DOES PLAYING DUMB MAKE YOU LOOK GOOD? MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION AS IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT TACTICS
Yi Wang
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
May: 2015
Committee:
Scott Highhouse, Advisor
Russell Matthews
John Tisak
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ABSTRACT
Scott Highhouse, Advisor
This study looked at how subordinates’ impression management behaviors would influence supervisor perceptions of subordinates’ warmth and competence, using gender as a potential moderator. To compare with impression management in western culture that typically intends to look better, we examined how Chinese supervisors viewed subordinates when subordinates intentionally impression managed to look worse than they actually were. Results showed that, whereas acting modestly were significantly and positively related with supervisor ratings of both warmth and competence, acting as a supplicant had a significantly negative effect on supervisor rating of warmth and competence. In addition, whereas modesty contributed more to predict competence evaluation, supplication contributed more to the prediction of warmth evaluation.
However, gender did not show significant moderating effect on these relationships. This research provided a unique perspective to consider impression management behaviors along with the specific cultural norms and values.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would firstly like to thank my advisor, Scott Highhouse, who in the past three years has successfully dragged me so much deeper into the sea of psychology, and who has always inspired and challenged my creativity to think inside and outside the box. I would also like to thank my committee members Russell Matthews and John Tisak, for their thought-provoking feedback and for providing me with a supportive research environment. Also many thanks to my supportive colleagues of IO program and of psychology department. And finally, to my beloved parents
(8000 miles away in South China) and to my dear Ting (2000 miles away in Berkeley, CA), whose company and understandings have filled my life with love, hope, and happiness.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...... 1
Impression Management in Organizations ...... 3
Supplication and Modesty ...... 5
Impressions of Competence and Warmth ...... 7
Impacts of Gender ...... 10
HYPOTHESES ...... 12
Supervisor Impressions of Competence ...... 12
Supervisor Impressions of Warmth ...... 14
Supplication.………………….……………………………………………... 14
Modesty…………………...………………………………………………….. 16
Plan of Research ...... 18
PILOT STUDY ...... 20
Sample and Procedure ...... 20
Measures ...... 21
Supplication.………………….……………………………………………... 21
Modesty……………………………………………………………………... 21
Results ...... 21
MAIN STUDY ...... 24
Sample and Procedure ...... 24
Measures ...... 25
Supplication and modesty as impression management behaviors…….. 25
Competence and warmth..………………………………………………… 25
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Control variables………..………………………………………………… 27
Results ...... 27
DISCUSSION ...... 30
CONCLUSION ...... 34
REFERENCES ...... 35
APPENDIX A HSRB APPROVAL: PILOT STUDY……………..……….………………… 62
APPENDIX B HSRB APPROVAL: MAIN STUDY.………………..…………….………… 63
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LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1 Explanations of Factors in Leary and Kowalsk’s (1991) Impression Management (IM)
Behavior Component Model...... 45
2 Different Definitions of Supplication and Modesty Based on Leary and Kowalski’s (1991).
...... 46
3 Demographic Details for All Participants in Pilot Study...... 47
4 Standardized Factor Loadings for Confirmatory Factor Analysis...... 48
5 Standardized Factor Loadings for the Modified Confirmatory Factor Analysis with Three
Factors...... 51
6 Demographics for All Participants in Main study...... 54
7 Standardized Factor Loadings for Warmth and Competence...... 55
8 Mean, Standard Deviation, and Correlations for All Variables in Main Study...... 56
9 T-test for Variable Means across Genders...... 57
10a Effects of Subordinate’s Gender and Modesty on Supervisor Evaluation of
Competence ...... 58
10b Effects of Supervisor’s Gender and Subordinate’s Modesty on Supervisor Evaluation of
Competence ...... 59
11a Effects of Subordinate’s Gender and Supplication on Supervisor Evaluation of
Warmth ...... 60
11b Effects of Supervisor’s Gender and Subordinate’s Supplication on Supervisor Evaluation
of Warmth ...... 61
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 1
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The constructs supplication and modesty have existed in the organizational literatures for some time. Both describe attempts to “play dumb” or downplay one’s own competence
(Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Supplication is a type of impression management behavior where people advertise their weakness or shortcomings to gain help or sympathy from others (Bolino &
Turnley, 1999; Gibson & Sachau, 2000). Modesty has been examined as another type of impression management behavior, where people intentionally underestimate their superior prior performance by claiming to have done “just all right” (Blickle, Diekmann, Schneider, Kalthofer,
& Summers, 2012; Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Whereas other types of impression management behaviors, such as self-enhancement or exemplification, emphasize efforts to present a positive image in front of others (Bolino, Kacmar, Turnley, & Gilstrap, 2008), supplication and modesty emphasize the opposite: supplication describes how people intentionally show their weaknesses, and modesty describes how people try to hide their strengths (Dean, Braito, Powers, & Bruton,
1975).
In practice, both supplication and modesty have been shown to exist in social behaviors in many situations (e.g., Becker & Martin, 1995; Gove, Hughes, & Geerken, 1980; Tetlock, 1980).
However, despite their high frequency of use in social interactions, it is still not clearly known how supplication and modesty may influence audience’s evaluations toward the actors.
Specifically, supplication has received mixed ratings in impressions formed by the audience. For example, Turnley and Bolino’s (2001) research found that supplicants in the workplace were less likely to receive help from others, but were more likely to be viewed as lazy. On the contrary,
Goldschmied and Vandello (2009) found that politicians would receive more support when they supplicated. In addition, though most research has found that acting modestly may leave others with a generally positive impression (Blickle, Schneider, Perrewé, Blass, & Ferris, 2008),
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 2 evidence also exists showing acting modestly may be viewed as boastful and decrease evaluation
(Schlenker & Leary, 1982).
There are three possible reasons for these mixed findings in impression formation. Firstly, the lack of clarification between concepts of supplication and modesty in previous studies may confound the evaluation results. As both supplication and modesty describe intentional self- effacement behaviors that downplay one’s true competence, some research only measured the impression formation process of a general self-effacement construct without differentiating between modesty and supplication (e.g., Holoien & Fiske, 2013; Rudman, 1998). However, despite similar presentation forms, the motives why people supplicate or behave modestly are very different: whereas people who supplicate downplay their ability to appear needy, people who behave modestly self-efface to avoid being seen as arrogant and threatening (Bolino &
Turnley, 1999; Gove et al, 1980). Different motives not only may have different influences on how impression management behaviors are carried out, but also would influence how impression management behaviors are evaluated (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). However, no previous research has included supplication and modesty in one study, leaving it unknown whether the different strategies actually make a difference to the audience. As such, comparing and contrasting these two behaviors in one study would clarify whether two self-effacement impression management behaviors carried out of different motives would have different impacts on the audience’s impression formation.
Secondly, whether self-effacement behaviors such as supplication and modesty make someone look good may also depend on the criterion used to evaluate one’s impression. Social judgment toward a person is based on two fundamental dimensions: warmth and competence
(Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007). People use warmth to evaluate whether another person is friendly, trustworthy, and kind; and competence is used to evaluate whether another person is capable of
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 3 achieving what he/she intends (Cuddy, Glick, & Beninger, 2011). Whereas self-effacing is intentionally making oneself look less competent, it may nevertheless show that someone is more friendly, or at least, less likely to be a threat to others. As such, it is necessary to consider impression formation in terms of both warmth and competence when we investigate whether self- effacement behaviors create the intended impression.
Thirdly, gender of the actor and the audience may influence the evaluation of impression management behaviors. Gender role theory (Eagly, 1987) suggests that social stereotypes of gender may influence people’s choice and evaluation of impression management behaviors, which are prescribed to be in accordance with certain gender roles (Smith et al, 2013).
Specifically, supplication and modesty are perceived to be more feminine and congruent with communal roles of females (Gould & Slone, 1982). As such, women who engage in modesty or supplication may be more likely to receive beneficial evaluations (Lai et al, 2010; Rosette & Tost,
2010). However, whereas supplication and modesty are counter-stereotypical behaviors for males, little attention is focused on how men are evaluated for being modest or supplicant, especially when the evaluation is from females (Rudman & Phelan, 2008).
