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Home , Authority bias, Social inequality, Social status, Status group

ASR79110.1177/0003122413515997American Sociological ReviewRidgeway 5159972013

2013 Presidential Address

American Sociological Review 2014, Vol. 79(1) 1–16­ Why Status Matters for © American Sociological Association 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0003122413515997 Inequality http://asr.sagepub.com

Cecilia L. Ridgewaya

Abstract To understand the mechanisms behind , this address argues that we need to more thoroughly incorporate the effects of status—inequality based on differences in esteem and respect—alongside those based on resources and power. As a micro motive for behavior, status is as significant as and power. At a macro level, status stabilizes resource and power inequality by transforming it into cultural status beliefs about group differences regarding who is “better” (esteemed and competent). But cultural status beliefs about which groups are “better” constitute group differences as independent dimensions of inequality that generate material advantages due to group membership itself. Acting through micro- level social relations in workplaces, schools, and elsewhere, status beliefs evaluations of competence and suitability for authority, bias associational preferences, and evoke resistance to status challenges from low- members. These effects accumulate to direct members of higher status groups toward positions of resources and power while holding back lower status group members. Through these processes, status writes group differences such as , race, and class-based life style into organizational structures of resources and power, creating durable inequality. Status is thus a central mechanism behind durable patterns of inequality based on social differences.

Keywords , interpersonal relations, inequality, gender, race, class

Sociologists want to do more than describe show how status acts as an independent force social inequality. We want to understand the in the making of inequality based on gender, deeper problem of how inequality is made race, and class. and, therefore, could potentially be unmade. What are the mechanisms? How do we uncover them? To do this more effectively, I aStanford University argue that we need to more thoroughly incor- porate the effects of a relatively neglected Corresponding Author: Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Stanford University, form of social inequality—social status— Department of , 450 Serra Mall, Bldg. alongside effects based on resources and 120, Stanford, CA 94305 power. To make my case, I will attempt to E-mail: [email protected]

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At a broader level, I will argue that, in the least causally significant of Weber’s three search for mechanisms, we need to open up bases of inequality. That is, in contrast to the traditional study of inequality in two key resources and power, status is not seen as an ways. First, we need to more thoroughly independent mechanism by which inequality interrogate the nature of inequality itself to between individuals and groups is made. take into account its multidimensional com- This, I argue, is a major misjudgment that plexity—that is, to examine its cultural as greatly limits our ability to understand how well as material dimensions and to incorpo- stratification actually works in an advanced rate group-based inequality, such as race and industrial like our own. At a micro gender inequality, along with socioeconomic level, it limits our understanding of what is at inequality. Second, we need to look across stake in social inequality. When we think of levels of analysis from the individual and inequality as merely a structural struggle for interpersonal to the organizational to the power and resources, we forget how much peo- macro-structural and cultural to discover how ple care about their sense of being valued by inequality processes at each level interpene- others and the society to which they belong— trate one another to create and sustain pat- how much they care about public acknowl- terns of resource inequality. In my view, the edgement of their worth (Goode 1978). This is most important mechanisms, the ones that status. People care about status quite as have the most obdurate power to sustain intensely as they do money and power. Indeed, broad patterns of inequality, often emerge people often want money as much for the status from the systematic interaction of processes it brings as for its exchange value. An airport at multiple levels (see DiTomaso 2013; shoe-shine man once asked me what I did. Reskin 2012; Ridgeway 2011). If we con- When I told him, he said, “My daughter wants strain our analyses to inequality processes at to go to Stanford and be a physician. What I do one level at a time, these multi-level mecha- is just for her; I want her to be someone.” Now, nisms will continually elude our grasp. In what was that about? Power? Not so much. what follows, we will see that an examination Money? Yes, a bit. But above all it is about of the significance of social status for ine- public recognition of his daughter’s social quality illustrates each of these issues: the worth. It is about social status. Clearly, we can- need to incorporate cultural as well as mate- not understand the fundamental motiva- rial processes, to take into account group tions that enter into the struggle for precedence difference-based inequality, and to link micro that lies behind inequality if we do not also take and macro processes. into account status. We are all familiar with Weber’s ([1918] At a more macro level, treating status as a 1968) classic analysis of three different but side topic limits our ability to understand how interrelated bases for inequality in industrial status-based social differences, such as gen- : resources, power, and status. Con- der and race, are woven into of temporary accounts of stratification in U.S. resources and power. It even limits our ability sociology focus primarily on resources and to fully understand how class itself is repro- power. Control over resources and access to duced through organizations of resources and positions of power in organizations that pro- power (cf. Sayer 2005). I will focus here on duce and distribute resources are closely this more macro aspect of why status matters, related processes that provide the material but as I do so, I want to keep in mind the representation of inequality in society. But micro aspect of how important status is as a what about social status, which is inequality motivation for individuals. based on differences in honor, esteem, and I believe there are two reasons why status respect (Weber [1918] 1968)? Status is often processes have been difficult to digest for treated as a side topic in U.S. sociology, pos- standard sociological accounts of stratifica- sibly because it is seen as the “weakest,” or tion. One is that status, in contrast to resources

