JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCLAL PSYCHOLOGY 5, 172-188 ( 1969)

Modesty versus Self-Enhancement as Alternative

Forms of Ingratiation’

LLOYD K. STIRES University of Connecticut

AND

EDWARD E. JONES

Duke University

Within the general framework of a competitive job-seeking task, subjects described themselves to a potential supervisor on a series of traits. For subjects in two (dependence) conditions, these ratings were to serve the supervisor as the most important basis for determining who would be his high-paid assistant and who would be a low-paid clerical helper. Subjects in the third (no dependence) condition believed that job assignments were deter- mined by coin flip and the ratings were simply a means of getting acquainted with the supervisor. In one dependence condition (supervisor-aware), the subjects believed that the supervisor was cognizant of his role in the assignment of subordinates. In the other dependence condition (supervisor-unaware), the subjects were told that the supervisor actually determined job assignments by a simple statement of preference but though job assignments were determined by coin flip. As predicted, subjects in the super- visor-aware condition were more inclined than supervisor-unaware subjects to be modest in their claims of personal attributes that reflect the judgments of others (e.g., “popular”). Subjects in both dependence conditions were less modest in claiming traits re- flecting task competence than were control subjects. Further evi- dence indicates that dependent subjects with an aware supervisor went to greater lengths to establish the credibility of their ratings than other subjects did. Conclusion: While self-enhancement is the normal reaction to a condition of social dependence, the tendency to claim positive attributes is complicated and inhibited by the knowledge that the target person is aware of his relative power.

A person attempting to win the favor of another may either explicitly call attention to his positive attributes (self-enhancement), or he may

‘This research was facilitated by NSF-G8857. We are indebted to Russell Jones for his services as the potential supervisor.

172

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 173

emphasize his weaknesses, and thus, by implication, enhance the positive attributes of the target person (modesty). Each of these self-presenta- tional strategies entails certain risks. An immodest person may appear boastful or conceited, his credibility may be called into question, or his claims to personal excellence may threaten the interpersonal power of the target person. A modest person, on the other hand, runs the risk of appearing weak and ineffectual, and his apparent humility may make others feel uncomfortable, or may leave him open to exploitation. Under what conditions will a potential ingratiator choose modesty as a strategy of securing the favor of another, and under what conditions will self- enhancement be the preferred strategy?

Experimental studies have indicated that the relative power or status of the ingratiator can influence the choice of self-presentational strategy. Jones, Gergen, and Jones (1963) f ound that high status subjects re- sponded to instructions emphasizing compatibility by becoming more modest, particularly with regard to attributes that they considered rela- tively unimportant. This is presumably because the power position of a high status person is more secure, and he can thus afford to advertise his “approachability” (Blau, 1964). Gergen and Gibbs (1965) found that both high and low status subjects were more self-deprecating when com- patibility was stressed than when task productivity was emphasized. There was a strong tendency, however, for the high status subjects to be more modest than the low status subjects under productivity instructions.

The findings with respect to low status subjects are less clear. Jones, Gergen, and Davis (1962) found that undergraduate females described themselves more positively to graduate students serving as “gate keepers” in a hypothetical screening interview than did other undergraduates to the same graduate students under instructions emphasizing accuracy. Jones, Gergen, and Jones (1963) noted that low status males became slightly more modest on important traits when exchanging self ratings with high status males, but were considerably more immodest with regard to traits they considered unimportant. Finally, Jones, Gergen, Gumpert, and Thibaut (1965) found that dependent subjects, when making a self- presentation to a target person who was open to influence, rated them-

selves more positively on a cluster of items reflecting task-relevant at- tributes than subjects confronting a target who was closed to influence. NO such tendency was found with regard to items dealing with qualities connoting affability.

Further data on self-presentation are provided by Davis and Anderson2 in a study involving peer dyads. These investigator pvided some sub-

* Unpublished manuscript.

174 STLRES AND JONES

jects with a high incentive to be ingratiating and others with a low incen- tive. The target person was presented as warm and competent, warm and incompetent, cold and competent, or cold and incompetent. The results showed that high incentive subjects with warm target persons were more modest than their low incentive counterparts. No differences were found among subjects presenting themselves to a cold target person.

Additional subjects in the Davis and Anderson experiment were in- structed to role-play the self-presentations of an ingratiator under circum- stances where the target person would be unaware of their stake in making themselves attractive. These ingratiating role players were much more self-enhancing than subjects in the other conditions where the target person was undoubtedly aware of the potential for ingratiating intent.

