STABILITY OF ORGANIZATIONAL STATUS SYSTEMS*

Morris Zelditch, Jr. Joseph Berger Bernard P. Cohen

This is an expanded version of a paper read at the National Joint Conference of The Institute for Management Science and the Operations Research Society of America at Minneapolis, Minnesota,- October 8, 1964. Research for this paper was conducted with the support of NSF grant #G23990־ for investigation of authority and evaluation structures, and a Ford Foundation grant to the Stanford Graduate School of Business for investigation of conflict in Staff Line structures. The three authors bear equal responsibility for the ideas expressed here, the order of names on various reports of the two projects having been determined by a random device. We would like gratefully to acknowledge the help given us by Bo Anderson, Sanford M. Dornbusch, and W. Richard Scott.

February, 1965Technical Report No» 10

STABILITY OF ORGANIZATIONAL STATUS SYSTEMS

1. Introduction

Fifteen years ago, Hughes could say that

"Jobs and departments in an industry are rated by everyone concerned.We expect that. Less attention has been given to the fact that the kind of people hired for a given job determines to some extent the job's prestige." (Hughes, 1949, 120)

He would not have said the same thing in 1964. By "the kind of

people hired" he meant particularly their sex, age, race, and ethnicity.

We shall refer to these factors as "external status characteristics".

Partly because of his own work, partly because of the pervasiveness of the

process, by now there is a fairly large, fairly consistent body of knowledge

about the ways in which external status characteristics invest washrooms

with invidious significance, or determine sponsorship, career, and the price

of labor, or activate expectations, the violation of which creates upheavals

in organization.* The principal kind of finding is that

"...if women are hired for a job that only men have done, the men may take the hiring of women, not as proof that women are rising in status, but as proof that the job's status is threatened. We have heard of one industry in which Italians, who had been limited to poorer jobs, were annoyed when Negroes were hired to work along­side them; not because they disliked Negroes particularly, but on the ground that-־since they knew what people thought of Negroes-- the hiring of them was additional evidence that management had a low opinion of the Italians." (Hughes, 1949, 120-121)

Among the earliest contributions were Collins, 1946 and Hughes, 1946. Since then we have had ■Haghea,-4-946-, Hughes, 1949, Hall, 1946, Hall, 1948; Homans, 1953, Dalton, 1950, 1951,1959׳ ; Whyte, 1948, Gardner and Moore, 1955. Comparable ideas are used in Gouldner, 1957, 1958.

Aa a consequence organizational functions become "segregated" (Hughes,

1949) by age, or sex, or ethnicity; to maintain this structure, discrimination

is practiced in both recruitment and advancement, made possible because both

depend on a process of sponsorship largely controlled by the "inner fra­

ternity" of an organization (Collins, 1946, Hall, 1946, Hall, 1948, Dalton,

1951). If the "wrong" people do happen to enter or advance into segregated

positions, informal rejection restores the system to its usual segregated

state (Collins, 1946). Sometimes contradictions in status are unrecognized

or ineradicable; in that case one observes conflict and tension (Dalton,

1950; Whyte, 1948).

Collins' paper (1946) is fairly typical of this literature. He re­

ports that in a New England factory the managerial jobs were mainly held by

Yankees, first-line supervisors were mainly Irish, and workers were mainly

south and east Europeaa. Employees tended to regard this as normal and

right. Trouble threatened the organization when management wanted to

appoint a Yankee as foreman of a newly reorganized janitorial service--

trouble not only from Yankees, but from foremen and workers. Trouble was

averted by upgrading the job, calling it sanitation engineer and defining

it as managerial.

Behavior of the kind that Hughes has observed is explained if we

assume two properties of status systems: a balance property, which is a

tendency for two or more evaluated dimensions to tend towards the same state,

as when the executive washroom tends to be more highly evaluated than the

worker's washroom; and a diffuse property, which is a tendency for at least

some characteristics to be relevant in very many contexts, as when sex or

ethnicity tend to order behavior in many social situations. What we propose

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to do is to construct a model of status systems having these two properties

and apply it to problems of the status systems of organizations.

The kind of model we construct is called a balance^ model, in which

the central problems are, first, to decide what entities and relations are

sufficient to describe a given system, and second, to decide what states of

the system should be classified as balanced. Once it has been decided what

states are to be called balanced, one attributes stability to the balanced

states and instability and tension to the imbalanced states. Aside from

these two main tasks, the most important problem is to define the scope of

the theory.

In applying the model to the status systems of organizations, the central

tasks are to identify observables of the model with some empirical events,

determine the value of its underived parameters, and determine typical

initial and boundary conditions of the field of application. Commonly the

most difficult part of this task derives from the complexity of the world

as compared to the model. What the task really comes to is that concrete

empirical things such as jobs must be analyzed into more simple notions,

notions that permit jobs to be coordinated with concepts in the model. Thus

in organizing the presentation of the material, we first formulate the

balance property in a highly general way and, before developing the model

further, show its application to a simple and well-known example which does

not yet involve the diffuse property. Our purpose is both to illustrate

the balance idea and to introduce those new notions necessary to apply it

to organizational status systems. We then formulate the diffuse property,

after which we show its applications to a problem which does not yet involve

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the external status-characteristics with which Hughes was most concerned.

This both illustrates the diffuse property and introduces some new ideas

required for applications.

Returning to the empirical uniformity from which we started, the com­

monly observed influence of external status-characteristics on the struc­

ture of organizations, our problem is not only to use the model to explain

what is already well-known but also to show that it explains exceptions.

Put another way, the model provides knowledge of how organizations can be

constructed that are not influenced so much by external status-characteristics.