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 Ridgeway 3 and power, is based primarily in cultural contrasting categories or “types” of people— beliefs rather than directly on material matter for inequality? There are three funda- arrangements. That is, status is based on mental reasons. First, as Tilly (1998) pointed widely shared beliefs about the social catego- out, inequality based purely on organizational ries or “types” of people that are ranked by control of resources and power is inherently society as more esteemed and respected com- unstable. It gives rise to a constant struggle pared to others (Berger et al. 1977; Jackson between dominant and subdominant individu- 1998).1 Second, these cultural status beliefs als. To persist, that is, for inequality to their effects on inequality primarily at become durable inequality, control over the social relational level by shaping people’s resources and power has to be consolidated expectations for themselves and others and with a categorical difference between people their consequent actions in social contexts such as race, gender, or life style. (Berger et al. 1977; Ridgeway and Nakagawa Why does this consolidation stabilize ine- forthcoming). Both the culturalist and the quality? It does so because it transforms the micro-level aspects of status processes con- situational control over resources and power trast with the materialist and structural level into a status difference between “types” of perspectives of most analyses of stratifica- people that are evaluatively ranked in terms of tion, which typically focus on , , how diffusely “better” they are. occupational structures, , and shows that status beliefs develop quickly so on. Yet, to understand how patterns of among people under conditions in which cat- inequality persist in an obdurate way, despite egorical difference is at least partially consoli- ongoing economic, technological, and social dated with material inequality. Specifically, change, we have to understand the relation- status construction studies show that when ships between cultural status beliefs on the control over resources in a social setting is one hand and material organizations of correlated with a salient categorical difference resources and power on the other hand. This (e.g., race), people quickly link the appear- is a problem that my own research on status ance of mastery in the situation that the and the resilience of gender inequality forced resources create with the associated difference me to confront (Ridgeway 2011). between types of people (Ridgeway et al. In what follows, I first outline three broad 2009; Ridgeway et al. 1998; Ridgeway and reasons why status processes matter for the Erickson 2000). In this way, among others, larger structure of inequality. I then shift to people form status beliefs that the “type” of how status matters by describing three micro- people who have more resources (e.g., whites) level processes through which status indepen- are “better” than the “types” with fewer dently creates material inequalities between resources. Furthermore, because both advan- people from different social groups. I give taged and disadvantaged groups experience some attention to how these processes are the apparent “superiority” of the advantaged similar and different for gender-, race-, and “type,” the resulting status beliefs are shared class-based status effects. Then, to illustrate by dominants and subdominants alike, legiti- the impact of these micro status processes on mating the inequality (Jackman 1994; Ridge- material (resource and power) outcomes, I way and Correll 2006). offer examples from recent research that dem- Contemporary U.S. status beliefs assert onstrate such effects for gender, race, and that people in a particular category, say class inequality. whites, men, or the middle or , are not only more respected but also presumed to be more competent, especially at what “counts Why Status Matters most” in society, than are people in contrast- Why do cultural status beliefs about social ing categories, such as people of color, differences—that is, evaluative beliefs about women, or the (Cuddy, Fiske,

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 4 American Sociological Review 79(1) and Glick 2007; Fiske et al. 2002).2 This pre- recognized. Once widely shared status beliefs sumption of greater competence implies that form about a social difference such as race, higher status people have fairly won their gender, or class-based life style, these beliefs better and higher on the basis of constitute that difference as an independent their own superior merit. It thus provides an dimension of inequality with its own sustain- especially powerful form of legitimation in an ing social dynamic. That is, when a difference ostensibly meritocratic society such as our becomes a status difference, it becomes a own. separate factor that generates material ine- The second reason why status beliefs mat- qualities between people above and beyond ter is that, by transforming mere control of their personal control of resources. resources into more essentialized differences Consider the following example. Say that among “types” of people, status beliefs fuel men in a given society acquire an advantage social perceptions of difference. Constructing in resources and power compared to women status beliefs about what types of people are in that society. That fosters the development “better” drives us to focus on, exaggerate, and of status beliefs that men are “better.” Once make broader, more systematic use of socially such gender status beliefs develop, however, defined differences among us (Lamont 2012; they advantage men because they are men and Lamont and Fournier 1992). The categorical not because they are richer or more powerful. differences recruited to become status differ- A male leader, for instance, with the same ences to stabilize inequality can be amplifica- position and access to the same resources as a tions of preexisting differences like or woman leader, wields more influence than the ethnicity (Tilly 1998). But they can also be woman because he is seen as a bit more capa- differences constructed entirely for the pur- ble in the than she is (Eagly and Carli pose of asserting the status superiority of the 2007). Gender status beliefs thus give men an richer and more powerful, as in the case of advantage over women who are just as rich class-based manners and life style (Bourdieu and located in positions that are just as pow- 1984; Weber [1918] 1968). , for erful. As a consequence, status beliefs about instance, signal their class status superiority differences such as gender, race, or class- through sophisticated speech, , and based life style give those differences an tastes in art (Bourdieu 1984). Status processes autonomous dynamic that can continually thus mobilize the construction of culturally reproduce inequalities in material outcomes defined social differences on the one hand. on the basis of those differences. This autono- On the other hand, high-status actors rely on mous dynamic operates primarily at the social difference, with its self-justifying implica- relational level of self–other expectations, tions about their own superiority, to stabilize judgments, and behavior. Yet it is the key to their control over material inequality. In this how status-based social differences are writ- way, status processes are deeply implicated in ten into material organizations of resources, the making of obdurate patterns of inequality especially in a society that values based on social differences. and enacts legal constraints on explicitly dis- This brings us to the third reason why sta- criminatory organizational rules. tus beliefs about social differences matter for Development of cultural status beliefs inequality. Few sociologists would deny that about group differences, then, partially disag- status stabilizes resource and power inequali- gregates those differences from the direct ties, but that in itself does not make status an control of resources and power and gives independent source of material inequality. those differences, as status distinctions, inde- However, the development of status beliefs pendent causal force. This, in turn, creates a about different categories of people has a reciprocal causal interdependence between further effect that, in my view, is the most cultural status beliefs about social groups and important of the three. It is also much less material inequalities between these groups.