While other differences among their experimental treatments may have contributed to this pattern of results, they are consistent with Jones’s (1964) hypothesis that a would-be ingratiator, when interacting with a target person who is unaware of his relative power or control over desired resources, will adopt a strategy of self-enhancement; on the other hand, an ingratiator who knows that his target is aware of his dependence will adopt a more complicated strategy, and will tend to be self-enhancing in some and modest in other aspects of his self-presentation.

Jones proposes that whether or not P will engage in ingratiation be- havior is a function of the incentive value of the benefit desired by P, P’s subjective probability of success in acquiring the desired benefit through ingratiation, and the perceived legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of the in- gratiating behavior. Kauffman and Steiner (1968) have shown that con- formity is greater when the factors instigating ingratiation are not too salient. It is the contention of the present report that the level of these factors may determine the form of the ingratiation attempt, as well as its probability of occurrence. Specifically, it is hypothesized that when the target person is aware of P’s dependence upon him, P’s subjective prob- ability of success is reduced, and, obversely, the probability of detection is increased. Under such circumstances, P must adopt a more subtle strategy of self-presentation-either overt modesty or, at least, a judicious mixture of modest and self-enhancing statements. An ingratiator who is “one up” on the target person, however, may self-enhance with relative impunity. The experiment that follows is a test of this hypothesis.

A work situation was created in which the subject perceived that he was dependent upon a supervisor for assignment to the more prestigious and lucrative of two jobs. He was then given an opportunity to influence the decision by filling out a self-presentational questionnaire.

The supervisor awareness variable was introduced by informing some

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 175

subjects that their supervisor knew of their dependence upon him, while other subjects were led to believe that their supervisor was unaware of the contingency between his attitudes toward the subject and the actual job assignment. These two dependence conditions were compared with a control condition in which assignment to the attractive job was to be determined by lot, making the subjects not dependent upon the supervisor.3

The main hypothesis was that dependent subjects, confronting a super- visor unaware of this dependence, would be more self-enhancing than control subjects; and, dependent subjects with an aware supervisor would be more modest than control subjects. The predetermined measure of self-enhancement versus modesty was the sum of ratings on 20 highly evaluative items minus the sum of ratings on the same items made by the same subjects in an earlier group testing session involving all introductory psychology students. In addition to this global index of change in self- presentation, several distinctions were included within the questionnaire to permit subjects who were so inclined to introduce greater subtlety into their performance.

METHOD

Subjects

A total of 64 introductory psychology students served as subjects. Data from five of these subjects were discarded because it was discovered after the experiment that their “before” scales were incorrectly filled out. One of these subjects was also suspicious of the experimental deception. Two more subjects did not choose to participate in a second scheduled session (see below). In order to equalize cell frequencies, three more subjects were discarded without reference to their ratings. There remained 18 subjects in each of the three conditions of the experiment.

Subjects signed up in groups of four. If one of them failed to keep his appoint- ment, a group of three was run. If this happened, as it did on 6 out of 17 occasions, there were reasonable variations in instructions to take account of the change.

Procedure

The experimenter introduced himself to the three or four subjects as a graduate student in psychology and an experimental confederate as a graduate student in economics. He explained that the experiment dealt with the performance of work groups under various experimental conditions and gave some examples of variables affecting the performance of such groups.

3 Since the subjects would ultimately work under the supervisor’s direction, and since their ratings were explicitly to be transmitted to the supervisor, it should be emphasized that this is a rather conservative control condition. Unlike previous ex- periments (e.g., Jones, Gergen, and Davis, 1962) in which the set to be attractive was pitted against the set to be accurate, control subjects in the present experiment were not in any way enjoined from attraction-seeking overtures on the self-presentation task.

176 STIRES AND JONES

The experimenter then alleged that the experiment would require two sessions, the second lasting 2 hours and taking place the following week, at a time to suit the subjects’ convenience. The first session was to prepare for the later session at which the actual work group experiment was to be conducted. Subjects were promised the customary experimental credit for the first session and varying pay for the second session.

The experimenter then asked any subject to tell him if he did not wish to partici- pate, and countered any reservations with mild persuasion that was sufficient for all but two subjects, who dropped out of the experiment at this point. The subjects committed themselves by signing an agreement to come to a second session and indi- cated their preferences among a number of possible dates and times for the later session.