It is easy to find organizations that actually exist that satisfy the re­

quired conditions, though none of them are industrial organizations. But it

will turn out that the conditions are rather extreme. Finally, in summarizing

the model an opportunity arises to show the entire set of conditions it

yields for stability of the status system of organizations,

2. The Balance Property

Consider two actors, £ and o, to whom we attribute any number of

characteristics,such as red hair, energy, insight into human character, or

mechanical ability, and who desire any number of goa!-objects, such as the

esteem of others, money, or a key to the executive washroom. We look at

characteristics and goal-objects from £ s point of view and o_, in fact, is״

not properly an actor at all; £ is solely a referent, an object of £ s׳

orientation. Characteristics and goal-objects are said to have states,

such as high and low in the case of mechnical ability, or black, brown,

blonde, red in the case of hair color, or high and low in the case of esteem,

and so on. In this paper we limit our discussion to characteristics and

goal-objects with only two states.

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­צ­

Among the elements of the theory there are two kinds of relations :

evaluation and relevance. States of characteristics and goal-objects are

evaluated by £ if he thinks of some state as better and another as worse.

Observe that this is not the same as seeing some states as high and others

as low; it is possible to devalue the "higher" state of a characteristic,

as some people give a low value to high aggressiveness. One characteristic

is relevant to another, or to a goal-object , if, given that £ possesses a

known state of the first, he expects to possess a given state of the other.

An important case, for example, is that in which £ believes that the goal-

object GO^(x) is to be allocated to actors who possess the state CL(x).

Taken together these elements and relations form a status structure

from £ s point of view. It is completely described if we stipulate what׳

characteristics are evaluated, what values are given to their states, what

goal-objects are valued, what values are given to their states, and finally

what characteristics are relevant to what other characteristics and what

goal-objects.

The most important property the structure exhibits is the balance

property. By balance we mean

2.1. Definition. (Balance) Two relevant states of a status system are balanced if and only if they have the sane evaluation. A status system is balanced if and only if all sets of relevant states in it are balanced.

Homans (1953), for example, reports that two positions in a telephone

company billing office, called the ledger clerk and the cash poster, are

differentially evaluated for the skill they require but are paid the same

wage. This example is developed in the next section. All we observe for

the moment is that the characteristic and goal-object are imbalanced (see

figure 1).

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Figure 1. An Iubalauced Status Structure, Arrows indicate evaluations, brackets relevance. The upper part of the figure shows £׳s state, the lower part o״s. Although the characteristic and goal-object are seen as relevant by £, the less-valued goal- object is given equally to both the more and less-valued state of the characteristic.2

By the "balance property" we mean that balanced systems are stable,

while imbalanced systems create tension and change in the direction of

balance. Homans' ledger clerks, for example, ought to be upset and agitate

for an increase in wages so as to create an appropriate wage differential.

We must be given, however, that the states are relevant and valued. Given

such conditions,

2.2. Assumption. (Stability) A status system is stable if and only if it is balanced.

By "stable" here, we mean that the status system will not change as a

result of any pressures within the system itself,

2.3. Assumption. (Tension) If imbalanced, a status system generates strain.

2The diagram shown in figure 1 is not a graph in the technical sense, and should not be interpreted in terms of graph theory. It is largely a heuristic device, intended to aid the reader. Possibly the balance theory of status systems can be formalized by using concepts of graph theory, but the theory has not yet been brought to this stage of formalization.

2.4. Assumption. (Path) If inbalanced, there are pressures from within the system to change in the direction of balance.

The "pressures" referred to in 2.4 need not be understood by actors in

the system as explicit efforts to change the status structure; they are not

even necessarily conscious.

It is important not to misunderstand the implications of the balance

assumptions. We do not say that all or most or even any imbalanced status

structure eventually must be balanced. In many empirical systems other

processes often combine to prevent balance from developing. The theory does,

however, say that tension will result in such systems as a result of the im­

balance .

Like other published balance theories, our theory is indeterminate.

That is, it does not predict which of several possible balanced patterns will

be the terminal pattern of the system, if any, nor does it predict which of

many possible paths will be the particular path to that terminal pattern.

The first three assumptions (2.2, 2.3, and 2.4) of our theory are

plausible only if states of the system are valued and relevant. We do not

suppose, for example, that in American society the states black hair and left

handedness are either balanced or imbalanced. What we require:, therefore,

are assumptions that account for the way in which such states become relevant

and valued.

Suppose that initially some, though not all states or objects of a

system are valued; and that those elements that are not can be made relevant

to those that are. Perhaps differentially valued goal-objects are given to

actors because of the color of their hair, the more valued objects being

given to those with black hair, the less valued objects to other hair colors.

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If hair color is not at the same time made relevant to aome other elements

of the system which associate different signs with the states "black" and

"other", so that there is no imbalance likely to arise as a result of a

transfer of value, we believe that hair color will acquire the values of

the associated goal-objects. If a non-valued element is associated with two

differently valued elements at the sane tine, on the other hand, we believe

it will not become valued at all (see figure 2c).

2,5. Assunption. (Spread of Value) Let a be a non-valued state orobject in S_, and b, c, ...,be any valued elements in S_. If a_ is made relevant to b, c, ...,it acquires the sign of the valued states if and only if they all have the same sign.

* S2i<a>Figure 2b. Assunption 2.5 claims that C.(a) will acquire the sign of tiie valued object to which it is relevant.

£i<a)

* / .

Figure 2a. A characteristic that is initially not-valued may be made relevant to a valued goal-object.

Figure 2d. Note also that, if two apparently distinct states both become linked to the same valued state, they cone to have the sane meaning in the status system.

Figure 2c. If, however, the non- valued state becomes linked to two states that are different in sign, the non-valued state remains non-valued.

Now suppose that members of the system believe that left-handed people

have black hair. We assume that handedness will become relevant to allo­

cation of the goal-object, linked to it by hair-color.

2.6. Assumption. (Transitivity of Relevance) Let a, b, £ be any elements in S_. If a is relevant to b, and b is relevant to c, then a is relevant to c.

~ ___ / --- ^^ (־)!£ G2(«>

Figure 3a. The characteristic Figure 3b. Assumption 2.6is initially not relevant to the claims that will becomegoal-object GO., but is relevant relevant to the goal-object.

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to a second characteristic that is relevant to GO^.

If there were no valued states in the system at all, or if there were

some valued states but we could not make them relevant to those that were

not, what then? In either case we would not expect the balance property.

