Failure as an asset for high-status persons - relative group performance and attributed occupational success

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 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.