More from the Author

• Working Paper | 2018

  Status Inconsistency: Variance in One's Status Across Groups Harms Well-being but Improves Perspective-taking

  Catarina Fernandes and Alison Wood Brooks

  Most people belong to many different groups. While some people experience consistently high or low status across all of their groups, others experience wildly different levels of status in each group. In this research, we examine how status inconsistency – the degree to which one’s status varies across groups – impacts well-being and perspective-taking. Across five studies, we find robust evidence that status inconsistency (controlling for average status) has negative intrapersonal, but positive interpersonal, consequences. Study 1A shows that higher status inconsistency across many groups is related to lower levels of life satisfaction, self-esteem, and subjective social status. Study 1B tests the causal relationship between status inconsistency and well-being, demonstrating that even thinking about one’s status inconsistency can lead to lower feelings of happiness. Study 2 focuses on attitudes towards the most status-inconsistent groups and shows that individuals are most likely to leave the groups in which their status is furthest away from their mean personal status across groups, irrespective of whether the deviance is positive (much higher status than average) or negative (much lower status than average). Studies 3A and 3B shift to investigate the interpersonal effects of status inconsistency on perspective-taking. Study 3A shows that status inconsistency is related to higher levels of trait perspective-taking and empathetic concern, and Study 3A that thinking about one’s status inconsistency increases perspective-taking on a task. Taken together, the results indicate that those whose status is inconsistent across groups experience lower levels of well-being, but are better at understanding others’ points of view.

  Keywords: Status; Social hierarchies; Groups and Teams; well-being; Perspective Taking; Status and Position; Groups and Teams; Satisfaction; Perspective;

  Citation:

  Fernandes, Catarina, and Alison Wood Brooks. "Status Inconsistency: Variance in One's Status Across Groups Harms Well-being but Improves Perspective-taking." Working Paper, 2018. (under review, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.)  View Details

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• Article | Harvard Business Review | May–June 2018

  The Surprising Power of Questions

  Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John

  Much of an executive’s workday is spent asking others for information—requesting status updates from a team leader, for example, or questioning a counterpart in a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors, who are taught how to ask questions as an essential part of their training, few executives think of questioning as a skill that can be honed—or consider how their own answers to questions could make conversations more productive.
  That’s a missed opportunity. Questioning is a powerful tool for unlocking value in companies: It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, it fuels innovation and better performance, and it builds trust among team members. And it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards.
  Several techniques can enhance the power and efficacy of queries: Favor follow-up questions, know when to keep questions open ended, get the sequence right, use the right tone, and pay attention to group dynamics.

  Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Information; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Effectiveness;

  Citation:

  Brooks, Alison Wood, and Leslie K. John. "The Surprising Power of Questions." Harvard Business Review 96, no. 3 (May–June 2018): 60–67.  View Details

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• Exercise | March 2018

  Does It Hurt To Ask?

  Alison Wood Brooks

  Does It Hurt To Ask? (DIHTA) is an interactive exercise that pairs students (in groups of two) for a brief, spontaneous, open-ended conversation during class. Each student is given instructions to ask many questions (as many as possible) or few questions (ideally zero) during their conversation (resulting in some high-high questioning pairs, some low-low questioning pairs, and some high-low questioning pairs). The exercise is flexible—it can stand on its own for a whole class session (taking 60-90 minutes), or it can be used to supplement other material within the same class session (taking as little as 30 minutes total). This teaching note provides step-by-step instructions to administer the exercise in class. The goals of the exercise are to examine how asking questions during conversation influences interpersonal perception, information exchange, decision making, productivity, as well as relationships and happiness over time—to weigh the pros and cons of asking questions versus making statements in conversation. While there are many reasons people don’t ask questions (such as egocentrism, anxiety, apathy, and ignorance), those who can become talented question askers stand to learn more information, to be better liked, and to have more influence than those who do not.

  Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Perception; Information; Power and Influence;

  Citation:

  Brooks, Alison Wood. "Does It Hurt To Ask?" Harvard Business School Exercise 918-037, March 2018.  View Details

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