Much more is said about relevance in section 4.

3, Illustrative Application: Simple model of organizational wage structure.

One field of application of the balance theory is to the distribution

of a wage to positions within the organization. We will use a very simple

model as an illustration. The purpose is to exhibit the meaning of theI

balance concepts. No new light on wage allocation is to be expected. Our

reason for choosing this particular illustration will be more evident as we

develop it.

Assume that we are given the simplest possible organization, one that

consists of only two positions that together work on the single task

Suppose that this task has just two outcomes, say T^(a) and T^(b). Further­

more, which outcome occurs is determined by a single ability, C^(x) which

ha s only two states, x =• a, b. Finally, performance in this organization is

rewarded by only one kind of goal-object, GO^(x), having only states x = a, b.

Observation of this organization shows us, say, that the evaluation of

made by actors in £ assigns a positive value to the a state and a negative

value to the b state; a similar evaluation is made of GO^, that is the a

state is positive and the b state negative; and, finally, the state T^a)

is the more valued outcome of the task. We can refer to the more valued out­

come of a task as the goal of the system, SG. To summarize:

Given: 1, Two positions form a system S_ with a single task

2. The task T. has two outcomes, T.(a) and T.(b), the out­come T. (aj^being more valued ir?"S_. Call”that outcome SG, the system goal.

3. Which outcome occurs is determined by a single characteristic, states of which are possessed by actors in the positions inS. The characteristic C. has two states, C^(a) and £^(b), the former having the greater value in

4. A single kind of goal-object, GO.(x), is awarded actors in S, having only the states a and fe, the former of which is more valued in

Now suppose that one position is identified with state £^(a) while the

other is identified with state (^(b). We will compare three wage policies,

each of which is a way of assigning goal-objects to the two positions. The

first wage policy, called a uniform wage policy, is to award the same goal-

object, say G0^(b), to actors in both positions. The second wage policy,

called differential-imbalanced, is to award the negative goal-object to the

positive state of the characteristic and the positive goal-object to the

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negative state of the characteristic. The third wage policy, called dif­

ferentia 1-ba lanced. is to award the positive goal-object to the positive

state of the characteristic, and the negative goal-object to the negative

state of the characteristic. (See figure 4).

C. (a) ־- C. (a) GO. (b) C. (a) GO (a)_ 1 s / 1־ l v. / * — iX / N ^ /

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s --- — --GO. (b) s_ s_ v

C (b) / N s c. ( b > ^ GO. (a) ' C. (b) GO (b)1 1 . J ־ ״ _1

Figure 4a. Uniform Wage Figure 4b. Differential- Figure 4c. Differential■ Policy Imbalanced Wage Policy Balanced Wage Policy

If we adopt a uniform wage policy, we have by definition 2.1 an im­

balanced status structure. By assumptions 2.2-2.4 such a structure will

create tensions and conflict in the organization and if possible will change

in the direction of balance. The effect of a uniform wage policy will be

either to force states of the characteristic to be more equally valued, or

to convince actors in S that the characteristic is not relevant to allocation

of goal-objects. Managers will regard neither of these outcomes as desirable--

perhaps because they have a theory that if state C_ (a) brings about task

outcome T.(a), and that task outcome is the system goal, the positive value -lof C.(a) ought to be maintained; and perhaps also because they have a theory1־־that if GO. is awarded for performance of the task, it ought to be seen by

actors in the system as given on the basis of just that characteristic that

determines the outcome SG. What the balance theory claims is that a uniform

wage policy has only two stable states, neither of which is desirable if a

manager feels bound by these two constraints.

There is no point in showing that the differential imbalanced wage

policy is not desirable either. The only stable state that satisfies the

constraints we have introduced is found in a system with a differential

balanced wage policy.

Now let us take a further step and illustrate the wage model, in turn,

with a concrete case. Homans (1953) reports on the status structure of a

telephone billing company that has three jobs: ledger clerk, cash poster,

and address-file clerk. The three jobs differ in responsibility, skill,

seniority of the girls who hold the jobs, autonomy, and variety* The ledger

clerk is most responsible, skilled, senior, etc., the cash poster next, and

the address-file clerk least. The address-file clerk is the lowest paid

job, but cash poster and ledger clerk are paid the same wage. Ledger clerks

agitate in their union for a wage increase. Cash posters sometimes refuse

what is regarded as a promotion to ledger clerk. Address-file clerks are

not too happy with their low-ranking job, but the other two kinds of clerk

are hostile to management and regard their wage as unjust while the address-

file clerks do not.

The illustration is well-known and the solution not in doubt. Homans'

billing office does suggest some new issues, however. The most important of

these is that organizations, or jobs in them, or the rewards they use, are

much too complex for our theory. Though managers and workers may think of

concrete entities such as jobs, shops, or companies our theory cannot, be­

cause even the simplest job has too many characteristics, even the simplest

shop too many tasks, even the simplest company too many systems, and even the

simplest incentive system too many kinds of goal-objects. We must break

such compound entities down into simpler elements. This is illustrated, for

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example, in the way we have looked at a "job". A job is seen here as a set

of states of characteristics and goal־objects. Not that there are not other

aspects of a job, but the other aspects are neglected for the kind of problem

to which we apply our theory.

We do not intend to suggest that, with this particular way of looking

at complex entities like jobs, application of our theory always becomes

straightforward and simple. For one thing, characteristics are not obser­

vables, so that identification of the characteristics of which a job is made

up is not at all straightforward. Nor is interviewing actors in the system

an infallible method of identifying them. The dimensions usually obtained

in such interviewing are often themselves compounds, not only of several

characteristics but also sometimes of characteristics and goal-objects both

together. For example, in Homans' billing office autonomy and variety are

probably partly goal-object, partly characteristic. The only fact that eases

the problem of application a little is that compounds of this sort appear

(and can be shown to do so from the balance theory) to behave like simple

characteristics.

4. Diffuse Status-Characteristics

Sex, race, ethnicity, or social class are often called status-

characteristics by sociologists. In this section we will define that term

and attribute to it certain important properties.

