Status differentiation: New insights from agent-based modeling and social network analysis

Status is an important aspect of social life that affects people from the day they are born until the day they die. In this dissertation, André Grow examines the processes by which status inequality can emerge between individuals and between social groups, such as men/women, whites/non-whites, and the old/the young. Using computational simulations and methods from social network analysis, he finds that status inequality between social groups can easily emerge from face-to-face interactions, even if there are no differences in resources and competence that might justify status differences. He also finds that once status differences between social groups have emerged, they strongly affect the resources and competence that individuals expect each other to possess, even in contexts in which such effects were previously not expected to occur. Together, these findings shed new light on the conditions under which status inequality can emerge and persist in society.