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Failure as an asset for high-status persons - relative group performance and attributed occupational success
[journal article]
Abstract According to research on social identity theory and on prescriptive norms and stereotypes people are viewed as prototypical of a group to the extent that they possess ingroup characteristics but not outgroup characteristics. Following this assumption, even failure might have positive effects for hig... view more
According to research on social identity theory and on prescriptive norms and stereotypes people are viewed as prototypical of a group to the extent that they possess ingroup characteristics but not outgroup characteristics. Following this assumption, even failure might have positive effects for high-status persons when they underperform in low-status domains. In this case, individual failure may be viewed as indicative of strong prototypicality for the high-status group and therefore lead to the attribution of future occupational success. Five experiments, using different high- and low-status groups, confirmed the hypothesis that people will attribute high occupational success to high-status persons who allegedly scored poorly on an achievement test in which a low-status group in general excelled relative to a high-status group. This effect was shown to be mediated by the attribution of prototypicality for the high-status group.... view less
Classification
Social Psychology
Free Keywords
(Gender)stereotypes; Attribution of success; Attribution of failure; Low- and high-status groups
Document language
English
Publication Year
2008
Page/Pages
p. 501-518
Journal
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44 (2008) 3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2007.07.006
Status
Postprint; peer reviewed
Licence
PEER Licence Agreement (applicable only to documents from PEER project)