We want our definition to accord with what most sociologists mean by a

status-characteristic, though this may be difficult to accomplish since they

have often meant so much. Whatever a status-characteristic is, it is not

something intrinsic to the characteristic itself. An exceptionally

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light-skinned Negro known to be Negro is treated like a Negro; if he passes

he will be treated very differently, though physically he may be no different.

That he is a Negro, we conclude as everyone else concludes, is a matter of

beliefs about him, not skin color itself. But if he is_ believed to be a

Negro, many other beliefs are often held of him for no other reason than

that he is Negro. Some white employers, for example, believe Negro employees

learn more slowly, are less industrious, less dependable, less intelligent,

but better able to stand the heat, than white employees (Wilson and Gilmore,

1943). Apparently one can activate this set of beliefs simply by identifying

an actor as Negro, without direct knowledge of the actor's behavior. The

comparison, furthermore, is always invidious; that is, the belief that one

is Negro or white, and also all the beliefs associated with this characteristic,

are evaluations as well as beliefs. It is better to be white, better to be3industrious and dependable, and so on.

But not only do members of S. associate specific beliefs and evaluations

with the status-characteristic; often also they generalize from them to

judge actors as wholes. The status-characteristic, we will say, becomes

diffuse--a synonym for global, indefinite, and generalized. Instead of

thinking of "whites" specifically as careful about time, careful about money,

industrious, or whatever is to be associated with this status term, actors

3Typical discussions of the subject of course see many other correlates of a status-characteristic, such as differential legal privilege, dif­ferential reward, differential life-chances, and so on (Cf Hughes and Hughes,1952). We propose to define a status-characteristic more narrowly and account for these other features of status systems as consequences of our theory about the balance of status-characteristics with other status elements.

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within the system come to think of "whites" as "superior". The particular

respects in which they are superior becomes indefinite; what is paramount is

that if "white", the actor as a whole is thought of as good. Status

terms such as "gentleman" or "peasant", or similar terms that occur in many

status languages, are examples of labels that tend to carry such diffuse

connotations.

Formulating these ideas more explicitly: First, let be any fairly

specific characteristic, such as thrift, or mechanical ability. We assume

that its states are differentially valued; that is, one is positively signed

while the other is negatively signed. A state C^Cx) may be attributed either

to £ or to a state of a second characteristic, say D^(x). Here we are in­

terested in the latter case. What is meant is that if D.(x) is attributed1־—to £, then the associated state C^(x) is attributed to £, independent of

any knowledge of £ personally. The distinction is between the situation in

which, knowing £, others say ״£ is musical" and that in which, knowing that

£ is Negro, actors say, ״£ is Negro, Negroes are musical, therefore £ is

musical." Second, we must consider the fact that there are probably many

specific states associated with IX, (x). Let (x) be a set of such states.

It seems reasonable to require that if one state of a given characteristic

is in the set Oj (x), then the other state of that characteristic is not.

Third, though we cannot specify what form it takes, we have the idea that the!

is a function F that accomplishes a generalization of the states in,^(x),.

The function F has domain/^, the set of eets ^(x) in the system S, and

range £>. b|, two differentially valued states which may be called general

expectation states, GES(x), one or the other which F assignes to each^tx).

The states might be "superior", "inferior", or "gentleman", "peasant", or

something of the sort.

Now we define a diffuse status characteristic in S in terms of these

ideas.

4.1. Definition. A characteristic D. is a diffuse status characteristic1 1 . —11 " ' " .2־ .־' " —————— ■■■.. . ■■ — .I■■iri if and only if(1) D^ is differentially valued.(2) to each state of D^ there corresponds a set (x) of states

of specific characteristics attributed to D^(x), such that if C^(x)(r^(x), its complement is not.

(3) there exists a function F(^) such that to each state ofD! there corresponds a different general expectation state, GES (x) .

The expression "in S." is important. If is a factory located in S ,

a community, it is possible for a characteristic to be a diffuse status

characteristic within jS but not in S^• Perhaps within the factory a marked

difference is seen between sales and research divisions, one which generalizes

to many apparently nonrelevant characteristics of members of the two di­

visions, without the distinction becoming significant in the same way in the

community. Many distinctions within organizations do become the basis of

diffuse status-characteristics in the community, but how this comes about

must be explained by some explicit assumption.

With respect to any D. we may in principle distinguish four classes of1־־־C.: (1) those whose states are already known to be allocated to states of ־־iD. ; (2) those whose states appear to p or o to be very similar to already־1

allocated states; (3) those whose states are already known to be independent

of D. , states that we will call dissociated; and (4) those whose states are —i ־not already defined in relation to El .

In the first case we may reasonably suppose that the relevance of D,

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to C_£ has been established. Therefore, if is activa ted in some setting,

i.e. perceived by £ and o as relevant to the outcome desired in that setting,

we may suppose that is relevant to providing that states of are

visible. or perceived by the actors. If £ and o discuss double-entry book­

keeping it will be relevant that one is Comptroller of the corporation while

the other is foreman of one of the company's shops, assuming that each knows

the status of the other.

In the second case we may reasonably suppose that relevance is estab­

lished in much the same way as the first. If, for example, the Comptroller

and shop foreman discuss a problem in abstract algebra, it is possible that

both see the required ability as sufficiently like the things the Comptroller

knows that his status as Comptroller is relevant.

In the third case, on the other hand, we may reasonably suppose that

D. will be irrelevant to Ç. in any situation in which Ç, is activated. The —l ־ ־ i n

corporation's Comptroller may be less dazzling than the shop foreman on the

company bowling team; no one will think twice about it, because it is well-

recognized that occupation and bowling skill are independent. Not that

occupation is not a diffuse status characteristic (see page 19 ), because we

believe it is. But some characteristics come, from experience, to be ex­

plicitly divorced, separated, or dissociated from the diffuse status charac­

teristic. We will not speak of a dissociated characteristic except in the

case that a specific process of dissociation has taken place. Characteristics

that are initially not relevant in some situation, simply because no linkand goa1-object

has ever existed between them, such as the characteristic/ shown in figure 3,

are not dissociated; they are simply not relevant. We believe dissociation,

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־18־

as a process, occurs when imbalanced states become relevant; at the same time

that, because they are linked to valued goals or valued goal-objects, there

is some reason to continue differentially valuing characteristics. More is4said about dissociation in section 6.3.