The experimenter then continued his explanation of the (actually fictitious) second session. Subjects would work in three-man groups, each group consisting of a super- visor and two workers. All of the subjects were to be workers-two in one group, two in another. (In three-person groups, one unspe&ed subject was ultimately to be paired with the leftover member of another three-man group under the same super- visor.) The pairing would be determined by the scheduling preferences. The con- federate was to be the supervisor in both of the groups to be formed. When asked to explain how he came to be involved in the project, he indicated that he was taking a course in Advanced Industrial Management, and that all students in this course were required to participate in this experiment in order to practice some of the skills they had learned in class.

The work group experiment would require subjects to imagine that they were members of the advertising department of a business firm; their job would be to turn out high quality advertising copy. Since there were “obviously” individual differences in the ability to perform this task, all subjects were to take a test “designed to meas- ure your ability to discriminate between various advertising slogans.”

Test of advertising judgment. The “Barrett Test of Advertising Judgment” was then distributed. It consisted of I4 advertising problems, each describing a product to be advertised and the medium in which the advertisement was to appear. Following each item were listed four alternative slogans, and the subject was to choose the best slogan, the second best, and so forth. The instructions stated that the test was scored by comparing these preference rankings to the responses of a group of men who had been successful in the advertising profession. In fact, there were no right answers. The test had been successfully used previously (Jones et al., 1965). It had face validity and yet was sufficiently ambiguous to permit the experimenter to announce predetermined scores that would be credible to each subject.

Assignment to Conditions

While the subjects were taking the Barrett Test the experimenter determined the experimental condition to which the group was to be assigned by picking one of three slips of paper from his pocket. A different condition designation was written on each slip. In this way, groups were not only assigned randomly to conditions, they were assigned as late as possible in the conduct of each experimental session. Also, it may be noted, the confederate was never aware of the experimental condition during a given session.

The experimenter handed the completed Barrett Test forms to the confederate and asked him to score the .tests (with a scoring key). and return with them as soon as he had finished.

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMIENT 177

The experimenter then reminded the subjects that some of them would be earning $1.50 per hour, others $3.00. They were told that their rate of pay would depend upon which of two worker jobs they were assigned. Each group was to consist of a super- visor, his assistant, and a copyreader. The supervisor and his assistant would be given descriptions of a number of fictitious consumer products. They would confer and, together, they would write a one-paragraph magazine advertisement for each product. Having completed an advertisement, they would pass it along to the copyreader, whose job it would be to recopy the paragraph, putting it in legible form and cor- recting grammatical or spelling errors. The purpose of the instructions was to make the supervisor’s assistant role sound considerably more attractive than that of the copy- reader. In addition, subjects were informed that the supervisor’s assistant would receive $3.00 per hour, while the copyreader would receive $1.50 per hour.

At this point, the experimenter explained to the subjects how assignments to these two jobs were to be made. This explanation constituted the manipulations of depend- ence and supervisor awareness.

Dependence-Supervisor Aware condition. Subjects in this condition were told that the job of supervisor’s assistant not only required more skill than that of copyreader, but also more personal contact with the supervisor. Thus, it had been decided to have the supervisor assign subjects to the two jobs and to do so on the basis of the resulis of the advertising test (which the subjects had just completed) and another form, described as a “personality questionnaire,” from which the supervisor might estimate the subjects’ compatibility with him. The supervisor, it was emphasized, was aware that (a) his decisions would determine job assignment, and (b) they (the subjects) had been so informed.

Dependence-Supervisor Unaware condition. The instructions in this condition were the same as in the previous condition, with one major exception. The experimenter again mentioned the importance of having the supervisor make the job assignments, but in order to avoid potential embarrassment, he had arranged a way for the super- visor to make the job assignments without realizing that he was doing so. This in- volved asking the supervisor to estimate which man from each pair would be best for the job of supervisor’s assistant. He was not to be aware that his “estimates” actually determined job assignment, but was to think that job assignments were determined by a flip of a coin. (Since each supervisor was scheduled to work with only two pairs of subjects, such a “‘coincidence” was credible.) Subjects were cautioned not to inform the supervisor of this benign deception,

NO Dependence (Cont~oZ) condition. In this condition, job assignments would be made in “the only fair way”-by flipping a coin. The advertising test and the per- sonality questionnaire were allegedly being administered for the purpose of relating individual differences in ability and personality to performance in the work group session. The supervisor would have an opportunity to study the results of these ~0 questionnaires prior to the work session, since they might provide him with some useful information about his subordinates.

