Falling from great (and not-so-great) heights: : how initial status position influences performance after status loss

• Autores: Jennifer Carson Marr, Stefan Thau
• Localización: Academy of management journal, ISSN-e 0001-4273, Vol. 57, Nº 1, 2014, págs. 223-248
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We investigate how initial status position influences the quality of task performance in the aftermath of status loss. We argue that despite the benefits of having status, high-status individuals experience more �self-threat��challenges or contradictions to a central view of the self�and, consequently, have more difficulty performing well after status loss than do low-status individuals who experience a comparable loss of status. In a field study of professional baseball players (Study 1), we found that although low-status players' performance quality was unaffected by status loss, the quality of high-status players' performance declined significantly after losing status. In a high-involvement group experiment (Study 2), we found that high-status individuals who lost status were less proficient than both high-status individuals who did not lose status and low-status individuals who lost a comparable amount of status. However, supporting self-threat as the proposed psychological process, self-affirmation restored the quality of high-status individuals' performance (Study 3). We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.