Researchers - Centre for Organisational Research

Professionals are often required to introduce themselves and engage in self-promotion in writing. Text-based self-promotion allows people to reach a wide audience but can make it difficult to convey warmth. Across seven studies (N = 2,533), we show that people conveyed greater warmth in written introductions when they emphasized their journey (i.e., the path taken to achieve their accomplishments) along with their outcomes (i.e., the accomplishments). In Studies 1a-1d, we used a real-world context and found that more journey-oriented LinkedIn introductions increased warmth perceptions, partly because these introducers were perceived as humbler. These results extended beyond naïve evaluators to human resources specialists. Studies 2–4 experimentally replicated these effects, additionally examining how information regarding the difficulty of outcomes affected perceptions and identifying communication medium as a boundary condition: journey information increased perceived warmth in text, but not video introductions. Adding journey information to written introductions conveys warmth and creates more favorable impressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Nault, K. A., Sezer, O., & Klein, N. (2023). It’s the journey, not just the destination: Conveying interpersonal warmth in written introductions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 177, Article 104253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2023.104253

We propose that making a series of decreasing concessions (e.g., $1,500–1,210–1,180–1,170) signals that negotiators are reaching their limit and that this results in a negotiation disadvantage for offer recipients. Although we find that most negotiators do not use this strategy naturally, seven studies (N = 2,311) demonstrate that decreasing concessions causes recipients to make less ambitious counteroffers (Studies 1–5) and reach worse deals (Study 2) in distributive negotiations. We find that this disadvantage occurs because decreasing concessions shape recipients’ expectations of the subsequent offers that will be made, which results in inflated perceptions of the counterparts’ reservation price relative to the other concession strategies (Study 3). In addition, we find that this disadvantage is particularly large when concessions decrease at a moderate rate (Study 4a) and when decreasing concessions takes place over more (vs. fewer) rounds (Study 4b). Finally, we find that recipients can protect themselves against the deleterious effects of decreasing concession by thinking of a target before they enter the negotiation (Study 5). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Tey, K. S., Schaerer, M., Madan, N., & Swaab, R. I. (2021). The impact of concession patterns on negotiations: When and why decreasing concessions lead to a distributive disadvantage. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 165, 153–166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2021.05.003

Flattery is one of the oldest and most commonly used impression–management tactics in everyday life. Though it often brings benefits to the flatterer, less is known about how it affects the target. In the present research, we explore when and why being flattered can be costly for leaders—common targets of flattery—depending on how they respond to it. We suggest that leaders who are observed rewarding flatterers risk appearing naïve to others. Across seven studies and six supplementary studies (N = 4,612), we find evidence that leaders who grant favors to flatterers are often perceived to have naively “fallen for flattery,” which shapes observers’ impressions of the leaders and the organizations they represent. A first set of studies (Studies 1–4) detail the variety of factors that lead observers to conclude their leader has fallen for flattery and the resulting impacts to the leaders’ reputation and their organization (e.g., competence, warmth, commitment to the leader, organizational fairness). The second set of studies look at the contextual factors that impact what costs leaders pay for being perceived to have fallen for flattery, including the type of flattery (Study 5), who is harmed by the favor (Study 6), and the leader’s apparent awareness of the motives underlying flattery (Study 7). Whereas previous research highlights positive consequences of flattery for the flatterer, we find that flattery comes with costs for leaders and their organizations. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for leaders who are frequently flattered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Rogers, B. A., Sezer, O., & Klein, N. (2023). Too naïve to lead: When leaders fall for flattery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 125(6), 1394–1419. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000433