Br. I. soc. din. Psychol. (1978), 17, 25-29 Printed in Great Britain 25 Reactions to flattery as a function of self-esteem: Self-enhancement and cognitive consistency theories Andrew M. Colman and Kevin R. Olver Male subjects who had previously scored either very high or very low on a self-esteem scale were interviewed about personal characteristics, biographical details, social activities, etc. They then received, via closed-circuit television, flattering or neutral character assessments which were apparently based on their performance in the interviews. A highly significant interaction (P< 0.(01) showed that whereas the subjects of high self-esteem responded with far greater liking for the evaluator in the flattery than in the neutral condition, those of low self-esteem somewhat preferred the neutral evaluator. These findings provide clear-cut support for the cognitive consistency theory regarding reactions to flattery, but do not rule out a concomitant though weaker self-enhancement effect. One of the most well-established techniques of ingratiation encountered in everyday social interaction is flattery, or what Edward Jones (1964), in his influential monograph, calls 'complimentary other-enhancement'. An admonition given great prominence in Dale Carnegie's best-selling manual, How to Win Friends and Influence People (Carnegie, 1936), is to 'dole out praise lavishly', and there is now a considerable body of empirical evidence indicating that people do indeed typically increase their liking for someone who expresses approval of them (e.g. Backman & Secord, 1959; Jones, Gergen & Davis, 1962). From a common-sense point of view these findings are not surprising, although as Jones has pointed out, one might expect excessive flattery to backfire in certain circumstances. The theoretical interpretation of the effects of flattery presents certain problems, even in straightforward cases where the compliments offered by the flatterer are accepted by the target person as sincere rather than manipulative in their intent. Under these circumstances is flattery bound to succeed? The answer depends upon which of two theoretical interpretations is given to the process. One of the most popular is self-enhancement theory, which is based upon certain elements of Rogers' (1959) personality theory and the motivational concept of drive reduction. The fundamental assumption is that people are motivated to evaluate themselves favourably, and for this reason they respond positively, by (among other things) increased liking for people who flatter them. The other major approach is in terms of cognitive consistency theory, whose roots lie in Heider's (1946, 1958) balance model, and which entails the assumption that people are imbued with a drive towards cognitive consistency. Granted this assumption, a person's reaction to flattery can be shown to depend upon how favourably he evaluates himself: if he has a high self-esteem he will tend to judge the flatterer favourably since this satisfies his drive towards consistency in terms of the balance model, but if he has a low self-esteem he will tend to judge the flatterer unfavourably for the same reason. Even in the case of apparently sincere flattery, therefore, the latter theory allows the possibility of a boomerang effect when compliments are directed at a person of low self-esteem, thereby tying him up in one of Laing's 'knots ': 'I am bad/You love me/therefore you are bad' (Laing, 1970, p. 10). It is of course possible that both major theories are true, since people may be motivated towards both self-enhancement and cognitive consistency. Recent reviews of the literature in this area have, nevertheless, tended to regard the theories as being in competition with each other to account for the available evidence (Jones, 1973; Shrauger, 1975). If the two theories were for some reason mutually exclusive, it would be possible to devise an experimentum crucis to decide between them, since opposite predictions flow from the theories regarding the relationship between reactions to flattery on the one hand and self-esteem on the other; 26 Andrew M. Colman and Kevin R. Diver self-enhancement theory implies that low self-esteem subjects will increase their liking for the flatterer more than high self-esteem subjects (since the consequent drive reduction is presumed to be greater) whereas cognitive consistency theory clearly makes the opposite prediction (as explained above). The theories are not mutually exclusive, however, so experiments along these lines can do no better than give an indication of the relative potency of the self-enhancement and consistency tendencies under various conditions. Method Subjects The subjects were 30 male undergraduates living in various halls of residence at Leicester University. Each subject responded to an abridged version of the Janis-Field Self-Esteem Questionnaire (Janis et al. 1959) consisting of 23 items relating to 'feelings of inadequacy'. On the basis of the self-esteem scores the upper and lower tertiles of the sample, designated the high self-esteem and low self-esteem groups respectively, were requested to report to the laboratory for further testing. Procedure The experiment took place in a room conspicuously fitted with a one-way mirror, so that the subjects would be fully aware that they could be observed from an adjacent room. Each subject was seated comfortably and was interviewed by the experimenter about biographical details, what his friends are like, how he gets on with people, incidents which he is proud or embarrassed to recall, problems with work, etc. The same structured interview schedule was used in each case, and the interviews normally lasted for approximately 10--15 min. The subject was told that the purpose of the experiment was to investigate the way in which people form impressions of personality without direct personal interaction with the individual being assessed. He was further informed that a postgraduate student had been observing the interview through the one-way mirror, and that his evaluation of the subject would now be relayed via closed-circuit television, since it was still necessary to avoid face-to-face interaction. A television monitor in the corner of the room was then switched on and the subject was presented with either a flattering or a neutral evaluation of his personality, apparently based upon the impression he conveyed in the interview, and spoken by a 30 year old man who appeared on the screen. Jones (1964) has pointed out that deception is unfortunately unavoidable in this area of research, and the present study is no exception; There was, in fact, no postgraduate observing the interview from behind the one-way mirror (this is a reversal of the more common situation in which the subject is deceived into thinking he is not being observed!) and the evaluation of the subject relayed via closed-circuit television was one of two which had been pre-recorded on videotape. Careful probing revealed, however, that none of the subjects doubted the existence of an observer in the adjacent room or the genuineness of the evaluations, and all accepted the 'cover story' about the avoidance of direct face-to-face interaction, Half the high self-esteem subjects and half the low self-esteem subjects were randomly assigned to the flattery condition, the remainder being assigned to the neutral condition. In the flattery condition, the pre-recorded evaluation relayed to subjects on the television monitor ran as follows: 'Are you ready?' (Pause, during which the experimenter responded appropriately.) 'Well, in my opinion, he creates a very favourable impression. He's the kind of person I enjoy talking to. He seemed a little ill-at-ease but no more than one would expect. I paid close attention to the things he said about himself and he shows healthy psychological adjustment. I think he's going to do well in the future and he's got nothing to worry about. All in all, he seems a very capable person. It's a bit embarrassing that there's nothing really to say on the negative side, but that's the way I honestly feel.' The evaluation used in the neutral condition was as follows: 'Are you ready?' (Pause) 'Well, in my opinion, he creates a fair impression. I don't think he has any particularly serious problems and his level of psychological adjustment doesn't seem too bad. He seemed a little iIl-at-ease but not too much. The rest of his university life shouldn't prove any more difficult for him than for most people as he seems to be a fairly capable person. He probably has a reasonable number of friends and shouldn't do too badly in the future. There's nothing really outstanding to say, so that's about it.' It is not, of course, suggested that the evaluation used in the neutral condition contained nothing which any subject could interpret as flattering. What is important is that it was in any event unambiguously less flattering than the deliberately flattering evaluation used in the other condition. Reactions to flattery as a function of seLf-esteem 27 Mter listening to the evaluation of his personality, each subject was told that his reactions to the postgraduate would be of great help; he was given a counterbalanced semantic differential containing 15 bipolar adjective pairs with high evaluative loadings, separated by seven-point rating scales, and he was requested to give his impressions of the postgraduate. He was further asked to comment on the postgraduate's evaluation of him, and he was probed for any suspicions about the experimental situation before being debriefed. Results The mean score on the self-esteem scale of the low self-esteem group was 38·60, with a range of 21-45. The mean score of the high self-esteem group was 65·50, and the range in this group was 62 to 77.