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This interdependence has an element of which inequality in life outcomes is patterned dynamic tension. Control over resources by in U.S. society. This includes gender, race, the status advantaged group is never com- age, occupational, and educational groups plete. Changing material conditions push and class categories like blue-collar versus back against cultural status beliefs, poten- middle-class or rich versus poor (Cuddy et al. tially modifying and even eroding them. Yet 2007; Fiske et al. 2002). In these , once established, widely shared status beliefs the perceived competence and agentic capac- have considerable resilience, so that they ity attributed to people in one group com- become a powerful, independent force for the pared to another is directly and powerfully perpetuation of patterns of inequality based correlated with their relative status. These on social difference.3 stereotypes and the status beliefs they contain In the rest of my remarks, I describe more are consensual in society in that virtually every- specifically exactly how cultural status beliefs, one shares them as cultural knowledge about acting through micro-processes at the social what “most people” think (Fiske et al. 2002). relational level, independently create material Finally, and importantly, the presumption that inequalities on the basis of social difference. I most people hold these beliefs gives them will turn from why status matters to how it force in social relations (Ridgeway and Correll does. It will be helpful to begin by saying a 2006). Because individuals expect others to little more about status beliefs themselves— judge them according to these beliefs, they why I focus on them and what the evidence must take status beliefs into account in their suggests about their existence and nature. own behavior, whether or not they personally endorse them. How, then, do these widely shared status Status Beliefs and Social beliefs shape social relations in ways that are Relations independently consequential for material ine- The Nature of Status Beliefs quality? There are three well-documented processes: status in judgments and Status is an inherently multi-level form of behavior, associational preference biases, and inequality in that it involves of reactions to status challenges. esteem and influence between individual actors as well as hierarchies of social esteem Status Biases between groups in society. Decades of expec- tation states research, however, demonstrates For status beliefs to bias people’s judgments that status processes among actors are largely and behavior, they need to become implicitly driven by widely shared status beliefs about salient and this depends on social context, the worthiness and competence of people in albeit in ways that can be systematically the social groups to which the actors belong specified. Research shows that status beliefs (Berger et al. 1977; Correll and Ridgeway about a social difference become salient in 2003; Webster and Foschi 1988). Cultural contexts in which people differ on the social status beliefs about group differences are thus (e.g., a mixed-sex, mixed-race, or the key to status processes at both the indi- mixed-class setting) and in contexts in which vidual and the group level. the social difference is culturally understood Social psychological research on contem- to be relevant to the setting’s goals, as in a porary cultural stereotypes of social groups in gender-, race-, or class-typed setting (Berger U.S. society clearly documents the existence and Webster 2006; Correll and Ridgeway of widely shared status beliefs (Fiske 2011). 2003). When status beliefs are implicitly This research shows that status beliefs form a salient, they bias people’s expectations for central component of the widely known ste- their own and the other’s competence and reotypes of virtually all the social groups by suitability for authority in a situation. These

