Expectation States Theory and Emotion

Abstract

One of the enduring observations of human life is that when people come together to accomplish a shared goal, be it choosing a sofa for the living room or drafting a policy for national defense, a social hierarchy soon emerges among the participants in which some have more social esteem and influence in the situation than do others (Bales 1950; Lonner 1980). Everyday experience with such status hierarchies suggests that they are fraught with feeling. Yet, how exactly is emotion intertwined with the dynamics of social status in groups? This is the question I will address in this chapter. I will do so through the lens of expectation states theory, which is the most systematic and empirically well-documented theory of status processes in groups currently available (Berger et al. 1974, 1977; Correll and Ridgeway 2003; Wagner and Berger 2002). Although expectation states is a theory of status, not emotion, it provides a framework in relation to which research on emotion in hierarchies can be articulated to understand how status affects emotion and emotion shapes status in interpersonal contexts.