You have no power here! Social status does not modulate observationally acquired binding and retrieval effects

Previous research shows that observationally acquired stimulus-response binding and retrieval (oSRBR) effects only occur when the observed person is socially relevant. An important factor that influences one’s social relevance in everyday life is social status: People typically orient their behavior and attention towards others whom they perceive to be of higher social status than themselves. This implies that these persons are considered more relevant than other persons of lower status. Thus, in two experiments we tested whether social status modulates oSRBR effects. To manipulate social status, participants were either assigned to a high status or low status condition. High status participants were able to give their interaction partner feedback on their performance and decided how an extra reward would be split between them. Then they performed an online interactive color classification task to assess oSRBR effects. Contrary to our expectation and despite successful manipulation checks, we did not find a modulation of oSRBR by social status in two highly powered (total N=329) experiments. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on the influence of social status on imitative action regulation processes.