I review and integrate recent sociological research that makes progress on three interrelated
questions pertaining to social valuation:(a) the degree of social construction relative to …

On television and in films, in magazines and books, on the Internet and in the realm of
politics, celebrities of all sorts seem to dominate our attention. Celebrity Society: The …

A core claim of sociological theory is that modern institutions fall short of their meritocratic
ideals, whereby rewards should be allocated based on achievement-related criteria …

Although increases in status often lead to more favorable inferences about quality in
subsequent evaluations, in this paper, we examine a setting in which an increase to an …

The present paper investigates how and when social status may serve as a cue for tacit
coordination. In three experimental studies, we demonstrate that low status individuals are …

Most work on collective action assumes that group members are undifferentiated by status,
or standing, in the group. Yet such undifferentiated groups are rare, if they exist at all. Here …

Stories have played a central role in human social and political life for thousands of years.
Despite their ubiquity in culture and custom, however, they feature only peripherally in …

Informal hierarchies are a common and important feature of many groups, yet we know little
about the antecedent conditions that determine the strength of such hierarchies. Building on …

This paper bridges insights from theories of collective action, power, and influence to
address the conditions under which group leaders solve collective action problems. We …

Questions about the causes and consequences of inequality are fundamental to the
discipline of sociology. Most sociological analyses contribute in some way to our …