ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the process by which reward expectations are formed and with the effects of the formation of reward expectations on behavior in status situations. It focuses on situations in which well-defined standards for the allocation of rewards are present–where certain statuses are clearly associated with certain levels of reward. The chapter also focuses on the effect of reward expectations on task behavior, and defer for later consideration the effects of task and reward expectations on reward behavior. It concerns the nature of the relationship between task expectations and reward expectations. The chapter aims to distinguish three types of referential structures: categorical, ability, and -outcome. The chapter reviews the different bodies of research that can be related to the abstract theorems in the authors formulation. It describes the process by which expectations for reward are formed in status situations and to specify some of the effects of these expectations on task behavior.