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 6 American Sociological Review 79(1) implicit biases are stronger the more relevant to the patterning of material inequality based the social difference is perceived to be to the on gender, race, and class attributes. Through goals of the setting. For example, these biases these same implicit, cumulative processes, are stronger in gender-, race-, and class-typed men, whites, and the are also institutional settings such as universities apparently “revealed” to be simply “better” at for class and race and in engineering class- valued social tasks than are women, people of rooms for gender. Biased expectations for color, and the working class, justifying and competence and authority, in turn, are impor- legitimating the resource and power inequali- tant because they have self-fulfilling effects ties between these groups. Although we par- on people’s behaviors and outcomes. By ticipate every day in these social relational subtly shaping behavior, status beliefs create effects of status beliefs, we rarely see how inequalities in assertive versus deferential they involve us in the production of who is behavior, actual task performance, attribu- better and more deserving of resources and tions of ability, influence, and situational advantages. It is because we do not see this rewards between otherwise equal men and production that status legitimizes inequality women, whites and non-whites, and middle- in an apparently meritocratic society. class and working-class people (Correll and Ridgeway 2003; Driskell and Mullen 1990; Associational Preference Biases Ridgeway and Correll 2004; Ridgeway and Fisk 2012; Webster and Driskell 1978). A second means by which status beliefs about These implicit status biases shape both the group differences create material inequalities “supply side” and the “demand side” of peo- is by introducing systematic biases in who ple’s everyday efforts to achieve the resources people prefer for association and exchange. and positions of power by which we gauge Individuals’ first reactions to group differ- material inequality. Status biases affect the ences are to prefer people like themselves confidence and energy with which people put (see Dovidio and Gaertner 2010). But when themselves forward in a situation. They the difference is a status difference, both simultaneously affect others’ willingness to high- and low-status group members recog- pay attention to them and positively evaluate nize that the higher status group is more their efforts in that situation. The status socially respected (Ridgeway et al. 1998; advantaged speak up eagerly while the status Tajfel and Turner 1986). Because the status of disadvantaged hesitate; the same idea “sounds those with whom an actor associates affects better” coming from the advantaged than that actor’s own status in a situation (i.e., sta- from the disadvantaged; and the advantaged tus “spreads” through association), this cre- seem to themselves and others to be somehow ates systematic incentives for actors to the “type” for leadership. As a result, local associate with higher status others (Berger, hierarchies of influence and prominence that Anderson, and Zelditch 1972; Sauder et al. develop over multiple encounters and con- 2012; Thye 2000). Consequently, status texts take on systematically similar forms. beliefs intensify the in-group bias of high- These rarely noticed status biases repeat status group members who see every reason over and over again through the many goal- to prefer people like themselves, not only for oriented encounters taking place in conse- sociability but to recommend and hire for quential organizational environments such as jobs. But these same status beliefs blunt the schools, workplaces, and organiza- in-group bias of lower status group members tions. The cumulative result is that individu- who are torn between sticking with their own als from more privileged status groups—men, or favoring those from high-status groups. whites, the middle class—are systematically The effects of status-based associational tracked into positions of greater resources and biases on actual patterns of association are power, contributing as an independent force complex because they depend on structural

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 Ridgeway 7 constraints of the environment that shape who encounter a hostile backlash reaction from oth- is available for association (McPherson, ers, especially from high-status others Smith-Lovin, and Smith 2001). At the very (Ridgeway, Johnson, and Diekema 1994). least, however, these biases undermine asso- White women who engage in assertively dom- ciational solidarity among individuals from inant behavior are, compared to similar acting lower status groups. Krysan and colleagues white men, disliked as “domineering,” more (2009), for instance, found that, even control- likely to be sabotaged on a task, and judged as ling for a neighborhood’s socioeconomic less hireable (Rudman et al. 2012). As Rudman level, whites preferred all-white over racially- and colleagues (2012) show, these backlash mixed neighborhoods, but blacks preferred responses are not due to the perception that racially-mixed over all-black neighborhoods. these woman are not appropriately warm, but In organizational contexts, associational to the fact that they are challenging the gender biases feed the process of “cloning” by actors status by acting “too dominant.” from higher status groups. As Kanter (1977) Livingston and Pearce (2009) show that pointed out long ago, the inherently uncertain African American men who appear assertively conditions of exercising power encourage dominant elicit similar backlash responses, powerful organizational actors to favor presumably because their behavior challenges socially similar others whom they feel they the racial status hierarchy.4 Bobo (1999) argues can rely on. To the extent that these powerful that a great deal of racial in the con- actors are members of high-status gender, temporary United States can be understood as race, and class groups, the people they net- a defense of racial group status position. work with and promote in an will Behaviors perceived to challenge the class disproportionately be from these same high- status hierarchy are likely to elicit similar status groups. Organizational actors from low- backlash reactions. Whereas status bias and status gender, race, and class groups, in associational biases produce relatively unthink- contrast, will have divided interests between ing biases in favor of the status privileged and supporting those from their own groups and against the less status privileged, defense of the trying to network with higher status actors status hierarchy results in more intentionally who can foster them in the organization hostile actions to constrain lower status indi- (Cabrera and Thomas-Hunt 2007; Ibarra 1992; viduals who are perceived to “go too far.” Sauder et al. 2012). Polls show, for instance, that women often prefer to work for male Status Processes as Mechanisms of bosses (Gallup 2011). The systematic result, Inequality again, is to direct people from higher status groups smoothly toward positions of power Tilly (1998) argued that inequality between and resources while creating network and, groups in society is maintained by a combina- therefore, informational and opportunity bar- tion of exploitation and opportunity hoarding. riers for those from lower status groups. As scholars have noted, however, this tells us more about the interests of dominant groups, the “why” question, than about the “how” Reactions to Status Challenges question, that is, the specific mechanisms by A third mechanism by which status beliefs cre- which inequality is sustained (DiTomaso, ate material inequalities derives from the Post, and Parks-Yancy 2007; Reskin 2003). implicit motive status beliefs create for people Status bias, associational bias, and resistance in high-status groups to defend their valued to status challenges are culturally driven “sense of group position” (Blumer 1958; Bobo interpersonal processes that act as subtle but 1999). When individuals from low-status powerful mechanisms by which exploitation groups engage in behavior perceived to chal- and opportunity hoarding are actually accom- lenge the status hierarchy, they frequently plished by privileged gender, race, and class

