Nt1310 Unit 1 Assignment

1) An identity is who you are as a person; it’s what describes you. For example, your name is your identity. Its what people call you and how you response to people with the name they use to call on you. An identity is the person you are to society, to Eastern Illinois University most students are an E#. Identity is who you are.
2) One factor that affects a person to commit to an identity is extensively, which is the number of relations resulting from a role. For example, a role that has a lot of important key parts to it might make it more challenging from some people. So then they don’t want to commit to that role and that identity. The second factor that affects a person to commit to an identity is intensively, which is the emotional attachment

part of the identity.
3) (#4) Status is a person’s rank in society based on prestige, respect, and honor (Lecture notes, Soboroff). Status is about their profession, wealth, or social class. For example, the lawyer is driving a brand new BMW to his big million-dollar mansion. Status can also be what they mean to someone, for example my mom is going to have more status in my life because she means the most to me.
4) (#5) Diffuse status characteristics are the suggest competence at a wide variety of tasks (lecture notes, Soboroff). For example, race, gender, age, education level those types of characteristics. That would be like for myself, I’m a White/Caucasian American, female, 23, soon to have a bachelor’s degree in sociology. Now specific status characteristics are expectations for performance for a limited number of tasks (lecture notes, Soboroff). Also in the reading Berger (1970) states “a specific status characteristic relevant to a task, even if it has no prior association with it, if it is made that basis for allocating rewards to p and o. This happens even when allocating rewards on the basis of the non-relevant characteristic is made to look arbitrary (Berger: 252).
5) (#6) The four outcomes of having high status in a task group are: one, having the action opportunities presented too the person with the high status position in the task group.

Two, This person is going to get to contribute more often then the other members of the task group. Three, this person’s evaluations are going to be more positive then the other members. And lastly, they are going to be the main influence of the group above all the members. This person is most likely the leader of the task group, people may think this person is the smartest or gets good grades all the time so everyone makes this person the leader to insure that the whole group will end up with a good grade on the task they are working on.
6) (#7) Power is the ability to get what you want despite the resistance of other people (lecture notes, Soboroff). Power is coercion, and excludes from valued resources (lecture notes, Soboroff). Power is doing something wrong and knowing you can get away with it if you get caught. Power is having people do things for you because they want to impress you because you have power over them. Power is something that people have that shows everyone that they matter and get what they

want.
7) Potential power in a network does not determine how power will be used (lecture notes, Soboroff). Power use is the behavior that activates a positional power to overcome another person’s resistance (lecture notes, Soboroff). The difference is that potential power isn’t a defined behavior, where as power used is.
8) (#10) Dependence is determined by how much you want or need what another person has to offer, and whether or not you can get those things from someone else (lecture notes, Soboroff).

Part II: Long Answer
1.

According to Emerson, people strive to balance their power within relationships. One, a low power person comes to devalue things they once have valued highly. Two, a low power person finds an alternative source for things needs and wants. Three, A high power person comes to value more highly what the low power person has to offer and lastly, a high power person loses alternative sources for their own wants and or needs (lecture notes, Soboroff). This is because the power dependent theory states that we become dependent on other people to meet our needs and or wants, so it creates power relationships and not everyone can produce or have the same power over things so that’s how we get unequal power

relationships.

