subjects to possess more meaning insight
ability. By contrast, the in-group actor was
more influential than the out-group actor
because subjects perceived her to be more
similar to themselves than was the out-group
actor.
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Table 4. Observed and Predicted p(C,) Scores, by Condition
and Partner
Expectation

Condition State Value Observed p(C,) Expected p(C,) I
Discrepancy I
1
Partner 1 .18 .63 .65 .03
Partner 2 -.18 .38 .35 .03
2
Partner 1 .18 .71 .65 .06
Partner 2 -.18 .29 .35 .06
3
Partner 1 .33 .75 .76 .01
Partner 2 -.33 .25 .24 .01
4
Partner 1 .00 .55 .50 .05
Partner 2 .00 .45 .50 .05
Notes: q = 1.70, LR chi-square = 4.72, df = 3,p = .19, R2 = .94
Third, even though status-organizing
and social identity processes appear to
involve different operating principles of
social influence, we found that higher-status
and in-group partners in our setting pos-
sessed a comparable influence advantage
over lower-status and out-group partners

respectively. The in-group partner in the
group-membership-only condition was no
more and no less influential than the higher-
status partner in the status-only condition.
Also, the out-group partner in the group-
membership-only condition was no more
and no less influential than the lower-status
partner in the status-only condition.
Therefore, status-organizing processes based
on a diffuse status characteristic (level of
education) and social identity processes
based on trivial group membership (aesthet-
ic preference) were equally strong as causes
of social influence in the task setting we
employed.
Finally, and perhaps most interesting, we
found that status-organizing and social iden-
tity processes operated concurrently. One
process did not operate to the exclusion of
the other. The quality of occupying lower
status did not diminish the frequency of sub-
jects' acceptance of influence from either in-
group or out-group actors, but the quality of
possessing higher status increased the fre-
quency of subjects' acceptance of influence
from both in-group and out-group actors.

Conversely, out-group membership did not
diminish the frequency of subjects' accep-
tance of influence from either lower- or
higher-status partners, but in-group member-
ship increased the frequency of subjects'
acceptance from both lower- and higher-sta-
tus partners. Thus, status-organizing and
social identity operated concurrently in our
study. Specifically, our analyses revealed that
trivial group membership based on the
social identity process combined with a dif-
fuse status characteristic in a manner consis-
tent with the aggregation assumption of
SCT.
Overall the present study is the first, as
far as we know, to demonstrate the simulta-
neous operation of status-organizing and
social identity influence processes. Even so,
we acknowledge the need to develop and
test theoretical arguments that would
explain why it is appropriate to use SCT's
aggregation assumption to examine status-
organizing and social identity processes, or
would otherwise account for our results.

Nonetheless, it is notable that SCT's aggre-
gation assumption captured the relative con-
tribution of two disparate dimensions of
social influence. Could it be, however, that
trivial group membership based on artistic
preference is simply a diffuse status charac-
teristic? Such a possibility would invite the
criticism that we have not witnessed the
interplay of separate influence processes. We
do not believe this is the case. Our results
indicate that the higher-status partner (ver-
sus the lower-status partner) and the in-
group partner (versus the out-group
partner) in fact derived their greater levels
of influence from different sources. Unlike
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
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the higher-status partner, the in-group part-
ner was not more influential because of sub-
jects' expectation that she possessed greater
task ability.

From the standpoint of social identity
theory, one interpretation of our overall
results might be that subjects viewed the
artistic preference groups as relatively per-
meable (Tajfel and Turner 1979) and there-
fore were prone to enhance their social
identity through either in-group or out-
group favoritism when necessary. In compar-
ison with the group-membership-only
condition, subjects granted the in-group
partner more influence when she was also
portrayed as possessing higher status
(greater in-group favoritism). Yet, the per-
meability explanation leads us to expect that
subjects also would have favored the higher-
status out-group partner in Condition 4 (out-
group favoritism), but this was not the case:
subjects in Condition 4 did not favor either
partner with more influence.
A simpler explanation for our results is
that status-organizing processes and social
identity influence processes operate inde-
pendently. When higher status is matched up

