Incipient Status in Small Groups

Unacquainted individuals, placed together in a Bales-type discussion group, quickly form a participation hierarchy that indicates status differentiation. This rapid structuring of status, similar to the rapid structuring of status hierarchies in groups of Rhesus monkeys, suggests some subtle form of dominance and submission signalling may be operating. Two experimental conditions test this possibility. In one condition a measure of subjects' initial eye glance rank is taken. Eye glance rank predicts their eventual positions in the status hierarchy of the group. In the second condition, subjects are prevented from having eye contact in their initial interaction. Here, the first speaker in the Bales group usually emerges as highest in the hierarchy. These results support the view that people use subtle cues, obtained during the first few seconds of interaction, to rank themselves in the status hierarchy. The findings also represent a further criticism of several prevailing theories of status in small groups.