The purpose of the current study was to test the comparative effectiveness of supplication and modesty in creating positive workplace impressions. As both warmth and competence are essential aspects for social judgment of impression management behaviors (Rudman, 1998), the effectiveness of the two behaviors are evaluated by how the direct report perceives the target person’s warmth and competence. Another purpose of the study was to examine the possible interaction of gender and impression-management strategy on supervisor impressions.
Impression Management in Organizations
Impression management behaviors describe certain social behaviors through which people seek to create, maintain, protect, or change their social images, as perceived by a target audience
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 4
(Bolino et al, 2008; Tetlock, 1991). As social entities that actively seek approval and status, people are both capable and motivated to actively engage in behaviors to manage their social impression (Tetlock, 1991).
Impression management is an important aspect in an organizational context, as people compete for limited business resources (i.e., seek status) and develop relations with others (i.e., seek approval) within and outside of the organization (Bolino et al, 2008; Highhouse, Brooks, &
Gregarus, 2009). As such, impression management has long been a significant research topic in organizational literatures, with research focus at both an individual (e.g., Gardner & Martinko,
1988) and organizational level (e.g., Mohamed, Gardner, & Paolillo, 1999). Specifically, impression management at an individual level (which is the focus for the current study) has been linked with multiple results at work, including personnel selection decisions (e.g., Swider,
Barrick, Harris, & Stoverink, 2011), performance appraisal at work (e.g., Bolino, Varela, Bande,
& Turnley, 2006; Harris et al, 2007), and in the long run, career success (e.g., Blickle et al, 2012;
Zinko, Ferris, Humphrey, Meyer, & Aime, 2012).
Multiple constructs have been proposed and tested to capture individual-level impression management behaviors, accompanied with respective measures for each construct (for a review, see: Bolino et al, 2008). For example, ingratiation (e.g., Kumar & Beyerlein, 1991; Ralston, 1985) and self-promotion (e.g., Proost, Schreurs, Witte, & Derous, 2010) are two commonly investigated impression management behaviors in organizational literatures, whereas other behaviors such as exemplification (e.g., Liu, Loi, & Lam, 2013), supplication (e.g., Lai et al,
2010), and modesty (e.g., Blickle et al, 2008), and intimidation (e.g., Bolino & Turnley, 2003) received relatively less attention.
The behavioral component model of impression management proposed by Leary and
Kowalski (1990) is helpful to understand and integrate different constructs of impression
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 5 management behaviors examined in previous studies. According to this model, impression management behavior is determined by five factors: the actor’s self-concept, desirability of the image perceived by the actor, the target’s perception of actor’s current or potential social image, the target’s values, and social role constraints. Detailed explanations and examples for all these five factors can be found in Table 1.
Following Leary and Kowalsk’s (1991) model, in the next section, I define and differentiate supplication and modesty based on the five factors associated with the impression management behavioral construct.
Supplication and Modesty
Table 2 shows the definitions of supplication and modesty in terms of their similarities and differences along the impression motivation and impression construct under Leary and
Kowalski’s (1991) model. As previously stated, both supplication and modesty describe impression management behaviors aimed at downplaying one’s own competence, or avoiding a negative image when the actor perceives that being competent is inappropriate in the current context (Schlenker & Leary, 1982). Specifically, supplication describes how people intentionally advertise their weakness to gain help from others (Bolino & Turnley, 1999). And modesty as an impression management behavior describes how people intentionally underestimate their superior prior performance by attributing their accomplishment to luck or to other people, or to acknowledge that he/she has done “just alright” (Blickle et al, 2012; Schlenker & Leary, 1982).
Thus, both supplication and modesty aim to underplay a desired image (or, in other words, to avoid an undesired image when the previously desired image, competence, is perceived to be undesired). This character distinguishes supplication and modesty from other types of impression management behaviors, such as self-enhancement or ingratiation, which emphasize efforts to
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 6 present a desired image (Bolino et al, 2008). Moreover, as both supplication and modesty are used to cover up one’s actual competence, they can be viewed as pretense of an actual image.
However, supplication and modesty may differ in terms of the actor’s intended social image, the target’s value, and social role constraints, as detailed below. Firstly, whereas supplication is intended to appear incompetent and hence needy of help, modesty is intended to appear less competent, less arrogant, and more friendly (Brickman & Seligman, 1974). As a type of impression management, supplication is defined as the intentional advertisement of one’s dependence or inability, in order to solicit help (Jones & Pittman, 1982; Turnley & Bolino, 2001) or to retrieve from undesired work assignments (Becker & Martin, 1995). With such definition, supplication may not require the audience to have prior knowledge of the supplicant. In comparison, modesty is defined as the under-representation of one’s positive traits, contributions, or accomplishments (Cialdini & de Nicholas, 1989). That is, to manage their impression by modesty, people react humbly (as opposed to arrogantly) and appear as self-satisfied (as opposed to aggressive) when praised of such competence (Blickle et al, 2012). Thus, an underlying assumption behind such a definition is that, the accomplishment and ability of a modest actor has already been known to, and taken seriously by, the audience (Gove et al, 1980).
The second difference is the audience’s value. By its original definition, supplication is used intentionally to show a needy image and hence obtain help from others (Turnley & Bolino,
2001). As such, the audience of a supplicant may perceive a certain level of sympathy and hence feel obligated to help the supplicant. In comparison, modesty is often carried out when the actor perceives that the audience may be threatened by the actor’s accomplishment (Jellison & Gentry,
1978; Gove et al, 1980). By attributing his/her success to external factors such as luck or other people’s help, the modest actor can draw the audience’s attention away from worrying that the ability of the actor would threaten the audience’s superiority (Exline & Lobel, 1999).
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 7
Thirdly, supplication and modesty are associated with certain social role constraints. As gender role is the most salient role constraint in society (Rudman & Phelan, 2008), in the current study, I examine gender role as the social role constraints associated with the evaluation of supplication and modesty as impression management behaviors. Previous research showed that gender role difference is an important factor to influence an audience’s perception of whether a supplicant is worthy of sympathy or help (Lai et al, 2010). Similarly, gender was also found to be a key determinant for the effectiveness of modest self-presentation in the workplace (Wosinska et al, 1996). However, instead of having direct influence on how supplication and modesty are evaluated, I propose that social role constraints will influence the audience’s perceptions of current image and values, and thus indirectly impact the evaluation of supplication and modesty.
That is, social role constraints, especially gender role constraints, will moderate the effects of supplication and modesty on the audience’s evaluation of impression-management tactics.
Before getting into hypothesizing how supplication and modesty as impression management behaviors would influence the audience’s impression formation toward the actor, I first review the impression formation literature in order to better understand the two social judgment criteria commonly used to describe impression formation: warmth and competence.
Impressions of Competence and Warmth
According to Stereotype Content Model (Cuddy et al, 2007), both competence and warmth are fundamental traits that govern social judgments of individuals. Warmth describes characteristics that people use to assess others’ intention toward them during social interaction, such as trustworthiness, friendliness, sincerity, and kindness. By describing a person as warm, we notify that this person generally has a good-natured intention toward others, and that this person will be willing to profit others more than the self (Peeters, 1983). In comparison, competence describes characteristics that people use to assess others’ capability to pursue their intentions,
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 8 such as intelligence, efficacy, skill, and confidence. By describing a person as competent, we acknowledge that this person is capable of bringing about desired results, and that this person would put his/her self-interests as prior to public interests in order to carry out these desired results (Peeters, 2001). In addition to the terminology of “warmth vs. competence”, some other terms have been used to capture similar traits in social cognition, such as “communion vs. agency” or “getting along vs. getting ahead” in personality psychology literatures (Hogan & Holland,
2003), and “femininity vs. masculinity” in gender literatures (Abele, 2003). In the current study, however, I only use “warmth vs. competence” to describe the social judgment that an audience forms toward the actors of supplication and modesty.