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 8 American Sociological Review 79(1) status groups. If we ignore them, our efforts cross-category in terms of gender but not race to undermine durable patterns of gender, race, or class. It is not surprising then, that status and class inequality are likely to be continu- processes triggered in cross-category interac- ally frustrated. tions are especially important for the daily production of gender inequality (Ridgeway 2011). Cross-category encounters still play an Similarities and important for race and class inequality, Differences in Gender, however, despite their lower overall rate. This Race, and Class Status is because consequential encounters in resource Processes distributing institutions, such as employment, , and health organizations, are typi- Thus far, I have discussed effects of status cally cross-category for racial minorities and beliefs as if they were equivalent for gender, those from lower status class groups. race, and class. In important ways, this is the Status beliefs are also salient and shape case in that status biases, associational prefer- events in status homogeneous encounters if ence biases, and resistance to status chal- they are perceived to be relevant to the goals lenges occur for all three social distinctions. of the setting (Berger and Webster 2006). But, this underlying similarity is not the full This means that same gender, same race, or story due to structural and cultural differences same class contexts can be significant sites in the nature of gender, race, and class as sta- for relational status processes if something tus distinctions in the U.S. context. This, in makes status beliefs seem relevant to the par- fact, is quite a complex subject that I am only ticipants. As I noted earlier, the culturally going to hint at here. typed nature of the institutional context in I noted earlier that effects of status beliefs which an encounter takes place—for exam- depend on the extent to which the social con- ple, a male-typed occupational setting, such text of an interpersonal encounter makes sta- as engineering, or a class- and race-typed tus beliefs implicitly salient to participants neighborhood—can create this relevance. and relevant to their concerns in the setting. The interests created by the status hierarchy The social contexts in which people of differ- itself can also create this contextual relevance ent , races, and classes do or do not rou- by shaping actors’ motives in a setting. This is tinely encounter one another are thus important particularly likely in meetings of high-status to the nature of the status effects that occur. group members. The implicit project at the Cross-category interactions—that is, mixed country club, the elite school, or the men’s sex, race, or class interactions—trigger par- sports club can be to collectively construct and ticipants’ status beliefs, so they are powerful enact participants’ difference and superiority in sites for relational status effects. Due to struc- comparison to the excluded group (Khan 2011). tural factors such as demographic proportions, The effect of status beliefs in this context is not degree of intimate interdependence, and to differentiate among the people in the setting, degree of institutional and residential segrega- but to unite them in a project of dis- tion, the rate of routine cross-category interac- tinction, a process that has been studied in tion is quite high for gender, but rather less for detail in regard to class, at least, by Bourdieu race and class. This is especially the case for ([1972] 1977, 1984) and other cultural sociolo- cross-category race and class interactions that gists (DiMaggio 1987; Lamont 1992). take place outside of occupational role struc- In addition to the relative importance of tured encounters (e.g., a convenience store cross-category versus within-category status clerk and a customer) (DiPrete et al. 2011; effects, gender, race, and class also differ for Ridgeway and Fisk 2012). cultural reasons in ways that have implica- Gender, of course, is distinctive in that even tions for how status processes based on them household and family interactions are typically play out. In this regard, class is distinctive in

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 Ridgeway 9 comparison to gender and race, at least in the achieved rather than an immutable essence U.S. context. Dominant U.S. beliefs treat sex affects this as well. It causes class status dif- category and race as relatively essentialized, ferentiation to depend especially strongly on stable aspects of people that are rooted in the the maintenance of distinctive cultural prac- body (Morning 2011; Prentice and Miller tices, accomplishments, and possessions to 2006). Class, in contrast, is believed by people mark and manifest the status boundary. These in the United States to be achieved and, there- class “life style” groups are the status groups fore, changeable (Kluegel and Smith 1986).5 to which Weber ([1918] 1968) referred. These different ideological representations In particular, the class-based status hierar- have consequences: according to psychologi- chy turns more intensely on higher class peo- cal research, people treat class as though it ple’s possession of exclusive “” were less of an immutable essence of a person than do the race and gender status hierarchies than are gender or race (Prentice and Miller (Bourdieu 1984; Veblen 1953). For higher 2007). This is despite what Bourdieu’s ([1972] class people’s elite capital to remain exclu- 1977, 1984) concept of habitus has taught us sive, it must continually adapt and change. about how class is actually written into peo- For instance, “inside knowledge” about what ple’s ways of being. It is also despite the fact it takes to impress admissions committees of that, as ethnomethodologists have demon- elite colleges evolves to maintain the com- strated, in everyday social encounters, gender, petitive edge of class privileged groups race, and class are all interactional accom- (Ridgeway and Fisk 2012; Stuber 2006). The plishments (West and Fenstermaker 1995). distinctive reliance on exclusive knowledge These differences in essentialization matter characterizes the processes through which for status processes in social relations because status matters for inequality based on class status distinctions depend on the maintenance more than that based on race or gender. of a perceived boundary of difference between Now that I have made a general case for higher and lower status categories and a cul- how status processes acting at the social rela- tural means for placing people in these catego- tional level independently create material ries. Reflecting the construction of class as inequalities based on social differences, I will achieved rather than essential, the cues by briefly describe some empirical examples which individuals class categorize one another from recent research that show how status in interactions—such as occupation, educa- processes are consequential for gender, race, tion, dress, accent, family background, and and class inequality. The gender and class residence—form a less unified, more loosely examples highlight effects of status biases bounded of status attributes than do the and associational biases, and the race exam- more essentialized attributes by which people ple illustrates the consequential effects of sex or race categorize. As a result, class status reactions to status challenges. I chose these effects in interactions are likely to be more examples to illustrate different ways that sta- variable across situations, as the class cues tus can matter, ways that can also apply to involved differ, than are gender and race status other status-valued social differences. effects (DiMaggio 2012; Ridgeway and Kricheli-Katz 2013; Sayer 2005). In addition, whereas the common structure Gendering Organizations of status beliefs is to assert a difference For gender, I draw on my own work to illus- between contrasting groups that is construed trate how status processes can help answer a to show one group as more worthy and com- fundamental question about how gender petent than another, the exact nature of the inequality persists in the modern context difference that reveals the superiority in worth where institutional, legal, and economic pro- and competence can take different forms. In cesses work against it (Jackson 1998; the United States, the construction of class as Ridgeway 2011). A wide range of research