2. (#3) Social Identity Theory is self- definitions based on categorization within a social group. So basically this is how you see yourself within your group of social class, or friends, family, community those types of groups. This theory is psychology because it has to do with how you think about yourself within a group of people. Psychology is about how your mind works and how we come up with questions and answers. Where as identity theory for sociology is about self-view and parts of self- concept. How we are put into roles and social structure. How we are in social groups and what do these groups do to our self-image (lecture notes, Soboroff).
3. (#4) The standard experimental setting for testing status characteristics theory according to Berger is that there were two tests being completed. Both of these tests were taken place in a standardized experimental situation. The techniques and procedures for these experiments were designed specifically for these two experiments. The two experiments are a manipulation phase and a decision making phase. The first experiment was the manipulation phase and this experiment the subjects were placed into an expected state where they were given information or tested for their ability. The subjects are kept apart during this test. Then one subject gets told some information about a status, the other subject gets told something else and then both subjects end up assuming that the other subject got the better of the two statuses. The next test is the decision making test and this is where the two subjects get asked questions and they have to pick the answers then talk to their partners to see what the other one has picked for the answers. The questions were about a rectangle with black and white area. If there was most or less of the black or white spaces. The answer was 0.50 but the subjects only knew that there was a correct answer. The experiment describes the task ability as a “contrasted sensitivity” and or “spatial” judgment (Berger: 10).
4. (#5) According to Lovaglia’s “Understanding Network Exchange Theory” Odd-length paths, they add to a position’s power, because the odd-length paths have a value of +1. Where the even-length paths rob a position of power, because even-length paths have a value of -1. So the odd path would beat the eve path because the even path would have two negatives in it (Lovaglia:44).

Part III: Essay

“Status characteristic theory has five assumptions: salience, burden of proof, sequencing, aggression, and expectation advantage and behavior. A status characteristic that will be salience if it differentiates between actors or actors believe the characteristic is relevant to completing the group task. No status characteristic is likely to advantage or disadvantage an actor in all settings. And lastly, there is no master status in the salience theory. Burden of proof will only happen if the status characterisitic is salient, then the actors will act as if the characteristic carries expectation states unless the characteristic is specifically disassociated with task success, but the difference between people exists, it matters unless proven otherwise. If a salient status characteristic is not shown to be irrelevant to the task, then the characteristic will impact expectations in other tasks, even if actors leave or enter the group. Aggression is organized subsets: people use positive and negative status information about people. Overall expectations combine both types of information to determine an individual’s expected value to the group. For example, attenuation effect: additional consistent information has a decreasing effect on expectations of competence and value to the group. Also, inconsistency effect is having a positive characteristic that will count for more if you have a lot of negative characteristics with no other information. Lastly, expectation advantage and behavior are combined status characteristic information forms expectations for competent contributions that advantages one actor over another, then the actor with an advantage will receive more opportunities to contribute, will accept those opportunities more often, will receive positive evaluations’ for their actions, will reject other people’s influence more often, an will be more likely made a leader for the group” (lecture notes, Soboroff).

The status characteristics that might have effected the agency’s decision for whom to interview for the job would be what their degrees, race, and experience, because the theory states that a status characteristic theory performance expectations yield measureable difference in respect, prestige, and influence. All these status characteristics are diffuse status characteristics, because they suggest competence at a wide variety of tasks. For example, diffuse characteristics would be race, age, education level, and gender. While specific status characteristics are expectations for performance for a limited number of tasks. So for Tom and Michael, they both are 28 years old and they both have bachelor degrees. Tom is a white male and Michael is a black male. Those are diffuse status characteristics. While the fact that Tom has his degree in English and the fact he hasn’t had an experience with advisement are specific status characteristics. As for Michael his specific status characteristics are that his degree is in journalism and that he has gotten an award for a commercial for the department of parks and recreation.

The status characteristics that would create a positive expectation for Tom would be that he has a bachelors’ degree in English. While for Michael it would be that he has a bachelors’ degree in journalism and that he has gotten an award for a commercial for the department of parks and recreation. I believe that Michael was the person to get the interview, because having the experience with commercials and having a degree in journalism is a very good and positive status characteristics to have compared to Tom who only has a degree in English. I believe that Michael is going to end up with the most positive odd numbered of paths so he would end up getting the interview over Tom’s even number of negative paths.

“Status characteristics are any characteristic that partitions the population by gender, age, race, and education level. It also has one or more states associated with positive and negative expectations for performance and performance expectations yield measureable differences in respect, prestige, and influence” (lecture notes, Soboroff). So therefore in this scenario of two males that want to get a job with a commercial company are going to most likely show that they have experience with acting. Tom didn’t have any experience and I don’t think that his English degree would help him too much in this job. Where as Michael has done a commercial before, and has a journalism degree so he probably is used to acting and making sure he gets the story from people. So from all the information I believe that Michael should have ended up with the interview in the end.