Social judgment, in terms of competence and warmth, is applied in many organizational situations. When making personnel decisions, employers often rely on matching the perceived attributes of the applicants with the stereotype of a job (Cuddy et al, 2011; Sackett & Lievens,
2008). For example, Asian applicants, who are viewed stereotypically as competent but cold, are more likely to be hired for technical positions, which is perceived to be highly cognitive-loaded but with rare social interaction; however, compared to people from other ethnic groups, Asians are much less likely to be hired for managerial positions, which is perceived to require high social skills (Lai, 2013). However, despite rich application of competence and warmth judgment in organizational practice, more research is still needed to understand whether, why, and how this judgment is influenced by people’s behaviors as well as certain situational factors in the workplace (Cuddy et al, 2011).
In previous research on supplication and modesty as impression management behaviors, most previous studies focused only on either competence (e.g., job performance) or warmth (e.g., likability) as impression managing results. As an exception, Tetlock (1980) showed in his study that moderately modest teachers would be rated as more likable and competent than arrogant
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 9 teachers. More recently, Holoien and Fiske (2013) found that people would actively downplay their competence in order to appear warm. But their studies focused on the motives of downplaying (e.g., downplaying competence in order to appear warm), rather than the resulting impression formed by the audience. As such, examining how modesty and supplication may influence the impression formation in terms of warmth and competence can further clarify how these two downplaying impression management behaviors can map onto the Stereotype Content
Model.
Previous research has shown that, in some situations, people tend to infer that if one person is high in one dimension, then he/she would be low in the other dimension (e.g., highly competent but cold, or, warm but incompetent), thus suggesting a compensation effect between warmth and competence (Judd, Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005; Keryn, Yzerbyt, Judd, &
Nunes, 2009). However, in some other situations, positive information on one dimension may positively influence judgment on the other dimension (e.g., warm and competent, or, incompetent and cold), hence suggesting a halo effect between warmth and competence (Allen & Rush, 1998;
Rosenberg, Nelson, & Vivekananthan, 1968). Judd and colleagues (2005) tried to reconcile these conflicting findings by suggesting that compensation is more likely to be found in a between- person comparison context, whereas halo is more likely in a within-person comparison context.
However, research on downplaying impression managing nevertheless suggests compensation in a within-person context: when people desire to appear warm, they downplay their competence; whereas when they want to appear competent, they downplay their warmth (Godfrey, Jones, &
Lord, 1986; Holoien & Fiske, 2013). As such, examining how modesty and supplication may influence the impression formation in terms of warmth and competence can also help clarify the relation between warmth and competence.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 10
Impacts of Gender
Gender role theory suggests that men and women are prescribed with certain behavioral expectations based on their gender stereotypes. Specifically, warmth characteristics (e.g., sympathy, submissiveness) are more likely to be associated with women, whereas competence characteristics (e.g., assertiveness, aggression) are more likely to be associated with men (Cuddy et al, 2011; Eagly, 1987). Gender role requirements are especially salient when employing impression management behaviors: these gender role prescriptions not only impact men and women’s choice of impression management behaviors, but also determine how they are evaluated by others for their behaviors (Smith et al, 2013). As such, impression management behaviors are categorized as agentic behaviors and communal behaviors, as they are aligned with role prescriptions for male and female, respectively (Smith et al, 2013).
In this vein, supplication and modesty can also be categorized as communal (or
“feministic”) impression management behaviors, as they both reflect role requirements for women to be warm, caring, and less competitive at work (Rudman & Phelan, 2008). In general, people tend to leave an impression that is in accordance to their respective gender roles; otherwise, a public image that is counter-stereotypical to the gender role may bring about negative social evaluations and behavioral consequences, i.e., the backlash effects (Rudman &
Phelan, 2008). As such, it is possible that when the audience makes evaluation of competence and warmth toward the actor of supplication or modesty, his/her judgment would be influenced by gender stereotype. Therefore, I expect that gender (gender of the actor and of the audience) may moderate the relationship between supplication/modesty and evaluation of competence/warmth.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 11
In the next section, I illustrate my hypotheses about relationships between supplication/modesty and evaluation of competence/warmth, as well as gender as moderators of these relationships.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 12
HYPOTHESES
Supervisor Impressions of Competence
I propose that, as supplication is intentional behavior to appear incompetent and needy, it may lower the audience’s evaluation of competence to the supplicant. As it is generally assumed that people will present an authentic image of themselves during social interaction (Leary &
Kowalski, 1990), the audience would perceive the supplicants to be presenting their actual ability.
Thus, without their actual competence being known, a supplicant may be evaluated based on their display of inability, and hence receive lower evaluation in competence (Schlenker & Leary,
1982). For example, Turnley and Bolino (2001) found that the audience may perceive that the supplicant is lazy regardless of his/her level of self-monitoring. Moreover, when soliciting help from others, supplicants may be perceived as unreliable for work and unwilling to carry on the responsibility that he/she should have carried on given his/her capability (Jones & Pittman, 1982;
Lai et al, 2010). Supplication has also been found to be negatively related to job performance as rated by a supervisor (Harris, Kacmar, Zivnuska, & Shaw, 2007). As such, I expect that:
Hypothesis 1a: Workers who report using supplication as an impression
management behavior are more likely to be rated as lower in competence.
For a modest person, however, underplaying his/her actual accomplishment may not lower others’ evaluation of his/her competence. In general, people will evaluate an outperformer to be higher in competence regardless his/her response styles (Tetlock, 1980; Wosinska, Dabul,
Whetstone-Dion, & Cialdini, 1996). Moreover, a modest out-performer may also be viewed as more socially mature, self-confident, and thus having high leadership potential to maintain intra- group harmony and cooperation (Cuddy et al, 2009; Menon, Sim, Fu, Chiu, & Hong, 2010). As such, with the increasing emphasis of communal traits and ability to deal with interpersonal
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 13 relationships in the workplace (Fang, Duffy, & Shaw, 2011; Grant & Parker, 2009), workers who behave modestly are likely to receive higher competence evaluations. In sum, I propose that:
Hypothesis 1b: Workers who report using modesty as an impression management
behavior are more likely to be rated as higher in competence in the workplace.
Because of the influences of gender role requirements, effectiveness of supplication and modesty as impression management behaviors may be different for female and male workers.
That is, gender of the targets will moderate the relationship between supplication/modesty and competence/warmth relationship. In general, for competence evaluation, female workers will receive higher competence evaluation than male workers when they supplicate or behave modestly. The “public esteem model” (Gould & Slone, 1982) suggested that, as public expectancy of performance tend to be lower for women but higher for men, females receive lower responsibility for success, and higher acceptance for failure. Thus, it is more acceptable and socially approved for females to appear less competent. To the contrary, a male supplicant or a modest man will be criticized harshly because of the backlash effects for disconfirming the gender stereotypes. By supplication or modesty, it appears that he is too lazy or lacks the confidence to take on his responsibility as a man, and hence runs countered to the masculine stereotype. Supporting this view, Lai and colleagues (2010) found that supervisor-rated task performance will be much lower for male supplicants, but not for female supplicants. In an earlier study, Rudman (1998) also found that female targets received higher ratings on hirability when they self-effaced compared to when they self-promoted; whereas it was just the opposite for male targets. As such, I propose that:
Hypothesis 2a: The negative relation of supplication and competence evaluation
is moderated by gender of the target employees, such that the negative relation is
stronger for males than for females.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 14
Hypothesis 2b: The positive relation of modesty and competence evaluation is
moderated by gender of the target employees, such that this positive relationship
is weaker for males than for females.
