Sociologists of culture have long noted that contrasting cultural frames can lead to status ambiguity and status multiplicity. We explore these phenomena in the domain of professional sports by first replicating and then extending and challenging recently published findings on selections for the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star game. Relying on a large data set that includes more than 10,000 player–years, we show that accounting for better-justified performance measures reduces but does not nullify the effects of status cumulative advantage on All-Star selections. However, when replacing All-Star selections with a less ambiguous measure (selections to All-NBA teams), we no longer find evidence of decoupling between player performance and award nomination. From this we conclude that cumulative status advantage only affects selection when voters view factors other than statistical performance as legitimate, perhaps even desired, selection criteria. These findings have relevance for our understanding of status evaluations beyond professional sports, including in domains as diverse as the film industry, the performing arts, literature, politics, and the sciences.

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文化社会学家早就指出，对比鲜明的文化框架可能导致身份模糊和身份多重性。我们首先复制、扩展和挑战最近发表的有关美国国家篮球协会 (NBA) 全明星赛选拔的研究结果，从而探索职业体育领域的这些现象。依靠包含超过 10,000 名球员年的大型数据集，我们表明，考虑更合理的绩效指标会减少但不会消除状态累积优势对全明星选择的影响。然而，当用更明确的衡量标准（入选NBA最佳阵容）取代全明星评选时，我们不再发现球员表现和奖项提名之间脱钩的证据。由此我们得出结论，只有当选民将统计表现以外的因素视为合法的、甚至是期望的选择标准时，累积的地位优势才会影响选择。这些发现与我们对职业体育以外的地位评估的理解相关，包括电影业、表演艺术、文学、政治和科学等多个领域。

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