Browsing by Subject "Status"
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Item Adolescent popularity: its relation to friendship characteristics and Its contagion among friends.(2010-07) Marks, Peter E.Since the late 1990s, quantitative researchers have differentiated between popularity, defined as a form of status determined by the group consensus, and preference, which is based on emotional reactions of individual peers. Although a great deal of work has gone into establishing correlates and consequences of popularity, very little work has investigated how popularity interacts with particular types of social relationships. The current study aimed to investigate the relation between popularity and friendships by replicating and expanding upon early findings of Rose, Swenson, & Carlson (2004) and by providing initial findings relevant to the theory of popularity contagion. This theory, proposed in the current study, posits that popularity should spread among friends (or other relationship partners) spontaneously and regardless of behavioral changes. Data were collected annually between 6th grade and 12th grade from a total of 1062 participants as part of a larger longitudinal study of peer relationships. Peer nominations assessed adolescents' friendships as well as popularity, social preference, overt aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial behavior. Self-reports assessed friendship quality (i.e., companionship and conflict with best friends; Bukowski, Hoza, & Boivin, 1994). Replicating earlier findings of Rose et al. (2004), correlational results indicated that popular adolescents had a higher number of mutual friends, but did not seem to have friendships that lasted longer or were substantially higher in quality. Correlations between individual levels of popularity and mutual friends' levels of popularity were fairly high across all time points, indicating that popular individuals tended to have popular friends. Finally, longitudinal hypotheses generated from the theory of popularity contagion were mostly supported using path analyses, and showed (a) that individual popularity could be predicted by friends' popularity levels over time, even when controlling for stability of individual popularity; (b) that this prediction was not accounted for by behavioral contagion of aggressive or prosocial behaviors; and (c) that individual social preference generally could not be predicted by friends' preference levels over time. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.Item Branding consent: the role of employer brand in retail labor process control.(2011-01) Smith, Deborah A.This study uses the case of retail work at a high-line branded home furnishings store to examine how employer brand operates in retail labor control. Specifically, the study examines how gender and class as meshed are exploited by the organization for control, and how worker consent to exploitation allows for positive self-feeling linked to positive class and gender identity. Drawing on ethnographic research, I argue that workers buy into the organization's gendered class directives demonstrated through the brand because it allows them to construct enhanced (gendered) class identities. Workers produce, consume, and realize symbolic status in their work, in turn feeling elevated in class, but this feeling is only sustained by continuing the work. I present this as a strong system of labor control, observing that status hits delivered by customers and managers are followed by worker efforts to reverse that damage. I also suggest the system is not seamless, showing how work contradictions are linked to worker resistance, and resistance is linked to workers' class and gender identifications. Introducing the concept of identity labor, I indicate a distinctive labor type associated with the branded labor process wherein enactment of employer brand meanings is part of work.Item The Dark Side Of Luxury Consumption: Psychological And Social Consequences Of Using Luxury Goods(2015-06) Wang, YajinPrior research has examined people's attitudes, preferences, and motivations for desiring luxury goods, but we know little about what happens when consumers actually use luxury products. My dissertation examines the psychological and behavioral effects of luxury consumption, and asks the question: Does using a luxury product influence the way a person feels and behaves?Item Deep reflection: an archaeological analysis of mirrors in Iron Age Eurasia.(2012-04) Moyer, Alexandra CarolineDuring the Iron Age, mirrors were frequently deposited in wealthy burials across all of Temperate Eurasia. Although mirrors had by that time existed for thousands of years, they experienced an upswing in popularity which coincided with intensified intercultural links resulting from globalization. This dissertation is a cross-cultural analysis of mirror burials in Temperate Eurasia, ca. 700 BC-AD 700, focusing on the questions of what mirrors could communicate, and to whom, and what characteristics were important in establishing mirrors as grave goods preferred among many cultures. This analysis brings together information on disparate areas of mirror use which have previously only been considered in isolation, discussing mirror use in mortuary contexts as one activity which united these various regions in spite of local variations. The mirrors are assessed in terms of their physical and phenomenological properties, along with their position and orientation in burials, utilizing three scales of analysis. These are a descriptive sample (I = 129), a series for which detailed information about mirrors and burials is provided and discussed; a conservative sample (I = 77), a selection of those sites with the best documentation which were used to calculate descriptive statistics; and an extended inhumations sample (n = 101), which includes only the inhumations from the descriptive sample, plus a few additional inhumations for which only minimal information was available. The extended inhumations sample was used to calculate descriptive statistics about mirror placement relative to the body of the deceased. Added context and a series of testable hypotheses were derived from an examination of mirrors in literature, folklore, images, and psychological and behavioral studies. The results provide evidence for a growing focus on self-examination and memorialization of selves within the context of increasing consciousness of globalization. In addition, mirrors provide direct evidence for that globalization, qua networks of exchange and interaction in late prehistoric Eurasia.Item Power and altruistic helping in organizations: roles of psychological closeness, workplace design, and relational self-construal(2013-09) Yoon, Jeehyun DavidI tested a model wherein psychological closeness mediated the negative relationship between power and altruistic helping. I also proposed two moderators--physical distance and relational self-construal--to moderate this relationship, specifically by interacting with power to influence psychological closeness. First of all, this study did not support the proposition that power was negatively related to helping. Power was not associated with helping in the lab setting; perceptions of power measures were positively associated with helping whereas most of the measures of status and relative power were not associated with helping. Second, I did not find support for the model wherein psychological closeness mediated the negative relationship between power and helping in both the lab setting and the field setting. Third, neither physical distance nor relational self-construal was a significant moderator of the relationship between power and psychological closeness. Therefore, the association between power and helping via psychological closeness did not vary by either of the moderators.