Supervisor Impressions of Warmth
Supplication
In terms of relationship between supplication and warmth evaluation, I propose that, although supplicants may intend to leave an impression of being needy, it may not necessarily promote others’ warmth evaluation toward them. Supplication provides the audience with a sense of superiority and responsibility to help (Lai et al, 2010). However, supplicants may only be perceived as likable and help-worthy in limited situations. Those who supplicate would run the risk of “draining up” the helpers’ sense of empathy when they ask for help or display incapability too often, and hence would no longer be perceived as needy and likable in the long run (Turnley
& Bolino, 2001). In addition, people’s sense of whether someone deserves help and empathy may depend on their assumption of social category or social role stereotype (Cuddy et al, 2011). For example, people would perceive women to deserve more help than men, and female supplicants are thus viewed more positively than male supplicants (Lai et al, 2010). Therefore, it is possible that individual characteristics may influence how supplication is evaluated: for some people, supplicants may be perceived as warmer and likable as these people feel a sense of pity and empathy, and thus take it their responsibility to help those in need; for some others, however, acting as a supplicant would only evolve a feeling of contempt as the audience does not feel it necessary to help the actor (Cuddy et al, 2011; Zucker & Weiner, 1993). As such, in the following section, I propose gender as a potential moderator between supplication and warmth evaluation. .
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 15
Based on gender stereotype theory (as reviewed in previous section), prescribed gender stereotype may influence how people’s social behaviors are evaluated, as well as how they evaluate the others’ social behaviors (Cuddy et al, 2011; Eagly, 1987). Therefore, gender stereotype may be one mechanism to clarify the relationship between supplication and warmth evaluation. Specifically, because women receive lower competence expectancy from society, and are generally viewed as weak and in need of help and protection, women who supplicate are more likely to receive sympathy from others and hence more likely to receive help (Gove et al, 1980).
Comparatively, a female who is independent and competent, or who rejects benevolent help from others, may nevertheless be viewed as cold and difficult (Becker et al, 2011; Rosette & Tost,
2010). Thus, there is a positive relationship between supplication and warmth evaluation for female workers, such that they will receive lower warmth evaluation when they supplicate to less extent, but higher warmth evaluation when they display more supplication. However, for male workers, supplication is less effective in appearing needy. With the masculine stereotype to be strong and independent, as well social expectancy to be successful and to take on responsibility of “bread winners”, men are less likely to receive sympathy from others when they display their weaknesses, and compared to women, men are more likely to be “help givers” rather than “help receivers” (Eagly & Crowley, 1986). As such, male supplicants may be perceived as pretending, irresponsible, untrustworthy, and hence lower in warmth. Supporting this view, some qualitative research has shown that it is easier for female workers to obtain help and information from their supervisors, whereas male workers are more likely to be ignored when they request for help
(Eskes, 2007). Therefore, I propose that:
Hypothesis 3: The relation between supplication and warmth evaluation is
moderated by gender of the target employees, such that the relation is positive for
females but negative for males.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 16
Modesty
Acting modestly may promote others’ evaluation of warmth to the actor, even though in the context of modesty where the actor outperforms the audience. Rather than feeling sympathy, audience of an outperformer would nevertheless feel threatened and stressed if they believe themselves to be outperformed and become a target of upward comparison (Exline & Lobel,
1999). Moreover, social interactions and interpersonal attraction are largely dependent on similarity (Bryne, 1971; 1997). Thus, if one is perceived as higher in capability than his/her colleagues, he/she would be perceived as dissimilar and excluded from the work group (Gove et al, 1980). As such, as an impression management behavior, modesty is often used to under- represent one’s accomplishments and avoid comparison, especially when the comparison object is a superior organizational members (Cialdini & de Nicholas, 1989). When an outperformer responds modestly and under-represents his/her achievement, it would give the audience a sense of superiority and put him/her at ease (Dean et al, 1975). The audience (especially those who feel outperformed) may also feel less threatened by this outperformer, and hence perceive this outperformer to be more considerable towards others (Wosinska et al, 1996), more likable (e.g.,
Gregg, Hart, Sedlkides, & Kumashiro, 2008; Tetlock, 1980), and more willingly to collaborate with the modest actor (Rudman, 1998). As such, I proposed that:
Hypothesis 4a: In general, workers who use modesty as an impression
management behavior are more likely to be rated as higher in warmth in the
workplace.
For women, gender role difference may add up to the positive relationship between modesty and warmth evaluation. As modesty does not necessarily lower their competence evaluation, male workers may not run the risk of backlash for being modest. To the contrary, being modest may add to evaluation of men’s warmth, as altruism and cooperation is perceived to
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 17 be key factors of male’s social attraction (Jensen-Campbell, Graziano, & West, 1995). However, as impression management behaviors is most effective when it complies with the respective gender role, the impact of modesty on warmth evaluation may be stronger for females compared to male. Supporting this view, Wosinska and colleagues (1996) found that both male and female workers would be perceived as more likable when they reacted modestly to their accomplishment.
The only difference is that strong modesty is more effective for women, whereas slight modesty is more effective for men. As such, it is proposed that:
Hypothesis 4b: The positive relation between modesty and warmth evaluation is
moderated by gender of the target employees, such that the positive relation is
more positive for females than for males.
As an exploratory effort, I also examine the influence of supervisors’ gender and how it may moderate the relationship between subordinates’ modesty/supplication impression management and supervisors’ warmth/competence evaluation. Gender of the audience may also influence how modesty/supplication is evaluated. Aligned with their gender role, female supervisors may possibly put additional emphasis on communal traits compared to their male counterparts (Eagly & Crowley, 1986), and they may thus have a better impression toward subordinates that show communal traits. However, this assumption may not necessarily hold in organizations. Firstly, in general, proportion of females who are promoted to supervision positions can be much lower than males
(Rudman & Glick, 1999), and thus research that compares gender differences of supervisors may be at risk of lacking power to find significant effects (Cohen, 1992). In addition, according to the backlash effect, especially in male-dominant workplaces, female supervisor may nevertheless display more agentic characteristics so as to keep up with their male counterparts (Rosette & Tost, 2010; Rudman & Glick, 1999), and thus
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 18 their evaluation toward subordinates may largely be influenced by their own emphasis of agentic traits rather than their social role prescription. And finally, both male and female supervisors can display leadership styles that are more communal (e.g., transformational leadership; see: Eagly & Johnson, 1990), and they may evaluate their subordinates based on their leadership style rather than the social role prescription. To sum up, although gender role difference may play a part in how female and male supervisors may give different impression evaluations to their subordinates, it would be over simplifying the more complex organization truth while ignoring many other confounding factors if assuming that gender difference is the main (or the only) reason. As such, the attempt to examine the effects of supervisor’s gender on impression evaluation remains exploratory in this study.
Plan of Research
As no previous research has included supplication and modesty in one study, the scales developed previously to measure supplication and modesty impression management behaviors may be at risk of failing to differentiate between these two constructs. Therefore, it is necessary to firstly examine whether the existing scales of supplication (Bolino & Turnley, 1999) and modesty (Blickle et al, 2012) represent two distinct factors. As such, a pilot study is used to examine the psychometric properties of these two scales, as well as their discriminant validity.
The main study will then further examine the effects of supplication, modesty, respectively, on supervisors’ impression of competence and warmth, and thus provide test of hypotheses 1a through 4b.
China provides an ideal environment within which to investigate the hypothesized relations between supplication, modesty, and supervisor impression in this study. Humbleness and moderation are regarded as two core virtues in Chinese society (Bond, Lun, Chan, Chan, &
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 19
Wong, 2012), and are widely adopted as norms during social interaction. Guided by these social norms, both supplication and modesty may be interpreted as reflecting one’s humility, and thus would be more frequent and salient behaviors to be observed and evaluated. In addition, given the significance of these norms during social interactions, the consideration of whether an employee is humble or not may be given more weight when supervisors are making judgment toward that employee (Lai et al, 2010), and thus signifies the relationship between my focal constructs (i.e., supplication and modesty) and impressions of warmth and competence. Given all the above considerations, both studies are set under contexts of Chinese organizations, with samples using
Chinese employees in those organizations.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 20
PILOT STUDY
Sample and Procedure
In attempt to increase the external validity of scales examined in this study, pilot study participants were drawn from 310 current employees working for multiple organizations representing various industries, from six different provinces in China. Among them, 309 completed the survey, yielding a response rate of 99.68%. Participants are current employees working in 32 different industries, 13 different occupations, and various organizations.
