family and society to aspiring to occupy an equal and! or superior position relative to

one’s fellow men;

(b) to develop from a state of dependence upon others to

relative independence.

In laboratory and industrial research these needs have been interpreted as aspirations

towards two main goals-higher stats and greatr power. The difficulties in separating

these ambitions may be due. to the fact that they often go hand in hand-especially in

industry. However, for the purpose of this book it may be useful to define th tenns as

used in the text. Status is looked upon as a system of ranking people by some quality,

real or perceived, while power is the ability, real or perceivedt to affect the lives of

others.

Status

Thibaut and Kelley have both clearly demonstrated the . adverse effects on group

cohesiveness of high achievement desires. In Kellly’s study, students took part in

laboratory

group tasks with artificial status differentials imposed, while in Thibaut’s research, boys

played games under similar statuS differentials. Strong individual achievement hopes

were found to reduce group COhe!ilVeneSs in both experiments. Also noticed was the

fact that those individuals who wished to move upward in these artificial hierarchies

tended to communicate in that direction. These studies and many others all confirm the

following conclusions.

Upward communication is likely to contain much information which is irrelevant to the job

in hand, and in terms of total volume is likely to be greater from ‘lows’ to ‘highs’ than the

reverse.. Members of low-status groups refrain from expressing pent-up aggressions

towards high¬status individuals. imilarly, information critical of persons in higher level

positions is restricted. Low-status subjects, given no opportunity to move upward,

communicate more freely than low-status subjects who have this opportunity.