The Self-Presentational Consequences of Upholding One's Stance in Spite of the Evidence

Leslie  John; Martha  Jeong; Francesca  Gino; Laura  Huang

Article | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes | September 2019

The Self-Presentational Consequences of Upholding One's Stance in Spite of the Evidence

by Leslie John, Martha Jeong, Francesca Gino and Laura Huang

Abstract

Five studies explore the self-presentational consequences of refusing to “back down” – that is, upholding a stance despite evidence of its inaccuracy. Using data from an entrepreneurial pitch competition, Study 1 shows that entrepreneurs tend not to back down even though investors are more impressed by entrepreneurs who do. Next, in two sets of experiments, we unpack the psychology underlying why actors refuse to publicly back down and investigate observers’ impressions of those actors. Specifically, we show that observers view people who refuse to back down as confident but unintelligent, and these perceptions drive consequential decisions about such refusers, such as whether to invest in their ideas (Studies 1 & 2) or whether to hire them (Study 3). Although actors can intuit these effects (Study 4), this understanding is not reflected in their behavior because they are concerned with saving face (Study 5).

Keywords: Self-presentation; belief perseverance; judgment; confidence; persuasion; Personal Characteristics; Behavior; Perception; Decision Making; Outcome or Result;

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John, Leslie, Martha Jeong, Francesca Gino, and Laura Huang. "The Self-Presentational Consequences of Upholding One's Stance in Spite of the Evidence." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 154 (September 2019): 1–14.

We examine “conversational receptiveness”—the use of language to communicate one’s willingness to thoughtfully engage with opposing views. We develop an interpretable machine-learning algorithm to identify the linguistic profile of receptiveness (Studies 1A-B). We then show that in contentious policy discussions, government executives who were rated as more receptive—according to our algorithm and their partners but not their own self-evaluations—were considered better teammates, advisors, and workplace representatives (Study 2). Furthermore, using field data from a setting where conflict management is endemic to productivity, we show that conversational receptiveness at the beginning of a conversation forestalls conflict escalation at the end. Specifically, Wikipedia editors who write more receptive posts are less prone to receiving personal attacks from disagreeing editors (Study 3). We develop a “receptiveness recipe” intervention based on our algorithm. We find that writers who follow the recipe are seen as more desirable partners for future collaboration and their messages are seen as more persuasive (Study 4). Overall, we find that conversational receptiveness is reliably measurable, has meaningful relational consequences, and can be substantially improved using our intervention.

Article | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | July 2020

Tell It Like It Is: When Politically Incorrect Language Promotes Authenticity

J. Schroeder, M. Rosenblum and F. Gino

When a person’s language appears political—such as being politically correct or incorrect—it can influence fundamental impressions of him or her. Political correctness is “using language or behavior to seem sensitive to others’ feelings, especially those others who seem socially disadvantaged.” One pilot study, six experiments, and three supplemental experiments (N = 4,956) demonstrate that being politically incorrect makes communicators appear more authentic—specifically, less susceptible to external influence—albeit also less warm. These effects, however, are moderated by perceivers’ political ideology and how sympathetic perceivers feel toward the target group being labeled politically correctly. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3 using politically incorrect language (e.g., calling undocumented immigrants “illegals”) made a communicator appear particularly authentic among conservative perceivers but particularly cold among liberal perceivers. However, in Experiment 4 these effects reversed when conservatives felt sympathetic toward the group that was being labeled politically correctly or incorrectly (e.g., calling poor whites “white trash”). Experiment 5 tests why political incorrectness can boost authenticity, demonstrating that it makes communicators seem less strategic. Finally, Experiment 6 tests our hypothesis in an externally valid field context: exploring the impact of politically incorrect language on perceived persuasion in real political debates. Debaters instructed to be politically incorrect (vs. politically correct) were judged by their uninstructed conversation partners to be less easily persuaded during the conversation, although they actually reported being similarly persuaded. Together, these findings demonstrate when and how using politically incorrect language can enhance a person’s authenticity.

Keywords: language; Interpersonal Communication; Perception;

Citation:

Schroeder, J., M. Rosenblum, and F. Gino. "Tell It Like It Is: When Politically Incorrect Language Promotes Authenticity." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 119, no. 1 (July 2020): 75–103. View Details

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The Self-Presentational Consequences of Upholding One's Stance in Spite of the Evidence

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