Demographics such as gender, age, and work tenure for the participants are shown in Table 3.
Employees in organizations were informed via emails, word-of-moth, or other personal contact methods about the current study, and were told that participation in this study was voluntary and any personal information involved would be kept confidential. After obtaining these employees’ permission to take part in this study, a one-wave survey was distributed to the recruited participants. The survey was distributed via emails with a link to an on-line survey.
Participants were asked to rate the general frequency of their supplication and modest behaviors at work (see details below in the measures section). All measures originally developed in English were translated to Chinese following a back-translation procedure (Brislin, 1993), that is, for each item, a Chinese-English bilingual speaker translated it from English into Chinese, and then another bilingual speaker (without knowing the original English item) re-translated the Chinese item back into English, which was then compared with the original English version to ensure equivalent meaning between the two items, and the process went on until an agreement was reached between the back-translated English version and the original English version.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 21
Measures
Supplication
Employee’s supplication was measured with the supplication sub-scale of Bolino and
Turnley’s (1999) measurement of employee’s impression management behaviors at work.
Participants are asked to indicate on a five-point Likert scale the frequency with which they generally carry out behaviors described in the items at work (0 = never, 2 = sometimes, 4 = always). A sample item for this scale can be: “Try to appear helpless or needy” (see Appendix A for all items).
Modesty
The modest behavior scale used in this study was developed by using items from Blickle and colleagues’ (2012) 19-item version of impression management through modesty scales (see
Appendix A). Participants are asked to rate on a five-point Likert scale the frequency that they generally carry out behaviors described in the items at work (1 = never, 3 = sometimes, 5 = always). A sample item for this scale can be: “In certain situations I intentionally play down my strengths in order to make a good impression.”
Results
Confirmatory factor analysis showed that five items to measure supplication loaded on the first latent factor, entitled “supplicate”, and 19 items to measure modesty loaded on the second latent factor, entitled “modesty”. The two latent factors are allowed to correlate with one another.
The data turned out to be a poor fit to the CFA model: χ2 (251) = 1080.38, p < .00, 90% RMSEA
= [.097, .110], CFI = .66, TLI = .62, SRMR = .124. Factor loadings for this CFA model are presented in Table 4. As shown in Table 4, although most items loaded significantly under respective factors, factor loadings were unbalanced across items. Thus, an exploratory factor
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 22 analysis was conducted in order to investigate a more suitable factor structure for the current items.
Given the poor fitting CFA model, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to explore for possible factor structures for all 24 items. Factors are allowed to be freely extracted.
A scree test and cumulative percentage of variance were used to determine the appropriate number of factors (Thompson, 2004). Five Eigenvalues are larger than 1 (5.44, 3.93, 1.74, 1.35,
1.05), with a clear inflexion after 5. As such, based on Cattell’s scree test, five factors are identified that accounted for 56% of the variance in total.
Given that supplication and modesty are close to zero correlation to one another (r = .003), orthogonal rotation method was used to obtain the factor loadings for each item on the extracted five factors (Thompson, 2004). Factor loading higher than .5 is used as the cutoff criteria to determine factor loading for each item (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2005). Four items in supplication scale loaded on factor 2, with factor loadings ranging from .80 to .83. Also, one item in the supplication scale loaded .73 on factor five. Ten items from the modesty scale loaded on factor 1, with loadings ranging from .55 to .81. Five items in modesty scale loaded on factor 3, with factor loading ranging from .53 to .70. Factor 4 had one item with loading of .66 and .73, respectively. Finally, three items (modesty1, 7, and 17) failed to reach a factor loading of .5 on any of the factors.
Based on the rotated factor loading shown above, three factors (factor 1, factor 2, and factor 3) are identified, with two other factors (factor 4 and factor 5) with only one item removed.
All three factors explain 46% of the variance. Specifically, four items from the original supplication scale loaded on the first factor, entitled “supplication”. Ten items from the original modesty scale loaded on the second factor, entitled “modesty”. Finally, five reverse-coded items
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 23 from the original modesty scales are loaded on the third factor, entitled “self-promotion”1. A new confirmatory factor analysis with MPLUS was conducted using the new three-factor model.
Factor loadings for the new model are shown in Table 5. Also, item parceling was used on items under the modesty factor (yielding 4 parcels, in which two parcels had 2 items each and two other parcels had 3 items each) and self-promotion factors (yielding 1 parcel with 2 items and 3 items), in order to improve the sample-parameter ratio in the current data (Williams & O’Boyle Jr, 2008).
With all above procedures implemented, the data turned out to be a satisfactory fit to the modified CFA model: χ2 (51) = 155.36, p < .00, 90% RMSEA = [.067, .096], CFI = .93, TLI
= .91, SRMR = .062. These results support the modified CFA model with three factors.
1 As the focus of this study was supplication and modesty, I did not include “self-promotion” items into the main study.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 24
MAIN STUDY
Sample and Procedure
Participants in the main study were 100 employees and 14 immediate supervisors of these employees recruited from a public administration sector in southern China. By the end of the survey, 88 pairs of supervisor-subordinate dyads were retrieved, yielding a response rate of 88%.
Demographics such as gender, age, and work tenure for the participants are shown in Table 6.
Permission to conduct the study in the organization was obtained from management, and survey distribution was assisted by a coordinator from the organization. I sent out recruitment emails to employees and supervisors about this study, and they were told that participation was voluntary and all their answers would be kept confidential. After obtaining permission of participation from supervisors and subordinates, I sent out emails to those who replied with on- line survey link to all participants, and all survey answers were collected from on-line surveys.
Supervisors and subordinates did not have direct contact with one another about participating in the current survey.
To keep participants’ information confidential, while also keeping track of the survey participation, each participant is numbered with one specific survey ID. Survey IDs of employees and respective supervisors were paired up to better identify supervisor-subordinate dyads (e.g., if two employees were numbered as E1 and E2, then their supervisors were number S1 and S2, respectively). When providing impression evaluation to subordinates, supervisors were asked to use email addresses to differentiate evaluations for different subordinates. Email addresses reported by employees and respective supervisors were paired up to better identify supervisor- subordinate. All email addresses were removed completely after the pairs were made. Any other personal identification information (e.g., company ID, name, email addresses) was removed completely after the pairs were made.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 25
Two different one-wave surveys were distributed to employees and their respective supervisors. Both employees and supervisors were asked to report their demographic information
(including gender and age). Employees were asked to report their general frequency of modesty and supplication behaviors at work, and supervisors were asked to make evaluation toward their respective employees in terms of competence and warmth impressions based on their general behaviors at work (see below for more details about measures). All measures originally developed in English were translated following the back-translation procedures as described in the Pilot study.
Measures
Supplication and modesty as impression management behaviors
Supplication and modesty behaviors were measured with scales developed in the pilot study, with 5 items to measure supplication and 10 items to measure modesty. Employees were asked to report on a five-point Likert scale about the frequency with which they carry out work behaviors described by items from both supplication and modesty behaviors scales (0 = never, 2
= sometimes, 4 = always). A sample item from supplication scale was: “Ask for help or assistance that I really do not need” (α = .70). A sample item from modesty scale was: “In certain situations I intentionally play down my strengths in order to make a good impression” (α = .96).
Competence and warmth
Supervisors’ impressions of subordinates’ competence and warmth were evaluated by adapting the conscientiousness and agreeableness subscales of the big-five index (BFI, see: John,
Donahue, & Kentle, 1991; John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008), reworded to reflect impressions of another’s behaviors (rather than self-report behaviors). Supervisors were asked to evaluate their impressions of the employee, and indicate how likely they agree that the item has accurately described this employee in general (1 = strongly disagree, 3 = neutral, 5 = strongly agree). Nine
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 26 items were used to measure competence, and a sample item was: “(This worker) does a thorough job” (α = .90). Another nine items were used to measure warmth impression, and a sample item was: “(This worker) is helpful and unselfish with others” (α = .87).
