Knowing Your Place

Self-Perceptions of Status in Face-to-Face Groups

Anderson, Cameron
Srivastava, Sanjay
Beer, Jennifer S.
Spataro, Sandra E.
Chatman, Jennifer A.

¹Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
²Department of Psychology, University of Oregon
³Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
⁴Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University

⁵Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Cameron Anderson, University of California, Walter A. Haas School of Business, 545 Student Services Bldg #1900, Berkeley, CA 94720-1900. E-mail: [email protected]

Received March 1, 2006 Revision received June 11, 2006 Accepted June 17, 2006

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91(6):p 1094-1110, December 2006.

Status is the prominence, respect, and influence individuals enjoy in the eyes of others. Theories of positive illusions suggest that individuals form overly positive perceptions of their status in face-to-face groups. In contrast, the authors argue that individuals' perceptions of their status are highly accurate—that is, they closely match the group's perception of their status—because forming overly positive status self-perceptions can damage individuals' acceptance in a group. Therefore, the authors further argue that individuals are likely to refrain from status self-enhancement to maintain their belongingness in a group. Support for their hypotheses was found in 2 studies of status in face-to-face groups, using a social relations model approach (). Individuals showed high accuracy in perceiving their status and even erred on the side of being overly humble. Moreover, enhancement in status self-perceptions was associated with lower levels of social acceptance.