People tend to derogate their ideological opponents. But how does social status affect this tendency? We tested a prediction derived from hierometer theory that people with higher status would derogate ideological opponents less (i.e., evaluate them more charitably). We further predicted that greater rhetoric handling prowess (RHP: feeling more confident and less intimidated while arguing) would mediate the effect. Study 1 established a link between higher status and lesser opponent derogation correlationally. Study 2 did so experimentally. Using a scale to assess RHP developed and validated in Study 3, Study 4 established that RHP statistically mediated the correlational link between status and derogation. In Study 5, experimentally manipulating status affected RHP as predicted. However, in Study 6, experimentally manipulating RHP did not affect opponent derogation as predicted. Thus, our findings were substantially, but not entirely, consistent with our theoretically derived predictions. Implications for hierometer theory, and related theoretical approaches, are considered.

中文翻译：

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占领制高点：社会地位对思想对手贬损的影响

人们倾向于贬低思想上的对手。但是社会地位如何影响这种趋势？我们测试了根据测速器理论得出的一个预测，即地位较高的人对思想上的反对者贬低的程度较小（即，对他们的评价更友善）。我们进一步预测，更大的修辞处理能力（RHP：争论时感觉更加自信和更少受到威胁）将介导这种效果。研究1在较高的地位和较小的对手克减之间建立了联系。研究2是通过实验进行的。使用研究3中开发和验证的RHP量表，研究4确定RHP在统计学上介导了状态与克减之间的相关联系。在研究5中，如预期的那样，实验操作状态会影响RHP。但是，在研究6中，实验上控制RHP并不会像预期的那样影响对手的减损。因此，我们的发现与我们的理论推论基本一致，但并不完全一致。考虑了对里程表理论和相关理论方法的影响。