Who deserves their status? Dyadic status dissonance triggers covert status conflict in groups

Dyadic status dissonance arises when an individual perceives that a coworker’s standing in the group does not match the standing that coworker personally deserves. We introduce this construct to capture within-person inconsistencies between macro status perceptions (how much status the group confers) and micro status perceptions (how much status the individual personally attributes). We theorize that negative dyadic status dissonance, perceiving that a coworker is overvalued by the group, triggers covert forms of dyadic status conflict. These behaviors challenge the coworker’s status indirectly and outside the group’s view, thereby reducing the social penalties associated with overt dissent from the status consensus. Across two studies (total N = 495), results support this account. In a field sample of employees working in groups in the Netherlands (258 participants in 75 groups; 759 dyadic observations), negative dyadic status dissonance predicted greater provision of unsolicited negative feedback to the focal coworker. In a longitudinal study of student teams in the United States (84 teams; 999 dyadic observations), negative dyadic status dissonance similarly predicted more frequent questioning of a teammate’s contributions. Together, these findings identify dyadic status dissonance as a novel antecedent of covert status conflict and clarify how misalignments between personal and collective status evaluations can quietly destabilize group hierarchies.