All conditions. AS the experimenter then distributed the self-presentation ques- tionnaire and began to explain the instructions, the supervisor returned with the “results” of the advertising test. The experimenter commented that all of the subjects had scored ‘between 50 and 60 per cent,” which was ‘$lightly above average.” The implication was that the test results would provide little basis for discriminating be- tween subjects, and that the supervisor’s decision (in the dependence conditions) would be subject to inihrence by the self-presentation questionnaires. After the subjects completed the questionnaire, the experimenter engaged them in conversation about

178 STIRES AND JONES

the experiment, probing for suspicion and, eventually, explaining the purposes of the experiment and the reasons for deception.

The Self-Present&ion Questionnaire

The dependent variable questionnaire consisted of 25 antonym pairs each sepa- rated by a g-point scale. Twenty of these pairs were selected a priori so as to comprise two cross-cutting distinctions generating four separate five-item clusters. Half of the items in this pool of 20 concerned attributes closely related to task com- petence. The remaining 10 items described socially relevant personal qualities. Cross- cutting this division was a further distinction between those adjective pairs that could be indicative of an intention on the part of the subject to exhibit a particular trait as opposed to reputational traits or those which may best be gauged against the consensus of ascription by others. Because of the importance of these distinctions in discussing the results, the antonym pairs are listed by category in Table 1. Of the other five items not listed, four were not clearly evaluative and were added to disguise the purpose of the questionnaire. The remaining item was “modest-arrogant.” We were especially interested in the fate of ratings on this item since it was expected to reflect the conflict confronting a would-be ingratiator. Does a person who wishes to appear modest proceed by claiming modesty? What is the relationship between meas- ures of general self-enhancement and self-ratings of modesty?

TABLE 1 ANTONYM PAIRS COMPRISING FOUR A Priori RATING CLUSTERS

Items having mainly to do with:

Task competence Socially relevant personal qualities

Intentional (Subject to personal control) Conscientious-Careless Friendly-Distant Energetic--Lazy Cheerful-Grouchy Helpful-Uncooperative Tolerant-Unsympathetic Persevering-Gives up easily Likeable-Irritating Accepts direction-Resists authority Easy to talk to-Unapproachable

Reputational (Validity determined by ascription) Creative--Unoriginal Popular-Unpopular Very intelligent-Not very intelligent Interesting-Dull Presents ideas clearly-Inarticulate Good sense of humor-Poor sense of humor Clear-thinking-Fuzzy minded Socially sensitive-Socially obtuse Well informed-Poorly informed Takes criticism well-Defensive

Tentative hypotheses concerning differential self-enhancement on the tabled item clusters were developed. Our hunch was that, because the supervisor already had objective information regarding the subject’s task ability, enhancement and modesty effects would be less marked on the competence than on the personal items. Further- more, a highly positive self-description on a trait such as “popular” or “interesting” seems more immodest than claims that one is “friendly” or “cheerful.” The latter claims are under the claimants’ personal control, and are thus more readily validated by their own intentions. Therefore, we reasoned that the greatest difference between the aware and unaware conditions would occur with the reputational-personal items.

Confidence and importance ratings. After each questiomaire item there was a five-point scale on which the subject was to indicate the degree of his confidence in

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 179

the preceding rating. In addition, after completing the questionnaire, subjects were asked to look back over the antonym pairs and to check those items that they con- sidered to be especially important personal qualities. The importance ratings did not enter into any significant relationships and wili not be discussed further. The confl- dence ratings will receive further attention.

RESULTS

Acceptance of Instructions

No quantitative measure was obtained of the extent to which subjects remembered and fully believed the elaborate instructions designed to establish the independent variables. Debriefing interviews after each session revealed occasional mild suspicion about the occurrence of the second session. Two subjects were skeptical concerning the validity of the advertising test. These suspicions did not appear sufficiently crystal- lized to warrant discarding subjects, except in one case where the subject showed clear insight into the major deceptions involved.

Before Scores

In order to determine whether the random assignment of subjects to experimental conditions resulted in comparable before score measures, an analysis of variance was conducted on these “baseline” scores within a mixed design that was sensitive to between-treatment differences as well as interactions between treatments and item types. The results of this analysis revealed only that subjects generally rated themselves higher on competence items and that this was attributable more to the intentional than to the reputational items. As expected, there were no sign&ant main or interaction effects involving the three experimental treatments. Because of the relative homogeneity of before scores and the advantages of using each subject as his own control for rating biases, the main hy- potheses were tested on the change scores as originally planned.*