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 10 American Sociological Review 79(1) demonstrates that assumptions about the gen- and persist through bureaucratic inertia dered characteristics of ideal workers for jobs (Baron et al. 2007; Phillips 2005). and about the lesser value of women’s work The cutting edge of gender inequality, are stamped into the very structures, prac- however, lies at sites of where new tices, and procedures of employment organi- types of work or new forms of living are cre- zations (Acker 1990; Charles and Grusky ated. Such sites tend to be small, interpersonal 2004; England 2010; Reskin, McBrier, and settings that are outside established organiza- Kmec 1999). Examples are the sex-typing tions—think of computer companies that and sex-segregation of jobs, different author- started in garages or software companies that ity structures associated with male and female emerged from students talking in their college jobs, and the gendered assumptions built into dorms. Both the uncertainty of their tasks and conventional structures of work time and pro- the interpersonal nature of the setting increases motion . These gendered workplace the likelihood that participants will implicitly structures, in turn, drive gender inequality in draw on the too convenient cultural frame of wages, authority, and even the household gender to help organize their new ways of division of labor (England, Reid, and working. Perhaps background gender beliefs Kilbourne 1996; Petersen and Morgan 1995; implicitly shape what they decide is the “cool” Smith 2002; Williams 2010). versus routine part of their work, or their But how are gendered assumptions written assumptions about how they should work into workplace structures and procedures in together, who is good at what, or what kind of the first place? The root mechanism, I argue, people should be brought into the project in is the operation of gender status processes, what . As they unknowingly make use of particularly status biases and associational gender beliefs to help order their work, par- biases, working “in the room” at the social ticipants reinscribe cultural assumptions about relational level as the new job definition, gender status and gender difference into the evaluation system, authority structure, or way new activities, procedures, and forms of of working is created (Ridgeway 2011). Nel- organizations they create. The effect is to rein- son and Bridges (1999), for instance, show vent gender inequality for a new era. In this that several widely used organizational pay- way, I argue, gender status processes, acting setting systems were developed in interper- through cultural beliefs that shape interper- sonal decision-making contexts in which sonal events, act as a general mechanism by dominant actors, who were largely white which gender inequality is rewritten into new males, denied women and other lower status organizational forms and practices as they actors a significant voice in the proceedings. emerge, allowing this inequality to persist in The resulting pay practices they developed modified form despite social and economic were infused with gender status biases and transformations in society. This status-driven systematically disadvantaged the pay for persistence dynamic does not mean gender female-dominated jobs. In regard to one such inequality cannot be overcome, but it does case, Nelson and Bridges (1999:199–200) suggest a constant struggle with uneven results write, “In systems such as this, . . . where the (Ridgeway 2011). principles and practices of salary setting can be traced to the interests and activities of key actors . . . the data suggest that the disadvan- Class Status and taged position of female workers in the “Gateway” Interactions bureaucratic of this system has both My example of how class-based status pro- contributed to and tended to preserve inequal- cesses shape material outcomes focuses on ity in pay between predominantly male and what I call “gateway” interactions (Ridgeway female jobs.” Once created, implicitly gen- and Fisk 2012). These are interpersonal dered organizational structures and proce- encounters that take place in organizations— dures spread through institutional processes such as educational, workplace, or health

