Current Research

Copies of published manuscripts available upon request.

Social loafing (the tendency to free-ride off of others) increases when it is unclear what each actor contributes to solving the group task, even in task-oriented, collectively-oriented settings. Status characteristics theory, which applies in task groups, assumes that desire for task success is motive enough for actors to contribute to solving the task. I conducted a study to explain the discrepancy in the empirical findings from social loafing literature and the theoretical predictions of status characteristics theory. A laboratory experiment shows that higher status actors produce fewer contributions if others cannot tell what they contribute, showing status-based differences in motivation to contribute to the group task. 

This study examines whether people perceive higher status actors as more or less likely to honestly report the amount of work that they do compared to lower status actors. We expect that those with higher status characteristics are more likely to exaggerate their performance, and we use this vignette study as a proof of concept ahead of a laboratory experiment that behaviorally tests this prediction.

This is a methodological study comparing the behavioral predictions of AI models and of affect control theory to human behavioral predictions; that is, do AI predictions or ACT predictions more closely match human predictions? If AI models more closely match human predictions, can AI supplement ACT research?

Status characteristics theory applies in task-oriented, collectively-oriented settings, but status structures often seem to persist beyond those task groups. For example, when a meeting disbands and employees go to lunch together, we tend to see that the manager does most of the talking, guides the discussion, and so on–just as we would expect in a task group. I conducted a pilot study experimentally testing the conditions under which status structures that arise in task groups continue to produce behavioral inequality in social groups. Pilot results support the hypothesis that when actors anticipate future task-oriented interaction, the status structure continues to affect behavior even in social groups. The full study is in progress.

This meta-analysis examines changes in status effects of gender over time by comparing results to the reported effects of other status characteristics. Both published and unpublished research reports mixed findings regarding the behavioral inequality that gender is expected to produce: some studies find differences while others do not. By comparing gender status effects to the effects of other status characteristics, we investigate whether gender is no longer functioning as a status characteristic in US society or if there are methodological explanations for the decline in behavioral inequality.