4 Although there were no statistically significant interactions between instructional conditions and item types on the before-score data, it may be noted in Table 2 that subjects in the Dependence-Supervisor Aware condition had somewhat higher before scores on the personal items than subjects in the other two conditions. This means that different conclusions would be drawn if we were to focus on the after scores rather than the change scores for this item class, raising the possibility that some proportion of the differential change might be attributable to differential regression toward the mean of the scale. The high correlations between before and after scores in all conditions, and especially in the Control condition (r = .SI ) provide a strong argument for the reliability of the ratings and against the likelihood of substantial regression to the mean. Separate analyses were conducted on a reduced sample of subjects equated for before scores. The results were generally comparable to those to be reported here, but there was a significant higher-order interaction that proved very difficult to interpret. The results on the larger sample may be more reasonably inter- preted and we have more confidence in their reproducibility.

TABL

E 2

BEFO

RE,

AFTE

R,

AXI)

CFM

NGE

SCOR

ES

RT

EXPE

RIM

ESTA

L TI

W~T

JIEN

T AN

D IT

EM

CLAS

S”

Com

pete

nce

Pers

onal

qu

alitie

s

Repu

tatio

nal

Inte

ntio

nal

Repu

txiion

al In

tent

iona

l To

tal

- .-

Depe

nden

t, Su

perv

isor

B 6.

10

6.14

6.

66

6.87

6.

44

Awar

e A

6.97

7.

12

7.00

7.

46

7.14

(0

i Ch

ange

.8

7 .9

8 -3

-2

.?I9

.7

0 W

I

Depe

nden

t, St

lperv

isor

B 6.

33

5.91

6.

00

6.49

6.

14

I?

Unaw

are

A 7.

10

6.82

6.

93

7.17

7.

01

2

Chan

ge

.77

.91

.93

.68

.83

Cont

rol

B 6.

33

6.03

6.

27

(not

. de

pend

ent)

A 6.

68

6.34

6.

66

Chan

ge

.35

.31

.39

a Th

e hig

her

the

mea

n be

fore

or

af

ter

scor

e,

the

mor

e fa

vora

ble

the

self-

pres

enta

tion.

6 23

6.

22

6.83

6.

63

.60

.41

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 181

Efects of Dependence and Supervisor-Awareness on Self-Enhancembit

Each subject was assigned a change score for each a priori clust& based on the simple subtraction of his before score from his after score. The resulting four change scores for each subject were placed in a Type VI mixed design (Lindquist, 1953) yielding a “between subjects” effect for instructions, summing across all items, and two “within subjects” effects for item type. The mean change scores may be observed in Table 2 and the analysis of variance is summarized in Table 3.

TABLE 3 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE SUMMARY: CHANGE SCORES BY TREATMENTS

AND ITEM TYPE

Source df Mean square Error F

Between Ss 53 Instructions (C) 2 79.69 (b) 2.73 Error (b) 51 29.14

Within Ss 162 Comp. Pers. (A) 1 Rep. Int. (B) 1 AB 1 AC 2 BC 2 ABC 2 Error (w) 153 Error (wl) 51 Error (~2) 51 Error (~3) 51

0 p < .05.

15.57 (WV 1.65 6.68 ha -

.02 (w3) -

45.41 (wl) 4.83” 6.24 (w2)

13.35 (w3) 1.80

9.41 13.56

7.43

Although this fact is not itself revealed by the analysis of variance, subjects in all conditions were on the average more self-enhancing in the experimental situation than they had been in the prior group testing session. Only 8 out of 54 subjects became more modest and 6 of these were in the control condition. This suggests that nearly all subjects were somewhat concerned with making a good impression on the supervisor and points up the obvious importance of including a separate control group in experiments of this nature.

In the analysis of variance (see Table 3) the main effect of instructions concerning dependence and awareness on self-enhancement across a11 items approached but did not reach significance (F,,,, = 2.73, p < .lO). In line with the main hypothesis, however, dependent subjects with an unaware supervisor were significantly more self-enhancing than nonde- pendent (control) subjects (F,, 51 = 5.22, p < .05), Dependent subjects

182 STIRES AND JONES

with an aware supervisor were less self-enhancing than those in the unaware condition and more self-enhancing than those in the control condition, with neither comparison reaching significance. Thus, we did not succeed in producing a global modesty effect, though the awareness instructions did suppress the tendency to put one’s best foot forward when in a dependent situation.