As there was a high correlation between warmth and competence (r = .74, p < .001), I conducted a confirmatory factor analysis with the 18 items for these two constructs, in order to determine whether they are distinct or the same constructs. SPSS outputs showed that the two factors accounted for 57% of the variance in total. Given that warmth and competence were significantly correlated with one another, oblique/varimax rotation method was used to obtain the factor loadings for each item on the two factors (Thompson, 2004). Factor loadings with varimax rotation are presented in Table 7. Factor loading higher than .5 is used as the cutoff criteria to determine factor loading for each item (Hair et al, 2005). As shown in Table 7, six items in competence scale and four items in warmth scale loaded significantly on factor 1, with factor loadings ranging from .54 to .89. Also, one item in competence scale and four items in warmth scale loaded significantly on factor 2, with factor loadings ranging from .52 to .82. One item from warmth scale was cross-loaded on both factors, and thus was removed from the item pool. Finally, two items from competence scale failed to reach a factor loading of .5 on either of the factors, and hence was also removed from the final item pool. As such, the revised item pool had ten items to measure competence (α = .89), and five items to measure warmth (α = .79). However, the two constructs still significantly correlated with one another after revising the item loadings, with even larger effect size than the previous one (r = .82, p < .001).
The high inter-correlation could be due to that some warmth items loaded significantly on competence factor, and that some competence items loaded significantly on warmth factor. Thus,
I removed the warmth items from the competence factor, as well as the competence item from the warmth factor. This resulted in an item pool with 6 items to measure competence (α = .84) and 4
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 27 items to measure warmth (α = .77). After this second round of revision, the inter-correlation between warmth and competence dropped to .60 (p < .001). As such, I determined to use the 6- item competence scale and 4-item warmth scale for all following analysis in the main study.
Control variables
Both subordinates’ and supervisors’ age were controlled for in this study, for the following reasons: (1) it is likely viewed as more acceptable for younger and less experienced employees to act modestly (Lai et al, 2010); and (2) similarity in these demographic variables may influence supervisor-subordinate relationship quality (Bauer & Green, 1996), which not only would influence employees’ decision of whether to appear humble (Davis et al, 2011), but also play a role in supervisor’s evaluation toward that specific employee (Schaubroeck & Lam, 2002).
Results
Mean, standard deviation, and correlations for variables used in the main study were presented in Table 8. In addition, mean difference and t-test between gender groups are shown in
Table 9.
The current study involved one supervisor evaluating multiple subordinates, that is, impressions of warmth and competence for subordinates were nested within each supervisor. As such, ICC(1) was calculated to evaluate whether variance in the measured variables was due to effects of different supervisor ratings. ICC(1) results are shown as follows: for supervisor-rated impressions of warmth ICC(1) = -.05, for competence ICC(1) = .11, for subordinate-rated supplication ICC(1) = .16, and for modesty ICC(1) = -.06. Based on these ICC(1) results, it was determined that multi-level analysis was not necessary in this study.
As such, differential prediction procedures with SPSS and Least Square estimation method were used to test whether the collected data support the previously stated hypotheses.
Using supervisors’ evaluation of competence and then warmth as dependent variables in the
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 28 regression model, control variables (supervisor’s age and subordinate’s age) were entered in the regression model at step 1. At step 2, the main effects were tested by regressing supervisors’ evaluation of competence on subordinates’ gender, supervisors’ gender, subordinates’ modesty behaviors, and subordinates’ supplication behaviors. At step 3, the moderating effects were tested with a series of differential regressions, by regressing supervisors’ evaluation of competence on the interactive term of subordinates’ gender and modesty behaviors (Gender × modesty), as well as the interactive term of subordinates’ gender and supplication behaviors (Gender × supplication). In addition, two additional interactive terms were added as an exploratory examination of the influence of supervisors’ gender on their impression evaluation. These two interactive terms were: supervisor’s gender 2 times subordinate’s modesty (SGender × modesty), and supervisor’s gender times subordinate’s supplication (SGender × supplication). The two-way interaction effects with supervisor’s gender times subordinate’s gender times subordinate’s modesty (SGender × Gender × modesty) was not examined, as in this study the sample size for female supervisor × female subordinate was 0.
The same regressing procedures were performed separately with supervisors’ evaluation of warmth as dependent variables, and subordinates’ gender, supervisors’ gender, and subordinates’ modesty and supplication behaviors as independent variables.
As shown in Table 10a and 10b, Hypothesis 1a was supported, as subordinate’s supplication showed a significantly negative main effect on supervisor rating of competence.
Moreover, hypothesis 1b was also supported, as subordinate’s modesty showed a significantly positive main effect on supervisor rating of competence. Thus, a supervisor will consider a subordinate to be more competent if the subordinate acts more modestly. However, none of the
2 0 = female supervisors, 1 = male supervisors.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 29 hypotheses about moderating effects about subordinate’s gender (hypotheses 2a and 2b) were supported, as no interactive terms showed significant effects on supervisor rating of competence.
As shown in Table 11a and 11b, I found a significantly negative main effect of subordinate’s supplication on supervisor rating of warmth, which was not hypothesized previously. This shows that a supervisor will rate a subordinate to be lower in warmth if the subordinate uses supplication for impression managing. In addition, subordinate’s modesty also showed a significantly positive main effect on supervisor rating of warmth, supporting hypothesis
4a, showing that a supervisor will also rate a subordinate to be warmer if the subordinate is more likely to use modesty for impression managing. However, none of the hypotheses about moderating effects about subordinate’s gender were supported, as no interactive terms showed significant effects on supervisor rating of warmth.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 30
DISCUSSION
In this study, I offered a different perspective to understand impression management behaviors. Rather than normal impression management behaviors that promote one’s strengths, I examined two impression management behaviors to hide one’s strengths, modesty and supplication. The first purpose of the study is to differentiate between these two impression management constructs. Factor analysis results from the pilot study showed that items to measure modesty (Blickle et al, 2012) and supplication (Bolino & Turnley, 1999) were able to separate the two constructs apart when used on Chinese participants. As this is the first study to simultaneously examine and compare between supplication and modesty, my finding suggested that future research on self-effacing impression management behaviors should consider differentiating between supplication and modesty. In addition, one unexpected finding from this factor analysis was that some reverse-worded items in Blickle and colleagues’ (2012) modesty measure were loaded on a different factor rather than modesty or supplication. A content review of these several items revealed that they may reflect behaviors to self-promote (an example item can be: “When I have done something well it is important to me that others learn about it from me.”). Thus, it is possible that although modesty has an inherent self-enhancing function in
Chinese culture (Han, 2011), Chinese participants still viewed modesty and self-promotion as different types of behaviors. Though it is not the focus of the current study, this finding opens a potential path to investigate whether self-promotion and modesty are two orthogonal constructs or just two ends of the same construct.
The second purpose of the study was to investigate whether modesty and supplication as impression management behaviors would lead to different impression evaluations. Rather than providing an overall evaluation of impression over these two behaviors, I divided the potential outcomes for these two behaviors in terms of supervisor impression ratings of subordinates’
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 31 warmth and competence. I proposed and empirically examined, in a Chinese organizational context, how modesty and supplication may, respectively, lead to differential impressions of warmth and competence. For modesty, results supported the hypotheses, showing that acting modestly was significantly and positively related with supervisor ratings of both warmth and competence. These results were consistent with previous research conducted in a Chinese context, finding that people who acted modestly generally are more likely to receive positive evaluations from others (Blickle et al, 2008; 2012). To the contrary, acting as a supplicant had a significantly negative relation with supervisor rating of warmth and competence. These results could be explained by the specific context in which the study was conducted. Whereas Chinese culture is generally receptive to humbleness, they may be less receptive to supplication (Sosik & Jung,
2003). The negative relations between supplication and warmth/competence are consistent with
Turnley and Bolino’s (2001) suggestion that supplicants who ask for help or display incapability too often would drain up the helpers’ sense of empathy, and thus would no longer be perceived as positive in the long run.
