Looking up with a frown: status, negative affect and enhancement behaviour in groups

Abstract

ABSTRACT This manuscript aims to address existing ambiguity on the behavioural consequences of (low) status in groups by examining mechanisms and moderating factors in the linkage between individual members’ lack of status and their attempts at improving their status position. Specifically, we propose an indirect relationship between a group member’s lack of status and enhancement behaviour, through his or her high-arousal negative affective reactions, and we cast a member’s status striving as a key motivational boundary condition for this indirect association. We tested our predictions across three studies, namely (1) a scenario experiment, (2) a critical-incident recall design and (3) an organizational survey study. Results demonstrated an interactive relationship of perceived status and status striving with high-arousal negative affect, such that lower (rather than higher) status triggered high-arousal negative affective reactions among individuals with higher (but not lower) status striving. Moreover, a group member’s high-arousal negative affect was positively related with his or her enhancement behaviour. Together, these findings shed new light on key psychological mechanism and contingency factors that may explicate individuals’ diverse behavioural reactions towards a lack of status in groups.