Dependence and claims of competence. Returning to the remainder of Table 3, there was a significant interaction between instructions and whether the subjects were rating themselves on items describing compe- tence or personal qualities. The nature of this interaction, and other com- parisons to be made, can be understood with reference to the change scores rows in Table 2. It is apparent that both versions of the depend- ence instructions gave rise to self-enhancement on the competence items when comparisons are made to the No Dependence Control condition. Whether or not the supervisor was supposedly aware of his power did not influence this tendency. The significant interaction effect reflects this difference in the rating of competence items as against the absence of a comparable difference on the personal items. A separate analysis on the competence items alone reveals a highly significant effect of instructions (F,,,, = 5.438, p < .Ol), and each dependence condition is significantly different from the No Dependence Control condition on this type of item.

We had expected to find more striking differences on the personal quality items than on the competence items, but the simpIe effects of dependence are revealed more on the latter. We clearly underestimated the role of task relevance in tactical self-presentation under conditions of dependence, though we were correct in predicting that the awareness variable would not affect ratings on the competence items. In spite of the many differences in procedure that would seem to work against self- enhancement on the competence items, the present findings replicate and strongly support the results obtained by Jones et al., 1965.

Super&or awareness and reputational claims. Although no sign&ant effects were attributabIe to the reputational-intentional distinction in the comprehensive analysis of variance, we did predict that the effect of modesty-in-the-face-of-awareness would be more pronounced on the reputational-persona1 items than on any other item cluster. This predic- tion was given some support since an analysis of ratings on reputational- personal items alone yielded a significant between-conditions effect ( F,, 51 = 3.57, p < .05). Duncan’s range test (Edwards, 1965) reveals that the dependent subjects with an unaware supervisor were significantly more self-enhancing on these items than either of the other two groups. Thus, as Table 2 shows, while the dependence-aware subjects (x = .34) were about as modest as the control subjects (X = .39), both groups of subjects

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 183

were clearly more modest than the dependent subjects with an unaware supervisor (x = .93). As predicted, then, subjects confronting a super- visor who is aware of his power over them are reluctant to claim those personal qualities that are usually verified by peer judgment and not easily controlled by the person himself.

The Immodesty of Claiming “Modesty”

The trait dimension “modest-arrogant” was included in hopes that the resulting ratings would shed light on the ingratiator’s dilemma, but with- out any specific hypotheses offered for evaluation. Perhaps the most reasonable expectation was that subjects in the dependent conditions would show considerable caution with respect to this rating dimension -neither claiming modesty nor confessing arrogance-and little depar- ture from their “before” ratings. This turned out to be the case, as Table 4 shows.

TABLE 4 MEAN RATINGS OF MODESTY AND PRODUCT-MOMENT CORRELATIONS BETWEEN

CLAIMED MODESTY AND SELF-ENHANCEMENT TOTALS (BEFORE, AFTER, AND CHANGE)

Dependent Control

Aware Unaware (Not dependent)

x Before 5.5 6.1 5.1 Modest-Arrogant Aft,er 5.8 6.1 5.7

Change .3 .O .6

T Beforea .ll .09 .38 Modesty and Self-enhancement After*.” - .51* .14 .71**

Changea .09 - .20 .04

a Each row of correlations is between comparable modesty and self-enhancement scores; thus, before is correlated with before, after with after, change with change.

*Difference between dependent-aware and control coefficients, z = 3.98, p < .OOl. *p < .05. ** p < .OOl.

Table 4 also shows dramatic variations across the three experimental conditions in the correlations between modesty after-scores and general self-enhancement after-scores. In the Control (No Dependence) condi- tion there is a highly significant positive correlation between rated mod- esty and total self-enhancement scores. The more favorably a subject rated himself in this condition, the more he also claimed modesty. In striking contrast, there is a negative correlation between the same two

I84 STIRFS AND JONES

variables in the Dependence-Supervisor Aware condition. There is no correlation at all in the remaining (Supervisor Unaware) condition.

How might we explain these differences? First of all, the control sub- jects would appear to be incorporating their ratings of modesty into a general ‘halo effect.” Without the pressures of dependence, a subject who generally thinks well of himself also thinks well of himself on the modest- arrogant dimension. Subjects in this condition are not particularly con- cerned with how the total pattern of their ratings might appear to some- one else. Dependent subjects with an aware supervisor, on the other hand, are very much concerned with the image they are presenting. Given their circumstances, there is a special need to appear accurate and credible in their self-assessment. Those who venture to rate themselves very favor- ably do not wish to jeopardize their credibility by also claiming undue modesty. Or, the obverse, those who avoid the temptation to be self- enhancing feel that they can legitimately claim credit for their modesty. In general, dependent subjects with an aware supervisor may be said to be more realistic or accurate than the control subjects and more discern- ing in their use of the items at hand.

