SOCIOL 41 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Arthur Schuster, Physical Attractiveness
Document Summary
Group members differ in their rate of participation, their influence over group decisions and the types of acts they contribute. We usually take social and personal status characteristics into account when establishing expectations regarding others in the group. Any social attribute of a person around which evaluations and beliefs about that person come to be organized. Example - height, shorter people perceived to be less confident. Social interactions use personal and master status characteristics as stereotypic shortcuts to infer what we want/need to know about the other. Diffuse = attributes that provide an indirect indication of a member"s level of ability on the group"s task. Include master statuses (age, gender, race/ethnicity, ses), physical attractiveness, personal effects. Specific = attributes that more directly indicate level of ability on that group task. The tendency for member"s status characteristics to affect group structure and interaction. When status generalization occurs, a member"s status outside a group effects his/her status inside that group.