Based on gender role theory (Gould & Slone, 1982), I examined whether gender role prescriptions may influence supervisors’ impression ratings, such that females would receive more beneficial ratings when they act more modestly or supplicate. However, none of the interacting effects were significant in this study. There are two potential explanation for this insignificant finding. Firstly, this may be due to the disproportionate large number of male subjects (and small number of female subjects) in the current study. The relatively small number of female participants limited the variance of the constructs measured on female participants. As the statistical power for detecting a moderating effect depends on the variability of the residuals
(McClelland & Judd, 1993), the limited variance in female sample in this study also limited the statistical power to detect observable moderating effect. Therefore, findings from current study
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 32 may also need cross-validation using samples with larger and more balanced numbers of male and female participants. Secondly, there may be no actual gender effect when people evaluate on modesty and supplication. As the main study was conducted in a relatively “masculine” (i.e., male-dominated) organization, the supervisors may already set different expectations for female subordinates compared to male subordinates when making impression evaluations (Lockheed &
Hall, 1976). Therefore, self-effacement behaviors by female subordinates may nevertheless fail to meet the already-different expectations, and hence did not receive any leniency from supervisors in terms of evaluations on warmth and competence. The insignificant moderating effects in this study is also partly consistent with previous research by Lai and colleagues (2010), who found that the gender could only significantly moderate the effect of supplication on task performance, but not the effect of supplication on supervisor expected performance.
Overall, my investigation contributed to the literature about impression management at work by considering impression management in a specific cultural setting. Evaluations towards certain impression management strategies are influenced by culture norm (Lai et al, 2010). As suggested in this study, as Chinese culture generally accept humbleness, displaying a humble self by being modest is likely to achieve positive ratings from others. However, it is not always acceptable to play down at work, and acting as a supplicant may nevertheless make someone look worse to others. Moreover, as most previous research on gender, self-effacement impression management behaviors, and impression formation was conducted under hiring paradigms (e.g.,
Becker, Glick, Ilic, & Bohner, 2011), the current study also adds to the literature by looking at how gender and playing down behaviors may interact to influence impression formation in a setting, where supervisors evaluate whether a certain subordinate is warm or competent when this subordinate supplicates or behaves modestly at work (Rudman & Phelan, 2008).
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 33
Several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the sample size in the main study is relatively small and from one specific organization, which may limit the generalizability of my findings. Thus, these findings may need further cross-validation using larger samples from different organizational settings. Second, I collected the data within one time point, which could only infer correlational, but not causal, relationships between subordinates’ impression management behaviors and supervisors’ impression evaluation. Moreover, the cross-sectional data collection also raised the problem of common method biases in the current study (Podsakoff,
MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Thus, it may be beneficial to cross-validate the current findings using longitudinal or experimental design, in order to better establish the causal effects of subordinates’ modesty and supplication on supervisors’ impression evaluations.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 34
CONCLUSION
This study looked at how subordinates’ impression management behaviors would influence supervisor perceptions of subordinates’ warmth and competence, and how such effects were moderated by supervisor gender and subordinate gender. To compare with impression management in western culture that typically intends to look better, we examined how Chinese supervisors viewed subordinates when subordinates intentionally impression managed to look worse than they actually were. Preliminary results showed that, whereas acting modestly were significantly and positively related with supervisor ratings of both warmth and competence, acting as a supplicant had a significantly negative effect on supervisor rating of warmth and competence. Our research provided a unique perspective to consider impression management behaviors along with the specific cultural norms and values.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 35
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MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 45
Table 1.
Explanations of Factors in Leary and Kowalsk’s (1991) Impression Management (IM) Behavior Component Model
Factors Descriptions Examples
Desirability of
image for the Whether the IM behaviors are aimed to present a Handicapping is used to avoid appearing incompetent
actor desirable image or to avoid an undesirable image after failure.
Whether the IM behaviors mirror the true self of Being sociable is true presentation for a manager who
the actor, or, to the contrary, are just deceptive identifies himself as extrovert, but is pretense for a
Self-concept self-presentation that pretends the true self. manager who identifies himself as an introvert. Intrapersonal Actor’s intended The actor’s intended image by impression
image managing Apology is used to “save face” after public failure.
The value and preference held by a target
Target’s values audience Subordinates ingratiate a narcissistic supervisor
Social role Social role expectations about how a person in a A sales representative exemplifies knowing it is her
constraints specific role should behave in a certain context work role requirement Interpersonal
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 46
Table 2.
Different Definitions of Supplication and Modesty Based on Leary and Kowalski’s (1991) Model
Factors Supplication Modesty
Desirability of image for the Underplay a desired image, or avoid an undesired image when competence is perceived to be
actor undesired
Self-concept Pretense of true image (covering up true self-concept) Intrapersonal Actor’s intended image not at all competent Less competent
Target’s values/preferences Sympathy, obligation to help Less threatened by positive attributes
May influence supplication and modesty indirectly by influencing the target’s perception of
Social role constraints current image and values. Interpersonal
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 47
Table 3.
Demographic Details for All Participants in Pilot Study
Demographic Category Actual number Percentage (%)
Male 125 40.45
Gender Female 185 59.87
15-20 55 17.80
21-25 41 13.27
26-30 60 19.42
31-40 61 19.74
41-50 72 23.30
51-60 20 6.47
Age > 60 1 0.32
Under 1 year 56 18.12
1-2 years 18 5.83
2-3 years 19 6.15
3-5 years 24 7.77
5-10 years 65 21.04
10-20 years 64 20.71
Work tenure > 20 years 64 20.71
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 48
Table 4.
Standardized Factor Loadings for Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Items Factor loading
Supplication 1: Advertise my incompetence in a particular area or about a particular issue. .133*
Supplication 2: Pretend to not understand something that I do understand. .778**
Supplication 3: Play “dumb”. .715**
Supplication 4: Ask for help or assistance that I really do not need. .755**
Supplication 5: Try to appear helpless or needy. .797**
Modesty 1: In certain situations I intentionally play down my strengths in order to make a good impression. .301**
Modesty 2: My motto is: do well and talk about it! Because otherwise other people would not take notice of how good my achievements are. (R) .147*
Modesty 3: When others praise me I make a point not to react in a self-satisfied manner. .571**
Modesty 4: I make no secret of my abilities even if I think in a certain situation that perhaps that might be better received. (R) .240**
Modesty 5: So as to make a personable impression I occasionally appear to be more modest than I .627**
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 49 actually am.
Modesty 6: When I have done something well it is important to me that others learn about it from me. (R) .367**
Modesty 7: I sometimes play down good qualities or successes in front of others but I also do not do it too much. .432**
Modesty 8: In order to not provoke envy in others I somewhat play down my good achievements in front of them occasionally. .587**
Modesty 9: Even if I have done something very well I do not brag about it so as to not appear off- putting. .589**
Modesty 10: I behave modestly when my strengths are acknowledged by others so as to not appear conceited. .649**
Modesty 11: When I am pleased with a success I do not pay attention to whether others could consider me conceited. (R) .203**
Modesty 12: Even if it is my turn I sometimes give precedence to others so as to appear personable. .534**
Modesty 13: I behave modestly when it is obvious to others that I have done something well so as to appear personable. .761**
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 50
Modesty 14: Sometimes I consciously show myself to be modest so as to appear personable. .683**
Modesty 15: I think: if a person does something very well and despite this behaves very modestly
others will probably think that it was nothing special at all. (R) .328**
Modesty 16: When I feel superior to other people I do not let others notice it so as to not be
considered arrogant. .539**
Modesty 17: In order to make others envious I occasionally lay great stress upon my successes
and strengths. (R) .017
Modesty 18: I talk about my strengths and positive accomplishments even if I occasionally make
myself a little unpopular by doing so. (R) .058
Modesty 19: Even if I am very proud of an achievement I behave modestly so as to not appear
arrogant. .667**
Note: * p < . 05, ** p < .01.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 51
Table 5.
