Status Processes and Mental Ability Test Scores

Michael J. Lovaglia, University of Iowa
Jeffrey W. Lucas
Jeffrey A. Houser
Shane R. Thye, University of South Carolina - Columbia
Barry N. Markovsky, University of South Carolina - Columbia

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http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/loi/ajs

© 1998 by University of Chicago Press

Abstract

The expected consequences of a score on an ability test can constrain individual performance. The authors predict that status processes, including status differences and the differences in rewards and costs that result, will produce differences in ability test scores between high-status and low-status individuals. In three controlled experi- ments, participants randomly assigned low status scored lower on a standard test of mental ability (the Raven Progressive Matrices) than did participants assigned high status. For both men and women, the difference in ability test score between low-status and high-status participants was about half a standard deviation. The results suggest the need to account for status differences in any at- tempt to measure mental ability accurately