In the fourth case, what is it reasonable to suppose? Relevance has in

no way been previously defined. But even without any apparent basis, we often

find that the diffuse status characteristic behaves as if it is relevant.^

In very many cases the burden of proof seems to be on £ and o to show that

D. is not relevant, rather than the other way around. Furthermore, to produce־־־T — —this effect it appears to be enough that is valued and two distinct states

of EL are visible. For then it matters to £ and o whether they have the

positively or negatively valued state, and EL provides a basis,where no other

prior experience exists, from which beliefs about past experience are generalized.

4.2. Assumption. (Burden of Proof) Let CL be a characteristic thestates of which are not specifically allocated to states of D,, nor similar to states allocated to states of EL , nor dissociated from states of D.. If (X is activated in S, D. is relevant to C. if and only ii: ~11־־־

(1) CL is differentially valued, and(2) two states of D. are visible to actors in S.-x ־־

We are assuming essentially that once tx) has been generalized, so that

The idea is developed much further in Berger, J., Cohen, B., Zelditch, M., and Anderson, B., "Theory of Status Systems", forthcoming, a more general paper on the topics here taken up in the context of organizations. It is of course vital to give a precise account of dissociation because otherwise a theory of status-characteristics will have too many loopholes to permit veri­fication.

■*The behavior of such characteristics in task situations is developed in much more detail in Cohen, Berger, and Zelditch, "Status Characteristics and Expectation States" (1965), where the applications are to the experi­mental literature.

a GES state is associated with it, a GES state may be assigned to £ or o_,

if the actor's state of is known. If a GES state is assigned to £ or o_,

then it is further generalizable to any now, not previously allocated, state

possessed by £ or o_. If there is any reason why, in some given situation,

it is in the interests of actors to know what state of a characteristic they

possess, D. becomes a basis on which past "experience" of, or more exactly —i"beliefs about", relative superiority is generalized and the first impulse

will be to associate D. and C. (see figure 4).־־־1 ־־ l

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© — 7 P

(2) (3)

Figure 4. Burden of Proof Process. (1) The function F assigns a value of GES(x) by generalizing from/Wx). (2) The value of GES(x) may be assigned to the actor p on the basis of his state of D.. (3) If a new characteristic+— ־”*T.is activated in S, by generalizing from beliefs about past experience, the value of C^(x) that £ is at first presumed to possess is that value which corresponds to GES(x). For simplicity the figure shows evaluations rather than states, and from the total set of states that might be attributed to £, only two subsets are shown: the set of states already allocated to the state D^(x) and the set of states not previously defined in relation to D^(x).

A common property that we do not want to attribute to is that it

must be ascribed. Sex, ethnicity, race, the most common examples we have

used, happen all to be ascribed, but status-characteristics need not be in

general. Any status^ will have attached to it some beliefs about actors

and these may be attributed to the status-occupants as characteristics which

are activated in other situations. Coates and Pellegrin (1957), for example,

show that the occupational statuses "executive" and "supervisor" are associated,

in the minds of both, with a very long list of specific differentiating

A status, as distinct from a status-characteristic, is a position in a social system, such as "President of General Motors", on the basis of which norms are applied to actors.

characteristics, such as energy, alertness, aggressiveness, ability to

manipulate people, magnetism, tact, determination, and so on. Investigations

such as Strodtbeck's mock jury studies show that such beliefs tend to be

activated not only in the occupational setting, but also in non־occupational

settings (Strodtbeck, James, and Hawkins, 1957 i see the discussion in Cohenj•

Bexge.r »Zelditch, 1965).

5. Illustrative application: status classes in organizations

One field of application of the theory of diffuse status-character-

istics is the assignment of jobs to levels within the organization. We ob­

serve first that not only are particular jobs rated by everyone within

organizations, but jobs tend to be grouped into rather broad classes. Of a

small ship for example, Homans observes:

"Like other societies, large and small, the crew of a ship does not consist of an undifferentiated mass of men, but is segmented, largely on the basis of rank and job. In the class structure, if we may call it that, there are three main levels: the com­missioned officers, the chief petty officers.and the rest of the sailors, with a less important distinction among these others between the 'rated' and the ,nonrated' men." (Homans, 1962, 52).

These classes can be regarded as status classes,that is, as classes of

actors who have the same state of a diffuse status-characteristic D^. That

these classes have the diffuse property has been observed, for example, by

Gardner and Moore (1955, 103-116). In organizations the term "superior",

Gardner and Moore argue, has two senses. One is the chain of command sense,

in which a specific foreman, say, gives orders to a specific worker. The

other has to do with a general extension of the rank of superior, "that does

not involve the right of command," but that "intrudes itself into all sorts

of situations and in innumerable guises," and that makes "all foremen con­

sidered superior to all workers" just as in an army, officers are in any

-20-

context superior to enlisted men. Furthermore, Gardner and Moore observe ,

there are other such characteristics in an organization, such as the shop-

office distinction. How the shop-office distinction functions they illustrate

with the following typical kind of quotation:

Isn't it funny the way office people treat factory people? I״don't see any difference between them myself, but the office people think they are so much better than the girls who work in the factory... They seem to think that factory girls are loud and rough...It just seems that having an office job makes them feel that they're better than we are." (Gardner and Moore, 1955, p. 27),

Now suppose that we have an organization with an already we 11-developed

status system :S, in which there are two status classes A and B (corresponding

to the states D^(?) and D^(b) ).We will consider only cases where there is

a non-empty subset of goal-objects,1*J(x), uniquely associated with the class

X . By "uniquely associated" we mean that in S_ it is understood that if £

is in status class X, the goal-objects he possesses are in the set!>X(x);

conversely, if £ has goal-objects'WXx) he is in status class X. Salaries,

for example, will generally reflect the levels within the organization fairly

uniquely. Often the method of payment (hourly wage, weekly wage, yearly

salary) will reflect it as well. On the other hand, the organization may

also have a system of bonuses that is not associated with the system of

status classes.

