Below Top Status Indicates Mediocrity When Social Influence Is Strong
نویسندگان
چکیده
Is higher status necessarily a signal of higher quality? Prior research on how status and quality can become decoupled has shown that social influence processes can lead to a low correlation between status and quality. Here we show that having high but not top status can be an indication of medium rather than high quality, even if top status indicates top quality. A formal model shows that such a non-monotonic pattern occurs when social influence in status attributions is non-linear and sufficiently strong. A close examination of the outcome of the Salganik, Dodds, and Watts (Science, 2006) music download experiment illustrates the underlying mechanism. We discuss implications for evaluations, imitation, and reactions to success.
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