with in-group membership and lower status
is matched up with out-group membership,
the effects are additive. Conversely, when
higher status is matched up with out-group
membership and lower status is matched up
with in-group membership, the effects are
subtractive. One problem with this interpre-
tation, however, is that the quality of belong-
ing to the out-group did not diminish either
higher- or lower-status (fictitious) partners'
levels of influence, nor did the quality of
occupying lower status diminish either in- or
out-group (fictitious) partners' levels of
influence. That is, the pure additive/subtra c-
tive model does not seem to hold completely
for our data.
One avenue for integrating SCT with
SIT is also consistent with the overall pat-
tern of our results. This approach would
invoke and extend arguments about the
legitimation and delegitimation of power
and prestige orders (see Berger et al. 1998;
Ridgeway and Berger 1986, 1988).
According to Berger et al. (1998), individu-
als in task groups form not only perfor-
mance expectations but also expectations for
the occupancy of valued positions in the

group; that is, positions that are accorded
more esteem, honor, and respect. The proba-
bility that a power and prestige ordering
between any two actors in a group will
acquire legitimacy is related positively to the
degree of differentiation between them on
expectations for valued status positions.
With an increase in differentiation on expec-
tations for valued status positions between
two actors, it becomes more probable that
the disadvantaged actor in the relation will
treat the advantaged actor with deference.
Legitimacy may arise when deference is vali-
dated collectively (i.e., copied or not chal-
lenged) by other group members. As a result
of legitimation, higher-status group members
are able to act with group support, which
enhances their ability to dominate and influ-
ence other group members.
To explain delegitimation, Berger and

colleagues restrict their analysis to delegiti-
mation that results from the emergence of a
power and prestige order which is incongru-
ent with the initially legitimated order: for
example, when a higher-status group mem-
ber gives recommendations that impede the
group's success at their task. As incongruen-
cies of this sort become more severe, so do
the "interactional costs"-in terms of
achieving the group's goals-that result
from adhering to the behavioral prescrip-
tions of the initially legitimated order.
Berger et al. describe the processes that
are sufficient to produce legitimation and
delegitimation in task groups. We add that
the group memberships' "consistency" with
a status order (from a given actor's vantage
point) will lead to the rapid legitimation of
that order, while "inconsistency" will under-
mine the legitimation process and under-
mine performance expectations as a basis
for organizing interaction. Consistency, in
our view, occurs when in-group members are
perceived to occupy valued status positions
in a group, and out-group members are per-
ceived to occupy devalued status positions.
Our theoretical reasoning is based on the
assumption from social identity theory that
group members seek to view their own

group in a favorable light through biased
comparisons with other groups. As a further
manifestation of this tendency, group mem-
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
15:51:50 UTC��
bers may believe that members of their own
group ought to occupy the more highly val-
ued status positions.
The "interactional costs" of adhering to
a power and prestige order when inconsis-
tent group memberships are introduced are
likely to be distinct from those which arise
with the introduction of information that
contradicts an initially legitimated power
and prestige order. That is, actors are likely
to experience any costs less in terms of
achieving the group's goals than in terms of
threats to positive group distinctiveness. In

short, group members want the members of
their own group to occupy the "good" posi-
tions in the group.
We believe that our data tend to justify
pursuing this avenue of integration. In Table
4, the average response pattern for subjects
in Condition 4 is approximately random:
subjects went along with each partner or
remained with their own initial response
about one-third of the time for each out-
come. If this more or less random behavior
indicates a power and prestige order whose
potential for organizing interaction has been
undermined and blocked from legitimation
by the introduction of inconsistent group
memberships (from the subject's perspec-
tive), it did not result from a reordering of
performance expectations. As we recall,
analyses of our post-questionnaire data indi-
cate that subjects rated the higher-status
partner as equally more competent than the
lower-status partner across Conditions 2, 3,
and 4. Moreover, we suggest that the
observed increment in the higher-status in-
group partner's level of influence (Condition
3) relative to that of the higher-status part-
ner (Condition 2) might have resulted from
the rapid legitimation of the status order in
Condition 3 due to the introduction of con-
sistent group memberships (from the sub-

ject's perspective).
In looking toward future work, then, we
suspect that the social identity process may
be another way in which legitimacy can be
acquired, blocked, or lost in task-oriented
groups. Accordingly we believe that research
on the interaction of status-organizing and
social identity processes may benefit from
an approach that focuses on how the two
processes can be related through the central
and developing concept of legitimacy in
expectation states research. Such an integra-
tion would greatly enhance our understand-
ing of influence, and it may lead to
important intervention strategies to help
reduce the "interaction disability" (Cohen
1972; Ridgeway 1982) faced by lower-status
actors in task groups.
REFERENCES
Balkwell, James W. 1991. "From Expectations to
Behavior: An Improved Postulate for
Expectation States Theory." American
Sociological Review 56:355-69.
Balkwell, James W., Joseph Berger, Murray