And suppose that a new position is created in S, requiring the ability

0^(3) in order to perform the task T^, the desired outcome of which is T^(a).

Ordinarily the organization will offer in payment some goal-object already

significant in the status system S_; let us assume that the goal-object awarded

for performance of the job is GO. (a) and that GO^ (a) (rlC\a) which is associated

with the A class.

­-!ב

How will the new position fit into the system of status classes? Un­

less dissociated from D. it must be allocated so as to balance the existing—1system of status classes if the status system is to remain stable. Further­

more, if it is to be dissociated from the status system fairly extreme con­

ditions are required. For, collecting the given conditions, we have:

Given: 1. D.(x)(i=l, 2, ...; x = a, b) is a diffuse status characteristic1 ־T.in which generates status classes A, B. Assume that a_ is the positively valued state.

2. T׳* (x) (x = a, b) is a set of goal-objects uniquely associated with D.(x) in S.־־ *־!

3. A new task, T., requires the new characteristic Ç^. Thedesired outcome of T^ is the state T^(a) to which the stateC.(a) is relevant.־־i

4. A goal-object GO.(a) is allocated to actors with state C,(a) as an incentivcTTror performance with outcome T. (a) . GO~ta) is a member of the set the more positively valued set of goal-objects.

By hypothesis, C^(x) is relevant to GO^(x), and GO^(x) is relevant to

-22-

D^(x). Hence C^(x) is relevant to D^(x) (2.6). The evaluation of the state

C.(x) will be the common sign of states D,(x), GÇL (x), and T^(x) (2.5).11 1 1 “״—The position cannot be allocated in any other way without imbalancing the

system which would make the system unstable and actors tense (2.1-2.4).^

Even if C. is dissociated from D.--a state that, in section 6, we will־־X 1־־argue derives from imbalance in S--it requires fairly extreme conditions if

this dissociation is to be persistently maintained. For, if Ç.. is any other

specific characteristic in S: if is relevant to and Ç.. is relevant to

^If £ is assigned to position C.(a) and £ is already a member of S_, havinga known state D^(x) within S, then It also follows from 4.2 that C. (a) willbe assumed to be in the X class of S_. The value assigned to the Tèate Ç^(a)will be determined by its relevance to GO,(a) and T, (a) .— i —i

I

GO^ , then is again relevant to GO^; furthemore, not only GO^ but probably

C, are relevant to D., hence C. is relevant to D. . Therefore, to become and -j ־־i ־־i -lremain independent of the status classes of the organization, a complete

system of dissociated elements must be constructed. C, must be relevant only

to goal-objects that are not themselves relevant to the goal-objects inliT(x).to which Ci

And other characteristics, as well as C^/is relevant must be dissociated from

-23-

Note that possession of state C^(x) may imply possession of state D^(x)

without the converse being true. If two distinct positions require two dis­

tinct specific characteristics, and C , one can say that the positive

state of each is allocated to the positive status class; one can even assert

that, if £ is in the positive status class he will have the positive state

of whichever specific characteristic is attributed to him. But one cannot

know which particular characteristic is his, or C. , from a knowledge of

his state of D, alone. In general the class X will be a collection of a —1 —number of distinct states C,(x), each with the same value; and the relation—1of such states to D.(x) will be many to one.1*־־

A good illustration of the process of allocating a new position to a

status class is a study of marine radiomen by Record (1957). In 1910, while

radio was still in its infancy, the U.S. government required it as equip­

ment on all passenger liners. At first there was great variation in the way

radiomen were treated. On some ships they were treated as officers, on others

as deck crew. This was shown by the kinds of privileges granted or withheld

from them, such as their mess and quarters. The radioman could not find his

proper niche, becoming a "kind of seagoing platypus, straddling the great

divide between officers and crewmen..." (Rocord, 1957, 354)r But by the

1930's the radiomen had a union capable of winning them officer status. The

union's first effort was devoted to building officer status into contracts

negotiated with employers, in clauses such as:

"Each Radio Officer shall receive the same courtesies, privileges, and food uniformly accorded Licensed Watch Officers.

"On cargo vessels, the Radio Officers shall eat in the Officers' mess. On passenger vessels, when separate Officers' mess is not provided, the Radio Officers shall be accorded the same privilege of eating in the Salon as is accorded Licensed Watch Officers.

"The rooms, facilities maintained therein, the painting and general appearance, condition, and comfort of the room shall be maintained at a level comparable with the quarters of Licensed Watch Officers...." (Record, 1957, p.354-355).

Such clauses appear superficially to be allocations of goal-objects

to a characteristic, rather than of characteristics to a status-class. But

obtaining the goal-objects, which were only symbolic anyhow, was not suf­

ficient for the radiomen. They were still legally no better than the un­

licensed common deck sailors, firemen, or stewards. They turned their

efforts, therefore, to lobbying in Congress. From 1937 to 1948, when they

were finally successful, the union sought a bill that would license them as

line officers and would accept nothing less, no matter what compromises were

offered. Since 1948 the status class to which the radioman has been assigned

has remained relatively stable, though Masters and Engineers have not

necessarily accepted the radioman as fully an officer yet,

6. External Status-Characteristics

-24־

S. is a subsystem of S. if and only if actors in S_ have the same be

and allocated by S.. The average industrial concern that pays a wage is an־־T

and, if in everyone believes that superior intelligence, industry, or

what have you is associated with Dj(a); and if, finally, within the organi­

zation the A class is supposed by everyone to be superior in intelligence,

industry, and so on; then it will be natural to assign £ to the organization's

A class. For, by hypothesis, actors within the organization have the same

beliefs about D^.

But we are not given that the various specific characteristics in

are already known to be associated with the external status characteristic,

and for the sake of greater generality we will suppose that initially they

are not. Nevertheless,

־26־

6.1. If D. is a diffuse status characteristic in S., it is relevant to tne system of status classes within every subsystem of Sjin which

1. two states of D. are visible.־j2. GO.(x), valued in and allocated by S., is valued in S,i —־l Jand associated with states of .