Standardized Factor Loadings for the Modified Confirmatory Factor Analysis with Three Factors
Items Factor loading
Supplication 2: Pretend to not understand something that I do understand. .78**
Supplication 3: Play “dumb”. .70**
Supplication 4: Ask for help or assistance that I really do not need. .76**
Supplication 5: Try to appear helpless or needy. .80**
Modesty 3: When others praise me I make a point not to react in a self-satisfied manner. .55**
Modesty 5: So as to make a personable impression I occasionally appear to be more modest .60** than I actually am.
Modesty 8: In order to not provoke envy in others I somewhat play down my good .57** achievements in front of them occasionally.
Modesty 9: Even if I have done something very well I do not brag about it so as to not .61** appear off-putting.
Modesty 10: I behave modestly when my strengths are acknowledged by others so as to not .68** appear conceited.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 52
Modesty 12: Even if it is my turn I sometimes give precedence to others so as to appear .54** personable.
Modesty 13: I behave modestly when it is obvious to others that I have done something .79** well so as to appear personable.
Modesty 14: Sometimes I consciously show myself to be modest so as to appear .68** personable.
Modesty 16: When I feel superior to other people I do not let others notice it so as to not be .52** considered arrogant.
Modesty 19: Even if I am very proud of an achievement I behave modestly so as to not .69** appear arrogant.
Modesty 2 (Self-promotion 1): My motto is: do well and talk about it! Because otherwise .63** other people would not take notice of how good my achievements are.
Modesty 4 (Self-promotion 2): I make no secret of my abilities even if I think in a certain .53** situation that perhaps that might be better received.
Modesty 6 (Self-promotion 3): When I have done something well it is important to me that .61** others learn about it from me.
Modesty 11 (Self-promotion 4): When I am pleased with a success I do not pay attention to .49**
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 53
whether others could consider me conceited.
Modesty 18 (Self-promotion 5): I talk about my strengths and positive accomplishments .58**
even if I occasionally make myself a little unpopular by doing so.
Note: * p < . 05, ** p < .01.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 54
Table 6.
Demographics for All Participants in Main study
Subordinates Supervisors
Demographic Number Percentage (%) Number Percentage (%)
Male 63 71.6 12 85.7
Gender Female 25 28.4 2 14.3
21-25 1 1.1 —
26-30 6 12.5 —
31-40 38 43.2 —
41-50 27 30.7 7 50.0
Age 51-60 16 18.2 7 50.0
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 55
Table 7.
Standardized Factor Loadings for Warmth and Competence
Factor loadings
1 2
Competence 1: Tends to be lazy (R) .70 .17
Competence2: Does a thorough job .36 .49
Competence3: Can be somewhat careless (R) .78 .27
Competence 4: Is a reliable worker .33 .07
Competence 5: Tends to be disorganized (R) .84 .16
Competence 6: Perseveres until the task is finished .20 .54
Competence 7: Does things efficiently .84 .24
Competence 8: Is easily distracted (R) .81 .14
Competence 9: Makes plans and follows through with them .89 .14
Warmth 1: Tends to find fault with others. (R) -.11 .82
Warmth 2: Is helpful and unselfish with others .22 .74
Warmth 3: Starts quarrels with others (R) .22 .60
Warmth 4: Has a forgiving nature .37 .61
Warmth 5: Is generally trusting .73 .28
Warmth 6: Can be cold and aloof (R) .61 .50
Warmth 7: Is considerate and kind to almost everyone .73 .35
Warmth 8: Is sometimes rude to others (R) .71 .43
Warmth 9: Likes to cooperate with others .58 .40
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 56
Table 8.
Mean, Standard Deviation, and Correlations for All Variables in Main Study
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 Supervisor gender 0.87 0.34
2 subordinate gender 0.73 0.45 -.24*
3 supervisor age 4.55 0.50 .43** -.29**
4 subordinate age 3.53 0.91 -.04 .26* -.08
5 subordinate modesty 3.24 0.37 -.14 .17 -.10 .21
6 subordinate supplication 3.21 0.34 .02 -.52** .22* -.19 -.06
7 supervisor perception of subordinate competence 3.24 0.37 .03 .12 -.09 -.10 .27* -.28**
8 supervisor perception of subordinate warmth 3.21 0.34 .03 .18 -.05 .14 .46** -.25** .60**
Note: n = 100. * p < .05, ** p < .01.
Dummy codes for supervisor gender and subordinate gender: 0 = female, 1 = male.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 57
Table 9.
T-test for Variable Means across Genders
Mean difference t-value (95% CI) t-value (95% CI)
Equal variance assumed Equal variance not assumed subordinate modesty -.13 -1.56 （-.30, .04） -1.62 (-.30, 0.03) subordinate supplication .36 5.60** (.23, .48) 5.60** (.23, .49) supervisor perception of subordinate competence .10 -1.15 (-.26, 07) -1.17 (-.26, .07) supervisor perception of subordinate warmth .13 -1.76 (-.29, .02) -2.08* (-.26, -.01)
Note: n = 100. * p < .05, ** p < .01.
Dummy code: 0 = female, 1 = male.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 58
Table 10a
Effects of Subordinate’s Gender and Modesty on Supervisor Evaluation of Competence
Competence
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Constant 3.10** 2.03** 1.96**
Supervisor’s age -.03 .02 .02
Subordinate’s age .06 .01 .01
Subordinate’s gender -.03 -.08
Subordinate’s modesty .40** .29
Subordinate’s supplication -.25* .07
Gender × modesty . .15
Gender × supplication -.45
F 1.22 6.01** 4.94**
R2 .03 .27 .30
Note: n = 88. * p < .05, ** p < .01. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 59
Table 10b
Effects of Supervisor’s Gender and Subordinate’s Modesty on Supervisor Evaluation of
Competence
Competence
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Constant 3.10** 1.98** 2.17
Supervisor’s age -.03 .03 .01
Subordinate’s age .06 .01 .01
Supervisor’s gender .00 -.08
Subordinate’s modesty .39** .46
Subordinate’s supplication -.23* -.53*
Supervisor’s Gender × modesty . -.11
Supervisor’s Gender × supplication .40
F 1.22 5.98** 4.88**
R2 .03 .27 .30
Note: n = 88. * p < .05, ** p < .01,. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 60
Table 11a
Effects of Subordinate’s Gender and Supplication on Supervisor Evaluation of Warmth
Warmth
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Constant 3.63** 3.03** 2.80**
Supervisor’s age -.07 -.01 -.01
Subordinates’ age -.03 -.07 -.07
Subordinates’ gender -.05 .24
Subordinate’s modesty .30** .37
Subordinates’ supplication -.39** -.40
Gender × modesty -.10
Gender × supplication .02
F .53 3.41** 2.40*
R2 .01 .17 .17
Note: n = 88. * p < .05, ** p < .01. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 61
Table 11b
Effects of Supervisor’s Gender and Subordinate’s Supplication on Supervisor Evaluation of
Warmth
Warmth
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Constant 3.63** 2.96** 2.60
Supervisor’s age -.07 -.02 -.05
Subordinate’s age -.03 -.07 -.07
Supervisor’s gender .05 .60
Subordinate’s modesty .30** .53
Subordinate’s supplication -.35** -.66*
Supervisor’s Gender × modesty -.31
Supervisor’s Gender × supplication .45
F .53 3.40** 3.19**
R2 .01 .17 .22
Note: n = 88. * p < .05, ** p < .01. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 62
APPENDIX A HSRB APPROVAL: PILOT STUDY
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 63
APPENDIX B HSRB APPROVAL: MAIN STUDY
MODESTY AND SUPPLICATION 64