A trajectories based perspective on status dynamics

Abstract

After decades of taking a relatively static view on status, the last few years has seen an increasing interest in better understanding status from a dynamic perspective. In this review, we organize this recent research into three related areas: i) How do people respond to their own potential or actual status change?, ii) How do people respond to others' potential or actual status changes?, and iii) Who strives for status change? We focus specifically on integrating this work around the notion of status trajectories - namely, that people appear to see themselves and others on status trajectories, where past changes and/or current behaviors inform expectations of a 'status future' that they react to, and in some cases actively work to realize or to prevent.