Webster Jr., Max Nelson-Kilger, and
Jacqueline Cashen. 1992. "Processing Status
Information: Some Tests of Competing
Theoretical Arguments." Pp. 1-20 in
Advances in Group Processes: Theory and
Research, Vol. 9, edited by Edward J.
Lawler, Barry Markovsky, Cecilia Ridgeway,
and Henry A. Walker. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
Barnum, Chris. 1997. "A Reformulated Social
Identity Theory." Pp. 29-57 in Advances in
Group Processes: Theory and Research, Vol.
14, edited by Barry Markovsky, Michael
Lovaglia, Lisa Troyer, and Edward J. Lawler.
Greenwich, CT: JAI.
Berger, Joseph, Bernard P. Cohen, and Morris
Zelditch Jr. 1972. "Status Characteristics
and Social Interaction." American
Sociological Review 37:241-55.
Berger, Joseph and Thomas L. Conner. 1974.
"Performance Expectations and Behavior in
Small Groups: A Revised Formulation." Pp.
85-109 in Expectation States Theory: A
Theoretical Research Program, edited by
Joseph Berger, Thomas L. Conner, and M.
Hamit Fisek. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.
Berger, Joseph, M. Hamit Fisek, Robert Z.
Norman, and Morris Zelditch Jr. 1977.
Status Characteristics and Social Interaction:

An Expectation States Approach. New York:
Elsevier.
Berger, Joseph, Cecilia L. Ridgeway, M. Hamit
Fisek, and Robert Z. Norman. 1998. "The
Legitimation and Delegitimation of Power
and Prestige Orders." American Sociological
Review 63:379-405.
Berger, Joseph, Susan J. Rosenholtz, and Morris
Zelditch, Jr. 1980. "Status-Organizing
Processes." Annual Review of Sociology
6:479-508.
Billig, Michael. 1973. "Normative Communication
in a Minimal Group Situation." European
Journal of Social Psychology 3:339-43.
Billig, Michael and Henri Tajfel. 1973. "Social
��139.78.24.113 on Sat, 04 Jul 2020
15:51:50 UTC��
Question 1
(Fill-in-the-blank) [BLANK] focuses on how status beliefs
influence people’s attitudes,
perceptions, and behavior.

Question 2
(Fill-in-the-blank) Despite playing no role in the work of a
group, [BLANK] encourage people to
believe that someone will be superior to others even when
considering specific skills and
abilities relevant to the task.
Question 3
(One Answer) There are two types of status characteristics that
are described by Status
Characteristics Theory, which of the following are examples of
each type of status
characteristic:
1. Race and gender
2. Educational attainment and class
3. Public speaking ability and gender
4. Public speaking ability and athletic ability
Question 4
(One Answer) Interactional hierarchies induce beliefs about the
worthiness and competence of:
1. Group performance
2. Individual performance
3. Categories of actors
4. People from different backgrounds

Question 5
(Multiple Answers) According to Kalkhoff and Barnum (2000),
despite the highly dynamic aspect
of a person’s social identity that means they are simultaneously
members of several different
groups, self-categorization theorists argue that:
1. Every group a person belongs to influences their behavior
2. People are influenced by only a limited number of groups at
once
3. People are influenced by their primary group
4. A self-categorization is accessible if an individual is
motivated or prepared to think in terms of the category
Question 6
(Type your answer) Drawing from Kalkhoff and Barnum’s
(2000) interpretation of status and
social identity theories, why might individuals regard in-group
responses as more accurate,
more appropriate, or more desirable than out-group responses?
Your Answer:
1 Paragraph

Question 7
(Type your answer) According to Kalkhoff and Barnum (2000),
what is the distinction between
group membership and a status characteristic?
Your Answer:
1 Paragraph
Question 8
[BONUS 10 points] Researchers in this area suggest that
applying expectation states theory to
social change would involve the disruption of the formation of
status beliefs, thereby reducing
the formation of status distinctions that drive inequality. Do you
agree with this statement?
Why or why not? From an expectation states theory perspective,
what would be the most
effective way to disrupt the formation of status beliefs? What
do you think the results would be
for (a) macro-level patterns of inequality and (b) micro-level
interactions?
Your Answer:
1 Paragraph

1 GEOG 1301 RESEARCH PAPER NATURAL REGIONS OF THE WORL

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