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 Ridgeway 11 institutions—that mediate people’s access to that allowed the doctor to learn more about the valued life outcomes by which we judge the child’s eating habits and whether he was inequality, like good jobs, income, positions taking his medication. With richer informa- of power, and health. Encounters with school tion, the doctor was able to offer more effec- officials, job interviews, and doctor visits are tive treatment. examples. Class-based status beliefs are espe- The working-class mother, in contrast, cially likely to become salient in gateway seemed intimidated and hesitant in the face of encounters when participants differ in class the doctor’s status superiority. Both she and background, and the status biases about com- her son gave minimal answers to the doctor’s petence that they introduce have consequen- questions and did not volunteer . tial material effects. Lutfey and Freese (2005), The outcome of this constrained and uneasy for instance, describe how a middle-class interaction was that the doctor knew less physician, expecting less competence from a about the child and gave the mother limited working-class diabetes patient, prescribed a feedback about the boy’s health. For working- simpler treatment regime than was suggested class people, consequential gateway encoun- for a middle-class patient. The simpler ters are cross-class, status-biased contexts regime, however, is slightly less effective in that often invisibly frustrate their efforts to controlling the . achieve the valued life outcomes these sig- In institutions in which gateway encounters nificant encounters mediate. occur, the dominant actors—doctors, educa- tors, managers, professionals—are over- whelmingly middle class. As a result, these Challenges to the Racial institutions’ workplace cultures and practices Status Hierarchy are infused with the implicit but distinctive For an example of how racial status processes assumptions, values, and taken-for-granted matter for power and resource inequality, we knowledge of the middle class. This, itself, is need look no further than contemporary polit- an example of how class status, as status, not ical developments that coincided with events merely control of resources and power, one could perceive as challenges to the estab- becomes embedded in organizational struc- lished racial status order of the United States. tures of resources and power. But in gateway Substantial recent immigration and projec- encounters, the implicitly classed nature of the tions in the popular press that whites will social rules that govern the encounter have a soon lose their position as the demographic further effect. They create a context in which majority coincided with the election of an the implicit interactional rules are better African American president. Research on understood and more familiar to middle-class reactions to status challenges suggests that at petitioners (e.g., job applicants, patients, and least some whites are likely to react to these students) than to working-class ones (Bourdieu events with status-motivated political efforts 1984; Stephens et al. 2012). This knowledge to reassert their own, more privileged, racial difference reinforces the presumed compe- status position. tence differences evoked by class status bias Two recent Internet experiments by Willer, (Ridgeway and Fisk 2012). Feinberg, and Wetts (2013) clearly demon- Lareau (2002) gives us an example in the strate this status challenge reaction. In the visits to pediatricians that she observed with first study, the researchers showed partici- middle-class and working-class parents and pants in one condition graphs depicting a children. With the confidence of a class status declining white income advantage over non- equal, the middle-class mother prepped her whites. After exposure to this racial hierarchy son to not only answer the doctor’s questions threat, whites, but not non-whites, reported but to ask questions in return. The boy did significantly greater support for the Tea Party this and soon established a friendly banter and higher levels of symbolic . This is

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 12 American Sociological Review 79(1) in comparison with whites and non-whites in (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman 2004; a control condition who saw graphs that England 2010). depicted the persistence of white income As a basis for social inequality, status is a advantage. bit different from resources and power. It is In the second study, the researchers told all based on cultural beliefs rather than directly on participants that whites are a rapidly declining material arrangements, and it works its effects proportion of the population and would soon primarily at the actor level of everyday social be a minority. After this racial hierarchy threat, relations rather than at a larger structural level. participants were again asked their views These ways in which status is distinctive as an about the Tea Party, but the movement was inequality process present challenges to inte- described for half the participants as backing, grating it into our standard accounts of social among other policies, actions directed at the stratification. But the difficulties we encounter racial order, such as immigration controls, in incorporating status also illuminate all we welfare cuts, and so on. For the other partici- have been missing in our efforts to understand pants, the Tea Party was described simply in the foundations of social inequality. We need libertarian, free terms. Reacting to the to appreciate that status, like resources and racial status threat, whites identified signifi- power, is a basic source of human motivation cantly more with the Tea Party when it that powerfully shapes the struggle for prece- included racial order policies than in the dence out of which inequality emerges. purely libertarian condition. The views of Equally, we need to appreciate that inequality non-whites were unaffected. These results processes at the micro level work together with suggest that whites’ perceptions of challenges those at the macro level to create the mutually to their racial status position do in fact evoke sustaining patterns of inequality among social resistance reactions that increase their support groups in society that make such patterns so for political organizations they perceive as difficult to change. upholding the traditional racial hierarchy. I have argued that cultural status beliefs This, in turn, has potential consequences for about groups or “types” of people shape indi- the evolving power relations between racial viduals’ social relations through three pro- groups in the contemporary United States. cesses that are consequential for inequality among individuals and groups in society. Status biases shape implicit assumptions Conclusions about who is “better,” more competent, and To understand the mechanisms by which more deserving of jobs, promotions, money, social inequality is actually made in society, I and power. Associational preference biases argue that we need to more thoroughly incor- shape who people form ties with and favor for porate the effects of status—inequality based exchange of information, opportunities, and on differences in esteem and respect—along- affection. And, resistance reactions to status side those based on resources and power. This challenges act to constrain lower status peo- is particularly the case if we wish to under- ple who go too far. These micro-level status stand the mechanisms behind obdurate, dura- processes have important, underlying com- ble patterns of inequality in society, such as monalities across otherwise different social those based on social differences like gender, distinctions such as gender, race, and class, race, and class-based life style. Failing to despite there also being real differences understand the independent force of status among them. Acting through social encoun- processes has limited our ability to explain ters that repeat over and over again in the the persistence of such patterns of inequality organizations that distribute resources and in the face of remarkable socioeconomic power, the effects of these processes accumu- change, or to explain, for instance, phenom- late. They subtly, but persistently and system- ena like the “stall” in the gender revolution atically, direct individuals from higher status

