Status Characteristics and Social Interaction

The authors review literature on effects of status differences on interaction and formulate general principles of status generalization to explain them. Next they conduct direct tests of the explanation in an experimental study of 180 Air Force Sergeants in the standard experimental situation developed by Berger (Berger 2007). Sergeants paired with a commissioned officer formed low self-expectations and Sergeants paired with an Airman formed high self-expectations, as predicted.