Not surprisingly, dependent subjects with an unaware supervisor show neither a positive nor a negative correlation. They are under less pressure to establish their credibility but still are concerned with the general impression they are creating. Furthermore, while their self-presentational tactics are less subject to detection by the supervisor, these subjects still must come to terms with the ethical implications of their own behavior. The result is a stand-off between the pressure to establish credibility and the consistency pressures that normally produce a halo effect in self-ratings.

It may seem puzzling that these correlational differences reach signih- cance only when the after-scores are related. These after-ratings are, of course, the only ratings to be seen by the supervisor and perhaps this fact is very salient to the subjects as they rate themselves on the modest- arrogant dimension. The primary dilemma facing the dependent subjects in the experiment is how much and in what ways to depart from their usual self-picture to present an attractive face to the supervisor. For this reason the change scores have been the main focus of our analysis. Modesty ratings may have a special significance because they specifically relate to what the subject has said about himself on the preceding 23 items (“modest-arrogant” being No. 24 out of the 25 items in the ques- tionnaire), For this reason it seems legitimate to emphasize the after- ratings in evaluating the correlations between modesty and general self-enhancement.

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 185

Confidence and Self-Enhancement

The foregoing credibility hypothesis gains further support from the data relating indices of self-enhancement to variations in rating coni?- dence. It will be recalled that the rating task included confidence ratings (on a one to five scale) after each item. These confidence ratings were totaled for each subject and correlated with both the after and change self-enhancement scores for each condition, The resulting coefficients with the after-scores were: Dependence-Supervisor Aware, T = .740 ( p < .OOl) ; Dependence-Supervisor Unaware, T = ,389; Control (no dependence), T = .456 (p = .OS). Not surprisingly, then, there was a general tendency for those subjects who described themselves most posi- tively to be more co&dent in general about their ratings. This tendency was most marked in the Dependence-Supervisor Aware condition.

Of greater theoretical interest are the correlations between confidence totals and change scores on the self-enhancement measure. These coeffi- cients were: Dependence-Supervisor Aware, r = .549 (p < .OS); Depend- ence-supervisor Unaware, T = 666; and Control (no dependence), r = -.362. As in the case of the correlations between self-enhancement and modesty, there is a highly significant (x = 2.73, p < .Ol) difference between the positive correlation in the aware condition and the negative correlation among the control subjects. Simply put, control subjects who show the greatest change toward self-enhancement show the least confi- dence in their after-ratings. For these subjects confidence appears to be a straightforward measure of uncertainty about the self concept, (It will be recalled that 12 out of 18 subjects in this condition changed in the self-enhancing direction and the remainder changed very littIe. ) For dependent subjects with an aware supervisor, the confidence ratings seem to mean something quite different from uncertainty. Since these subjects express greater confidence the more they change in the direction of self- enhancement, there are grounds for interpreting the confidence ratings as part of a strategy to promote the rater’s credibility-both to himself, perhaps, and to the supervisor.

We would be less inclined to make an issue of the observed correla- tional differences were it not for the fact that they resemble the results of an earlier experiment on conformity as a tactic of ingratiation (Jones and Jones, 1964). In that experiment subjects also were or were not in a situation of dependence in anticipation of a future work session. Half of the subjects were asked to respond to their future supervisor on a set of opinion issues after he had “pre-empted” their initial positions by his own opinion ratings. This was designed to create a dilemma similar to that

186 sTIREs AND JONES

confronting the dependent supervisor-aware subjects in the present ex- periment: The subject could maintain his prior opinions only at the risk of appearing to conform for strategic reasons. The results showed that the subjects were no more inclined to abandon their previous opinions in this “dilemma” condition than in any of the other conditions. Only in this high dependence, pre-empted opinions condition, however, was there a high correlation between opinion confidence and the tendency to agree with the supervisor. The inference in that study was that “those subjects who employ the risky tactic of conformity in the [high dependence, pre- empted opinions] cell emphasize their confidence in the attempt to sig- nify their autonomy and their resistance to social influence. This strategy would present the target with a pattern of congenial opinions independ- ently developed. Those subjects who do not tend to agree as much, on the other hand, reduce their ‘disagreeableness’ by expressing less confi- dence in their opinions” (Jones and Jones, 1964, p. 454).