By hypothesis (x) is relevant to GO^(x) and GO^(x) is relevant to

D.(x). Hence D.(x) is relevant to D,(x) (from assumption 2.6).־1 - J i־־

If D.(x) is relevant to D.(x) then we also have, from assumptions “ J i־־־

2.2-2.4, that

6.2. If D.(x) and D.(x) are balanced they are stable. If not,"",I *there is tension and pressures to change in the direction of balance.

From the point of view of the organization, perhaps the most important

implication of 6.1 is that a subsystem cannot entirely control the conditions

of its own stability. It will be vulnerable to imbalance in the larger

system, which very often will be contagious. Because

־27•

6.3. A subsystem of S. becomes and remains balanced if and only if

1. Sj is balanced.

2. or if S, is imbalanced, the direction in which it is changingis the same as the balanced structure already found in S .

Suppose that initially both S. and S. are balanced, themselves, and that־־־i 3־D. and D, are balanced. Now S, becomes in some way imbalanced, as a result 1 ־ ~ J “ J

of which it changes. At the end of this process of change the most likely

outcome is that D. and D. are no longer balanced. Some change in S. will — i — j ־־i

be necessary to bring the two into balance. For example, we might have an

organization that allocates all Negroes to the least valued jobs. It might

be located in a community, however, that is undergoing great change in the

relations of the races, in the process of which there are all sorts of dis­

crepancies in the way income, residence, style of life, and so forth are re­

lated to being Negro. If indeed the result of this process is a change in

the status system of the community, the organization will eventually be im­

balanced with the larger status system. As a result there is likely to be

agitation for change in the organization itself.

6.2. Organizations that Socialize

If S, is a subsystem of S. is there no way in which it can free itself “I ~־Jof the influence of external status characteristics? Since there are organi­

zations whose effectiveness depends on the irrelevance of Dj the question is

important. Such an organization, for example, is the socializing organization,

the organization whose principal purpose is to train actors in new norms and

values. Every organization socializes to some extent, but where new values

differ greatly from an actor's old values it often requires a specialized

It is clear that, if the terminal state Ç.(x) is valued in S, the­ ־ •ג ־ J

characteristic D. will become relevant to it if two states of D. are visible .~i ־j

For if D. is relevant to GO. and GO. is relevant to Ç., D. will be relevant־־J — 1 — i -j־־ 1to Ç, (by 2.6). And if D. 1 a differentiated in and relevant in S., either 1־־ —j —1Dj and must balance or the system will generate tension and pressures to

change (2.3, 2.4). The problem is therefore to suppress, that is to make in-

visible, the external status-characteristic. This is done in several ways.

Partly it is accomplished by actual physical isolation of S , so that mem-

bers of Sj will not react to, and hence activate D^. Partly it is accomp-

lished by a disengagement, or stripping process, in which everything pos-

sible is done to actually divest newcomers of any signs of their external

status as early as possible. All their clothes, possessions, even the be-

liefs that particularly identify them are if possible taken away. Partly

also new members are made uniform literally, by giving them common clothing.

Not all the relevant mechanisms depend only on what agents of socialization

do, incidentally, because often taboos spontaneously develop among socializeas

against any discussion of one's external status-characteristic. In the case

of indelible characteristics, like race and sex, which are not so easily

made invisible, if selection cannot eliminate differences in El , segregation

is used. Such a status-characteristic oannot be made irrelevant to the organi■

zation as a whole, without bringing about some change in the culture of S_ .

6.3. Local Goal-Objects

A goal-object valued only in the subsystem S^ is a local goal-object.

Since it is sufficient, for S. to be a subsystem of S., that just one goal-־־i -Jobject be valued in both, it is obviously possible the t other goal-objects

-29־

are allocated in that are not important in the larger system. Now sup­

pose that at least some of the characteristics in the subsystem are awarded

only local goal-objects; and suppose further that the local goal-objects are

wholly independent of those other goal-objects in the subsystem which are

valued in the larger system. Is it possible to make at least these "local"

characteristics independent of status-characteristics?

That it is possible is suggested by Coleman's (1961) work on student

cultures in hi&h schools. Hollingshead (1949) had found in the 40's that

the pupil status system of a small American high school was virtually de­

termined by community social class. But restudying the same school, along

with 9 others, Coleman found in the 50's that Elmtown's adolescent status

system was almost independent of social class. His results for all 10

schools were: 1) the more important academic excellence or social skills

to the pupil social system, the more important social class in determining

the pupil elite; 2) but the more important athletic ability to the pupils,

the less important social class was; and 3) the more the proportion of

pupils drawn from the middle class departs from 50%, the less important

social class, until in one 907. working class school the status system under­

represented the middle class among its elites.

Coleman claims that the youth culture is a distinct American subculture,

generated by our type of family, economy, and education, in which goals, goal-

objects, and valued characteristics differ from those of adult society, and

in which the relative separateness of adolescent activities from adult ac­

tivities permits distinct mechanisms of socialization and social control to

persist in the adolescent society. These compete successfully with mechanisms

-30-

of socilaization and social control dominated by the adult society,

principally teachers and parents. To the pupil system the school is not

symbolic of the values of adult society, as it is intended to be, but rather

is symbolic of the solidarity of adolescent society; hence, even though not

accepting its values, adolescents are very identified with their school.

Because of their identification with schools the adolescent society values

athletics very much, because winning for one's school in inter-scholastic

competition is one of the few distinctively school-identified activities.

The explanation of at least part of Coleman's findings is fairly straight­

forward. In those schools where the students are predominantly working class

there is not enough variation in social class to activate that character­

istic in the school setting. In those schools where academic and social

skills are valued, if there is variation in social class it will be relevant

to the pupil status system because such skills are also rather useful in

and valued in the community.