Downloaded from asr.sagepub.com at ASA - American Sociological Association on January 30, 2014 Ridgeway 13 groups toward privileged life outcomes while is the tendency for widely shared cultural beliefs holding lower status others back. to change more slowly than the material circum- stances they reflect (Brinkman and Brinkman 1997; In the end, it is status that drives group dif- Ogburn 1957; Ridgeway 2011). Due to this cultural ferences as organizing axes of inequality, in lag effect, people confront changing material condi- contrast to mere individual differences in tions with cultural status beliefs that are more tradi- resources and power. And it is widely shared tional than the circumstances. Acting on the more cultural status beliefs at the macro level that traditional beliefs reframes the new conditions in less innovative terms, blunting the change effect. shape the everyday social relations at the Over time, however, continuing pressure from micro level that infuse group differences into changing material circumstances does change status positions of power and resources in society’s beliefs. For a discussion of evidence for this argu- consequential institutions and organizations. It ment in regard to changing gender status beliefs, is also such micro-macro status processes that see Ridgeway (2011, chapter 6). 4. An attentive reader will notice an intersectional gap implicitly subvert the resistance of the disad- in these studies of status challenge effects for white vantaged and legitimate the structure of ine- women and for African American men. Research quality. It is time we took status more seriously. shows that cultural beliefs about gender and black- white race create more complex, intersectional sta- tus challenge effects for African American women, Acknowledgments but these women, too, face status motivated barri- I thank Shelley Correll and Eva Myersson Milgrom for ers to their efforts to achieve leadership positions comments on an earlier draft and the Center for the (Livingston, Shelby, and Washington 2012; Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for a vital Ridgeway and Kricheli-Katz 2013). context in which to frame this address. 5. I am not arguing here that gender and race actually are more essential social differences than class, but rather that they are represented as being so in Notes widely held cultural beliefs in the United States. 1. I speak of categories or “types” of people here Beliefs about the relatively essential nature of race because of my intention to discuss the role of status and the relatively unessential nature of class may be in gender, race, and class inequality. However, sta- distinct to the U.S. context. tus rankings pertain to social “actors” more broadly, and thus can involve rankings among corporate actors, such as organizations or the producers of References high- or low-status products, as well as individu- Acker, Joan. 1990. “Hierarchies, Jobs, and Bodies: A the- als and “types” of individuals (Sauder, Lynn, and ory of Gendered Organizations.” Gender & Society Podolny 2012). Even for corporate actors, status 4:139–58. relations are inter-actor social relations (e.g., Apple Baron, James N., Michael T. Hannan, Greta Hsu, and versus Dell in computers). Status relations among Özgecan Koçak. 2007. “In the Company of Women: organizations are also consequential for the struc- Gender Inequality and the Logic of Bureaucracy in ture of material inequality in society, but because I Start-Up Firms.” Work and Occupations 34:35–66. am focusing on gender, race, and class inequality, I Berger, Joseph, Bo Anderson, and Morris Zelditch. 1972. will not deal with this here. “Structural Aspects of Distributive : A Status- 2. In discussing class-related status beliefs, I will Value Formulation.” Pp. 119–246 in Sociological focus primarily on the middle- versus working- Theories in , Vol. 2, edited by J. Berger, M. class contrast. The largest part of the U.S. popula- Zelditch, and B. Anderson. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. tion is concentrated in these two class groups, so Berger, Joseph, Hamit Fisek, Robert Norman, and Mor- most interpersonal encounters that evoke class sta- ris Zelditch. 1977. 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Erickson. 2009. “How Eas- tity Theory of Intergroup Behavior.” Pp. 7–24 in Psy- ily Does a Social Difference Become a Status Dis- chology of , edited by S. Worchel tinction? Gender Matters.” American Sociological and W. Austin. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Review 74:44–62. Thye, Shane R. 2000. “A Status of Power in Ridgeway, Cecilia L., Elizabeth Heger Boyle, Kathy Kuipers, Exchange Relations.” American Sociological Review and Dawn T. Robinson. 1998. “How Do Status Beliefs 65:407–432. Develop? The Role of Resources and Interactional Expe- Tilly, Charles. 1998. Durable Inequality. Berkeley: Uni- rience.” American Sociological Review 63:331–50. versity of California Press. Ridgeway, Cecilia L. and Shelley J. Correll. 2004. Veblen, Thorstein. 1953. The Theory of the Leisure Class. “Unpacking the Gender System: A Theoretical New York: New American Library.

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Weber, Max. [1918]1968. and Society, edited Party: Group Position and Movement Participation.” by G. Roth and C. Wittich. Translated by E. Frischoff. Unpublished working paper. Stanford University. New York: Bedminster. Williams, Joan C. 2010. Reshaping the Work-Family Webster, Murray, Jr. and James E. Driskell Jr. 1978. “Sta- Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Cambridge, tus Generalization: A Review and Some New Data.” MA: Harvard University Press. American Sociological Review 43:220–36. Webster, Murray, Jr. and Martha Foschi. 1988. “Over- view of Status Generalization.” Pp. 1–20 in Status Cecilia L. Ridgeway is Lucie Stern of Social Generalization: New Theory and Research, edited by Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Stanford M. Webster and M. Foschi. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Her research addresses the role that social University Press. status in everyday interaction plays in stratification and West, Candace and Sarah Fenstermaker. 1995. “Doing inequality, especially in regard to gender. A recent book Difference.” Gender & Society 9:8–37. is Framed by Gender: How Gender Inequality Persists in Willer, Robb, Matthew Feinberg, and Rachel Wetts. 2013. the Modern World (Oxford 2011). A new book project is “The Decline of Whiteness and the Rise of the Tea tentatively titled Why Is Status Everywhere?

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