Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Inequality, Status, and the Construction of Status Beliefs

© Cecilia L. Ridgeway, Inequality, Status, and the Construction of Status Beliefs, in Jonathan H. Turner, Jeffrey Alexander, Kenneth D. Bailey (dir.), Handbook of Sociological Theory, New York, Kluwer academic, Plenum Publishers, 2001, pp. 323-339

“ Performance expectations, which are often unconscious, are members’ guesses about the likely usefulness of their own contributions to the group task or goal compared the contributions of another. The lower an actor’s expectations for her own contributions compared to another’s, the more likely she is to hesitate in presenting her own ideas, to ask the other for suggestions, to react positively to ideas the other presents, and to accept influence from the other.” (Berger et al., 1974, 1977 ; Wagner & Berger, 1993) p. 325

“Since members’ expectations for another’s competence in the situation drives the behavioral power and prestige order, expectations states theory devotes its attention ti predicting how social factors shape the formation of these expectations.” p. 325

Nakane Chie, Japanese society

© Nakane Chie , Japanese society, Tokyo, Charles Tuttle Co.: publishers, 1994 (1970), p.162

“I deal with my own society as a social anthropologist using some of the methods which I am accustomed to applying in examining any other society. However, this form is not that of a scientific thesis (as may be seen at once from the absence of a bibliography; I have also refrained from quoting any statistical figures or precise data directly obtained from field surveys).” Preface

“The following analysis employs two basic but contrasting criteria. These are  attribute and frame, concepts newly formulated here, but which I think, are illuminating and useful in a comparative study of Japanese and other societies.

It is important, however, to redefine our terms. In this analysis groups may be identified by applying the two criteria: one is based on the individual’s common attribute, the other on situational position in a given frame. I use frame as a technical term with a particular significance as opposed to the criterion of attribute, which, again, is used specifically and in a broader sense than it normally carries.  Frame may be a locality, an institution or a particular relationship which binds a set of individuals into one group: in all cases it indicates a criterion which sets a boundary and gives a common basis to a set of individuals who are located or involved in it. In fact, my term frame is the English translation of the Japanese ba, the concept from which I originally evolved my theory, but for which it is hard to find the exact English counterpart.  Ba means ‘location’, but the normal usage of the term connotes a special base on which something is placed according to a given purpose. The term b is also used in physics for ‘field’ in English.” p. 1

“The privileges of those at the top in Japanese groups can be seen in various ways, perhaps more obviously in their behavior towards subordinates. The Japanese can tolerate a vertical, one-to-one power relationship between two people directly linked to each other, but this is not accepted in the form of a class or group. […] The personal relationship in Japan between superior and subordinate may give an impression of wide disparity on formal occasions — a subordinate usually being a ‘yes-man’, with much bowing to his superior; but this is conter-balanced by informal contacts which give the subordinate a feeling of being a member of the same household [uchi]. The Japanese boss, consciously or unconsciously, displays to his subordinates on occasions a kind of behavior in which the power relation of the formal organization is reversed, with the theory that, when all are in the same boat, everyone should enjoy communal rights, regardless of difference in status and contribution. There is strong opposition to the formation of status groups within a single community, although the order of higher and lower in relationships between individuals is readily accepted.

It seems from these and similar considerations that Japanese ‘democracy’ is a kind of community sentiment, with, as a major premise, a high degree of cohesion and consensus within the group. Liberalism with respect to opinion is not part of the concept, for ‘democracy’ may well be interpreted in terms of freedom of speech, by which is meant the freedom of the lower or the underprivileged to speak out; there is, however neither wish for opposition nor realization of the function of opposition. In Japan it is extremely difficult to engage in a truly democratic discussion […], in the course of which the statements of opposition are taken by the other party and then form an important element in the development of the discussion.” pp. 151-152

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