title: Status inconsistency in groups: How discrepancies between instrumental and expressive status result in symptoms of stress.
abstract: This study examines whether a mismatch between the positions that individuals hold in different status hierarchies results in symptoms of stress. Prior research has focused on inconsistencies between socioeconomic status dimensions (e.g., education and income) and did not find a significant relation between status inconsistency and stress. In this paper, we build on research on role differentiation and propose to study the effect of inconsistencies between instrumental status and expressive status in group contexts. We hypothesize that people with an inconsistency between these status dimensions experience feelings of uncertainty and frustration in their interactions with others and this manifests in stress-related symptoms. We test this hypothesis with data collected in a medium-sized Dutch childcare organization (N = 93). Polynomial regression analysis, visualized in response surface plots, suggests that status inconsistent employees report higher levels of stress.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: h.j.van.de.brake@rug.nl.
authors.forename: Hendrik Johan
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: van de Brake
authors.affiliation: Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven - University of Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grow
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan Kornelis
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Dijkstra
keywords: Polynomial regression; Role differentiation; Status inconsistency; Work stress