IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0104737.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Teasing, Taunting, and the Politics of Politeness: High Sociometric Status Is Associated with Expectation-Consistent Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Michael W Kraus
  • Christopher Oveis
  • Maria Logli Allison
  • Randall C Young
  • John Tauer
  • Dacher Keltner

Abstract

Research examining face-to-face status hierarchies suggests that individuals attain respect and admiration by engaging in behavior that influences others' judgments of their value to the group. Building on this research, we expected that high-status individuals would be less likely to engage in behaviors that violate group norms and expectations, relative to low-status individuals. Adolescent participants took part in an interaction in which they teased an opposite-gender friend (Study 1) or an experiment in which taunting or cheering expectations were manipulated (Study 2). Consistent with the hypothesis, high-status boys and girls engaged in teasing behaviors consistent with their gender roles, relative to their low status counterparts (Study 1). In Study 2, high-status boys engaged in more direct provocation and off-record commentary while taunting, and more affiliative behavior while cheering on their partner, relative to low-status boys. Discussion focused on how expectation-consistent actions help individuals maintain elevated status.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael W Kraus & Christopher Oveis & Maria Logli Allison & Randall C Young & John Tauer & Dacher Keltner, 2014. "Teasing, Taunting, and the Politics of Politeness: High Sociometric Status Is Associated with Expectation-Consistent Behavior," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-8, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0104737
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104737
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0104737
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0104737&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0104737?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric Luis Uhlmann & Victoria Brescoll, 2008. "Can an Angry Woman Get Ahead? Status Conferral, Gender, and Expression of Emotion in the Workplace," Post-Print hal-00516598, HAL.
    2. Tiedens, Larissa Z., 2001. "Anger and Advancement versus Sadness and Subjugation: The Effect of Negative Emotion Expressions on Social Status Conferral," Research Papers 1615, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edgar A Duéñez-Guzmán & Suzanne Sadedin, 2012. "Evolving Righteousness in a Corrupt World," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-7, September.
    2. Jessica M. Salerno & Hannah J. Phalen, 2019. "Traditional Gender Roles and Backlash Against Female Attorneys Expressing Anger in Court," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), pages 909-932, December.
    3. Barasch, Alixandra & Levine, Emma E. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 2016. "Bliss is ignorance: How the magnitude of expressed happiness influences perceived naiveté and interpersonal exploitation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 184-206.
    4. Patricio S Dalton & Victor H Gonzalez Jimenez & Charles N Noussair, 2017. "Exposure to Poverty and Productivity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, January.
    5. Jamie L. Gloor & Manuela Morf & Samantha Paustian-Underdahl & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2020. "Fix the Game, Not the Dame: Restoring Equity in Leadership Evaluations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 497-511, January.
    6. Ho, Foo Nin & Wong, Jared & Brodowsky, Glen, 2023. "Does masstige offer the prestige of luxury without the social costs? Status and warmth perceptions from masstige and luxury signals," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PA).
    7. Elfenbein, Hillary Anger, 2007. "Emotion in Organizations: A Review in Stages," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt2bn0n9mv, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    8. Ursula Hess, 2003. "Les émotions au travail," CIRANO Burgundy Reports 2003rb-04, CIRANO.
    9. Juan Sebastian Olier & Camilla Spadavecchia, 2024. "Migration and emotions in the media: can socioeconomic indicators predict emotions in images associated with immigrants?," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 963-994, April.
    10. Juan Sebastian Olier & Camilla Spadavecchia, 2022. "Stereotypes, disproportions, and power asymmetries in the visual portrayal of migrants in ten countries: an interdisciplinary AI-based approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.
    11. Hmieleski, Keith M. & Sheppard, Leah D., 2019. "The Yin and Yang of entrepreneurship: Gender differences in the importance of communal and agentic characteristics for entrepreneurs' subjective well-being and performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 709-730.
    12. Rothman, Naomi B., 2011. "Steering sheep: How expressed emotional ambivalence elicits dominance in interdependent decision making contexts," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 66-82, September.
    13. Wells, Rachael E. & Iyengar, Sheena S., 2005. "Positive illusions of preference consistency: When remaining eluded by one's preferences yields greater subjective well-being and decision outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 98(1), pages 66-87, September.
    14. Kalra, Komal & Danis, Wade, 2024. "Language and identity: The dynamics of linguistic clustering in multinational enterprises," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 59(4).
    15. van de Ven, Niels & Meijs, Maartje & Vingerhoets, A.J.J.M., 2017. "What emotional tears convey : Tearful individuals are seen as warmer, but also as less competent," Other publications TiSEM e82a646e-1ca1-46fe-a422-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Paola Belingheri & Filippo Chiarello & Andrea Fronzetti Colladon & Paola Rovelli, 2021. "Twenty years of gender equality research: A scoping review based on a new semantic indicatorr," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-27, September.
    17. Fragale, Alison R. & Rosen, Benson & Xu, Carol & Merideth, Iryna, 2009. "The higher they are, the harder they fall: The effects of wrongdoer status on observer punishment recommendations and intentionality attributions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 53-65, January.
    18. Lakshmi Balachandra & Tony Briggs & Kim Eddleston & Candida Brush, 2019. "Don’t Pitch Like a Girl!: How Gender Stereotypes Influence Investor Decisions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 43(1), pages 116-137, January.
    19. Herter, Márcia Maurer & Borges, Adilson & Pinto, Diego Costa, 2021. "Which emotions make you healthier? The effects of sadness, embarrassment, and construal level on healthy behaviors," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 147-158.
    20. Morteza Dehghani & Peter J. Carnevale & Jonathan Gratch, 2014. "Interpersonal effects of expressed anger and sorrow in morally charged negotiation," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9(2), pages 104-113, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0104737. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.