But explaining the independence of social class and pupil status system

where athletic skill is valued is more complicated. Two models appear plaus­

ible; the empirical data do not permit us to decide which is better. The

first, which we can call the independence model, uses all those assumptions

we have developed in sections 2 and 4 and no other assumptions. It explains

the independence of athletic ability and social class by presuming that

athletic ability and athletic prizes are not sufficiently valued as adult9careers in adult society to make the status-characteristic relevant. For

9What is supposed here is that athletic ability is not commonly part of the adult community status system, but whether this is so or not is an empirical issue still open to question.

-31-

If balanced, this relevance bond should persist, and in fact should be­

come one of the characteristics among the stereotype associated with D,..

But if imbalanced, there will be some strain and some pressure to change.

In that case there are several possible paths to balance. First, evaluations

of states of might be inverted-־it is good to be a poor athlete; second,

the system might abandon the goal that requires C^־־why have interscholastic

athletic completition?; third, if there were no independent and objective

observers, or if the outcomes were ambiguous, one might redefine actual per-

formance--the good guys really did win the game; fourth, instead of abandoning

the goal, it might be redefined--it is sportsmanship, the way one plays, that

is important, not winning; fifth, the relevance of to might be rede­

fined. In the last case, remains a valued characteristic, though not

associated with states of D^. The set of such characteristics we may call

the dissociates of D^. Our knowledge of dissociation is very primitive,

particularly our knowledge of conditions under which it occurs; for, to give

a full explanation, we must account both for the breaking of the relevance

bond and the persistence of the value of the characteristic. But clearly

this resolution of imbalance is not stable if goal-objects associated with

C. are linked in some way to other goal-objects to which D, is relevant, or —i —Jother characteristics, or even other system goals. Very probably dissociation

occurs only if D and are imbalanced, the goal to which C, is relevant is

too central or important to give up, the performance is too objective, or not

sufficiently a matter of how members of the system themselves would like to

define events to be redefined, and all other elements of the system linked

to Dj , in the system S_. becomes relevant to if is valued (4.2).

to are or can be made independent of as well.

In high school status systems, if academic excellence and social skills

are valued in the pupil system, then social class and the criteria of pupil

status are relevant. But no imbalance is created because Coleman, like

Hollingshead, has found that, whatever the reason, middle class students do

better in school than working class students. If athletic skill is valued

in the pupil system, and social class becomes relevant to it--which would

occur if our stronger burden of proof assumption were true--an imbalance is

created by the fact that the two do not correlate. Because athletics is so

much the key to identification within the adolescent society it is not an

activity lightly abandoned. Because success is defined by published scores

in interscholastic competitions the pupil system has little control over its

definition. If not able to give up the goal or redefine success--and certainly

it is not possible to re-evaluate the states of the characteristic--only dis­

sociation resolves imbalance.

The dissociation model makes stronger assumptions than the independence

model, gives a more complicated account of how independence comes about, and

we are aware of no empirical results from organizational studies that the

dissociation model fits better than the independence model. Independence

would therefore appear the preferable model. Only our interpretation ofJames and Hawkins, ^

such laboratory studies as those of Strodtbeck/(1957 and Torrance (1954)

leads us even to think of dissociation as a model. But on the basis of such

laboratory results, which we believe have a bearing on organizational theory,

there seem to be reasons for entertaining the stronger burden of proof

hypothesis.

-34-

^See Cohen, Berger, and Zelditch, "Status Characteristics and Expectation States", forthcoming.

7. Summary and Conclusion

We have tried to formulate a set of assumptions that would account for

the relation of an organization's status system to external status-character-

istics. The two key assumptions in this theory are the balance property,

attributed to status systems generally,and the diffuse property, attributed

to status-characteristics. What the theory really does is to summarize the

behavior of systems having these two properties. We have aot tried to de­

velop many ideas of what mechanisms might restore balance, nor what symptoms

might express strain; but we have tried to state the conditions under which

the status system of the organization might be expected to change.

From the point of view of an organization what we have done amounts to

identifying three status systems which are relevant to its stability.

These are:

1. The system of specific statuses, expressed in our theory by specific performance characteristics and specific goal-objects.

2. The system of organizational levels or status-classes, expressed in our theory as a diffuse status-characteristic operant within the organization.

3. The system of external status-characteristics, significant in the larger community or society of which the organization is a part.

We have seen that the problem of applying our theory to this rather

complex status system is a problem of showing when the various parts become

relevant to each other.

Investigating the behavior of systems which have the balance and diffuse

properties, our principle results are:

1, Stability of the organizational status system is achieved only if each status element is balanced with every other relevant status element of the organization. The relevant status elements will typically include external status characteristics, as well as the system of status-classes, specific characteristics, and goal-objects.

-35-

If external status-characteristics are relevant, the organizational status system is vulnerable to imbalance in the community and society.

2. Only under very narrow conditions is it possible to make the status system of the organization independent of that of the community and society. One such condition is that either differentiation of the external status-characteristic naturally does not occur or else is suppressed by the organization. The other such condition i3 that the rewards relevant to a specific characteristic be independent of those that are linked to the larger system. The latter condition would be difficult to realize in an organization that induces per­formance by awarding goal-objects valued in the larger society.

These results, of course, will be true only if the assumptions of our

theory are true. That is, we offer them as validly deduced from the balance

and diffuse assumptions, without comment at this time on their empirical

verification--though obviously we regard them as consistent with results

so far obtained by empirical investigations. The more difficult problems

of the theory, however, will probably be resolved only by experimental in­

vestigation. For example, we are not able to decide which model better fits

"local" goal-objects, a dissociation model or an independence model. In the

former model, burden of proof assumptions apply even to characteristics valued

only in a subsystem, whether or not valued in the larger subsystem; hence in­

dependence comes about only through dissociation. In the latter, the burden

of proof assumption is applied only to elements valued in the larger system.

If the rewards relevant to some characteristic valued in the subsystem are

independent of those rewards which link the subsystem to the larger system,

the two systems will be at least partially independent.

-36-

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Hughes, E. C., "Race Relations in Industry", in Whyte, W. F., Industry and Society, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949, 107-122.

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