Social Psychology. Daniel W. Barrett

expressions

      Getting Them to Like Me: Ingratiation

      People often say “flattery will get you nowhere.” However, contrary to this common cliché, flattery will get you everywhere, unless it is too obvious (Westphal & Stern, 2007)! One of the best ways to get people to like you is to make them believe that you like them, and flattery is one strategy for accomplishing that (see Table 4.3) (Seiter, 2007). Ingratiation refers to attempts to get particular persons to like us, and ingratiation tactics include flattery, providing favors and gifts, agreeing with them, emphasizing that person’s positive qualities, and acting modestly (Jones, 1990; Romero-Canyas et al., 2010). As Jones (1990) noted, we like people who like us. At times we may we even go as far as to change our reported attitudes so that we appear to agree with those of an attractive member of the opposite sex who we expect to meet shortly (Rowatt, Cunningham, & Druen, 1998; Zanna & Pack, 1975).

Table 4.3

      Ingratiation techniques can backfire, however, if they are seen as blatant attempts to gain favor (Brodsky & Cannon, 2006). Therefore, in order to be successful, ingratiation has to be conducted illicitly, so as not to be too obvious (Tal-Or, 2010b). There is a paradoxical aspect to ingratiation: Sometimes the very people we want to impress are high status individuals who are particularly attuned to attempts to garner favor (Jones, 1990). They are particularly skilled at recognizing when others try to ingratiate themselves. Fortunately, the target of ingratiation is more likely to believe that ingratiation tactics—such as compliments—are authentic or accurate than are neutral third parties (Varma, Toh, & Pichler, 2006). As you can see, ingratiation tactics are especially suited to obtaining the first self-presentational goal: to be seen as likable.

      Ingratiation: Attempts to get particular persons to like us

      Getting Them to Appreciate Me: Self-Promotion

      Although it is important to be liked, there are times when we prefer to be seen as competent—as a capable student, barista, professor, and so forth (Proost, Schreurs, De Witte, & Derous, 2010). Self-promotion refers to efforts designed to convince others of one’s competence (Cialdini et al., 1976; Jones, 1990). As with ingratiation, there are a number of self-promotional tactics that may be employed. One is to demonstrate competence by performing the requisite behavior in front of those we want to impress (e.g., come watch me teach!). For example, study participants expecting to be contestants on a Jeopardy game show chose to sit in a more visible, prominent seat when they believed they would perform well—that they would know the answers—as compared to those who were less confident (Akimoto, Sanbonmatsu, & Ho, 2000). Another is simply by stating it: “I am a good teacher”—of course, be sure that you can back up your claim to competence! A third is by referring to other sources of objective information (“just look at my teaching evaluations and my teaching award!”) (Cialdini et al., 1976; Pfeffer, Fong, Cialdini, & Portnoy, 2006; Tal-Or, 2010a).

      Self-promotion becomes particularly important when you are trying to obtain a job, a raise, or entry into college or graduate school (See the Social Psychology Applied to Work: Managing Impressions text box). Obviously, it is important to convince a potential employer that you are competent, and self-promotional strategies have been shown to accomplish that (Stevens & Kristof, 1995). As with ingratiation, there is a paradox of self-promotion: Truly competent people don’t need to claim it, because their performance should be sufficient to demonstrate their competence (Jones, 1990). In fact, self-promotion can sometimes backfire, especially for women, for whom norms of modesty are more salient (Moss-Racusin & Rudman, 2010; Rudman, 1998). Earlier we mentioned that people can use modesty as an ingratiation tactic (“I owe all of my teaching proficiency to my graduate mentors and colleagues!”). However, too much modesty might actually mask your competence—and if the modesty is seen as false, then liking may decrease along with perceived competence.

      Social Psychology Applied To Work

      Managing Impressions

      As you know, people strive to ensure that others have favorable opinions of them. One domain of life in which positive impressions are particularly important is work—otherwise we wouldn’t be able to obtain, keep, or advance in our jobs. Social psychologists and others have extensively investigated how people attempt to manage the impressions they make during interviews as well as on the job (Barrick, Shaffer, & DeGrassi, 2009; Bourdage et al., 2015; Cialdini, Petrova, & Goldstein, 2004; Ingold, Kleinmann, König, & Melchers, 2015; Jones & Pittman, 1982). There are many strategies people may use to manage impressions, including providing answers that are more socially desirable than their true answers (e.g., stating that they like working in teams even if they don’t because they think the interviewer wants to hear this) or claiming skills and/or experiences that they do not have (Levashina & Campion, 2007; Roulin, Bangerter, & Levashina, 2015; Tsai, Huang, Wu, & Lo, 2010; Weiss & Feldman, 2006).

      For instance, using three measures of faking, O’Connell, Kung, and Tristan (2011) found that job applicants were more deceptive than existing employees and that they also gave significantly more positive self-reports than did employees (see this chapter’s Doing Research text box). Levashina and Campion (2007) developed an Interview Faking Behavior Scale that could accurately reveal when individuals were faking answers during interviews. They learned that more deception occurs when people are asked about hypothetical situations (e.g., “Suppose you have a great idea, but there is opposition to it among your colleagues. What would you do to persuade your colleagues to ‘see things your way’?”) than past behavior (e.g., “Describe a time when you had a great idea, but there was opposition to it. How did you do persuade your colleagues to ‘see things your way’?”). Moreover, participants tended to fake their answers more when the interviewers did not engage in follow-up questioning after receiving the initial answers.

      People of course differ in the extent to which they actively manage impressions. For example, it won’t surprise you that individuals who are relatively high on an honesty-humility personality dimension are less likely to engage in impression management (Bourdage et al., 2015). Extraverts have a greater tendency to self-promote and attempt to ingratiate themselves than do introverts, and more agreeable individuals also engage in ingratiation. Other research has shown that people who are actively managing impressions are also more prone to misrepresenting themselves on personality scales (Ingold et al., 2015). Guadagno and Cialdini (2007) conducted a qualitative review of the literature and concluded that men and women seem to manage their self-presentations generally in line with traditional gender roles. Hogue, Levashina, and Hang (2013) provide empirical evidence that men and women who are high in Machiavellianism (the desire to further self-interest regardless of the cost) more intensively attempt to ingratiate themselves than women low in it. Individuals who are concerned that their group membership may lead to negative impressions, such as gays and lesbians (Jones & King, 2014) and Asian Americans (Roberts, Cha, & Kim, 2014), often actively seek to manage their self-presentations.

      I Failed But I Am Still Competent! Self-Handicapping

      Most of us are concerned that a personal failure will be perceived as lack of competence, which can in turn damage self-esteem. One common way to ward off such threats to self-esteem is to have excuses ready to be rolled out. However, simply making excuses itself can be damaging, especially if used too often. Some people go one step further than making excuses, and that is to actually create obstacles to success so that, if failure occurs, they can protect their self by attributing the failure to something other than their own ability or competence (Jones & Berglas, 1978). This tactic, called self-handicapping, involves arranging events that may in fact reduce the likelihood of success but also serve to protect one’s self-esteem by deflecting responsibility (Gadbois & Sturgeon, 2011; Jones & Berglas, 1978; Park & Brown, 2014). For instance, partying the night before an exam gives a person an excuse for failing to perform well.