While we do not wish to overemphasize the similarity between the present experiment on self-presentation and this previous one on con- formity, a reasonable case can be made in both studies for the inter- pretation that confidence ratings may be used to establish credibility in a setting where either conformity or self-enhancement might be viewed as an ingratiating overture. Dependent subjects with an aware supervisor may attempt to forestall suspicion of any such ulterior motivation by a self-committing expression of overall confidence in the validity of their self-ratings.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The results of the present experiment add to our meager knowledge of self-presentational variations in the service of ingratiation. Although we were unable to predict the results in detail, several of the results did replicate previous findings in rather different settings, thus adding to the conceptual generality of the notions underlying previous ingratiation research. In fact, one of the major findings of the present study, that self-enhancement in response to dependence occurs primarily on task- related or competence items, could have been successfully predicted if we, had placed more faith in previous results (cf. Jones et al., lQ65).

If we compare the procedures of the present study with those of earlier studies involving self-presentational variations, it is clear that the novel experimental condition is that in which the subjects are dependent on the supervisor but believe that he is unaware of their dependence. It is only in this condition that there is any noticeable self-enhancement on items reflecting ,socially relevant personal qualities. Especially when these qualities are matters of reputation and not under the individual’s control,

INGRATIATION : MODESTY VS. SELF-ENHANCEMENT 187

the awareness variable is a critical determinant of the tendency to: be self-enhancing. Subjects in the more common dependence condition, where the more powerful target person is aware of his relative i)ower, do not emphasize their possession of these personal qualities. This result again replicates the experiment by Jones et al. (1965) where self- enhancement occurred on “respect” items but not on those items con- noting “affability.” In the more unusual condition where the subject is dependent on a target person who is unaware of his relative power, there is as much self-enhancement on personal quality items as on competence items, The person may operate with more arrogant impunity.

It is also interesting to note the subtlety of the average subject who is interested in ingratiating himself with a target person who cannot help but be aware of this interest. The dependent subject with an aware super- visor not only discriminates carefully between the kinds of positive at- tributes he will claim and those he will not, he also uses available oppor- tunities to emphasize his credibility as a communicator. Subjects who tended to describe themselves most favorably in the Supervisor Aware condition did not also claim undue modesty. In addition, these subjects expressed relatively high confidence in their ratings. Both of these maneu- vers have been already discussed as attempts to enhance credibility. The negative correlation between modesty and self-enhancement and the posi- tive correlation between confidence and self-enhancement-only in the Dependence-Supervisor Aware condition-are both in marked contrast to control group correlations in the reverse direction. Our interpretation that these are (perhaps unwitting) gestures to establish credibility is strengthened by the fact that the confidence correlation was also observed in a comparable experiment where credibility was definitely an issue (cf. Jones and Jones, 1964).

The present experiment is a small piece in a much larger puzzle. This may be another way of saying that it was little more than a fishing expe- dition with a large dependent variable net. We accept this putative charge in the spirit of modesty conditioned by our dependence on the reader, but we also arrogantly perceive some emerging stabilities, some reasons to hope that the study of ingratiation can generate cumulative findings and warrant generalizations beyond the unique settings created by specific experimental procedures.

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BLAU, P. M. Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley, 1964. EDWARDS, A. L. Experimental design in psychological research. (Rev. ed.) New York:

Holt, 1965. GERGEN, K. J., AND GIEIBS, M. G. Social expectancy and self-presentation in a status

188 STIlWS AND JONES

hierarchy. Paper presented at the American Psychological Association meetings, Chicago, September, 1965.

JONES, E. E. Ingratiation. New York: Appleton, 1964. JONES, E. E., GERGEN, K. J., AND DAVIS, K. E. Some determinants of reactions to

being approved or disapproved as a person. Psychological Monographs, 1962, 76, Whole No. 521.

JONES, E. E., GERGEN, K. J., GUMPERT, P., AND THIBAUT, J. W. Some conditions affect- ing the use of ingratiation to influence performance evaluation. Journal of Per- sonality and Social Psychology, 1965, 1,613-625.

JONES, E. E., GERGEN, K. J., AND JONES, R. G. Tactics of ingratiation among leaders and subordinates in a status hierarchy. Psychological Monogruphs, 1963, 77, whole No. 566.

JONES, E. E., AND JONES, R. G. Optimum conformity as an ingratiation tactic. JournaZ of Personality, 1964, 32, 433-458.

KAUFFMAN, D. R., AND STEINER, I. D. Conformity as an ingratiation technique. Jour- nal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1968, 4, 400-414.

LINDQUIST, E. F. Design and analysis of experiments in psychology and education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton, 1953.

(Received April 19, 1968)