The effect of economic consequences on social judgment and choice: Reward interdependence and the preference for sociability versus competence

• Author: Jeffrey Pfeffer,Peter Belmi
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2274

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The effect of economic consequences on social judgment and

choice: Reward interdependence and the preference for

sociability versus competence

Peter Belmi

1

|Jeffrey Pfeffer

2

1

Department of Leadership and

Organizational Behavior, Darden Business

School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville,

Virginia, U.S.A.

2

Graduate School of Business, Stanford

University, Stanford, California, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Peter Belmi, Department of Leadership and

Organizational Behavior, Darden Business

School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville,

Virginia, U.S.A.

Email: belmip@darden.virginia.edu

Summary

Competence and sociability (warmth) are fundamental dimensions of social judgment in organiza-

tions. However, these qualities are frequently seen as negatively related, with mixed evidence on

which is more important. In three studies (N= 993), we investigated the effects of reward inter-

dependence on the preference for sociability versus competence. We predicted that reward

interdependence would elicit a more instrumental, calculative mindset, which in turn, would lead

individuals to value competence more. Study 1 surveyed working adults who were in actual work

groups and found that those who worked in more (vs. less) reward interdependent environments

were more likely to think instrumentally and calculatively when considering potential colleagues.

This mindset, in turn, was associated with a greater tendency to value competence over sociabil-

ity. Studies 2 and 3 used an experimental design and found that when people imagined or antic-

ipated working in a situation in which their economic outcomes depended in part on others,they

were more likely to adopt an instrumental focus and choose a “competent jerk”over a “lovable

fool.”These results call into question a vast social judgment literature that has made claims about

the importance of sociability and related constructs without considering the context, and partic-

ularly the reward interdependence, often inherent in organizational contexts.

KEYWORDS

competence, impression management,interpersonal choice, reward interdependence, sociability,

social judgment,warmth

1|INTRODUCTION

People make choices about others all the time—whom to hire or

promote, to use as an advisor, to work for, to associate with, and to

ask for help. That is one reason why person perception is one of the

oldest and most studied psychological phenomena (e.g., Jones, 1990)

and why interpersonal choice is an important focus of research on

organizations (e.g., Blau, 1962; Lyness & Heilman, 2006; Olian,

Schwab, & Haberfeld, 1988).

Evidence has shown that across cultures, sociability (social

warmth) and competence (agency) are two of the fundamental dimen-

sions that people use to assess others (e.g., Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick,

2008; Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Judd, Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima,

2005; Wojciszke & Abele, 2008). Although it is conceptually possible

for individuals and groups to be both sociable and competent, people

typically assume that being high on one dimension implies a deficit

on the other (e.g., Cuddy, Glick, & Beninger, 2011; Judd et al., 2005;

Kervyn, Yzerbyt, & Judd, 2010). Thus, people often perceive sociability

and competence as being negatively related (Cuddy, 2009), implying

that there is some trade‐off between them. For instance, Amabile

(1983) reported that harsher book critics were perceived as less like-

able but more intelligent, whereas nicer book critics were perceived

as more likeable but less intelligent. Some studies have even found

that people strategically enact behaviors consistent with the assump-

tion of a trade‐off between sociability and competence. For instance,

Holoien and Fiske (2013) reported that people tended to downplay

friendliness when they wanted to appear competent; conversely, they

downplayed competence when they were motivated to appear warm

and friendly.

In the research literature, two lines of argument about the best

path to career success—something that necessarily entails being

“chosen”for a job role and that therefore implicates processes of social

judgment and perception—have proceeded with little or no contact

between the conflicting points of view.

Received: 26 May 2017 Revised: 5 February 2018 Accepted: 6 February 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2274

990 Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2018;39:990–1007.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

On the one hand, some research has shown that displays of anger

(Tiedens, 2001) and violating social norms for polite behavior (Van

Kleef, Homan, Finkenauer, Gundemir, & Stamkou, 2011) create

perceptions of higher power and status. Experimental (e.g., Sinaceur

& Tiedens, 2006), cross‐sectional (e.g., Seibert & Kraimer, 2001), and

longitudinal studies (e.g., Judge, Livingston, & Hurst, 2012) have also

found that agreeableness is negatively correlated with salary and

economic outcomes, particularly among men (e.g., Judge et al., 2012).

A study of 793 early career employees in Germany found that

narcissism was positively related to salary and Machiavellianism was

positively associated with being in a leadership position (Spurk,

Keller, & Hirschi, 2016). Pfeffer (2015) reviewed extensive research

showing that narcissism as well as self‐promoting and self‐aggrandiz-

ing behaviors often positively predicted being hired, increased

promotion chances, and even occasionally positively affected group

and organizational performance. Certainly, many contemporary leaders

including Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, George Steinbrenner, Larry Ellison,

Jeff Bezos, and Roger Ailes were famous for being short‐tempered

and difficult to work with.

On the other hand, Grant's (2013) book on givers and takers has

often been simplistically misinterpreted as demonstrating the desirabil-

ity of being unconditionally generous, whereas Prinstein's (2017)

review of studies of popularity prompted an article in The New York

Times with the headline, “Be Nice—You Won't Finish Last”(Nir,

2017). Research has shown that warmth judgments “carry more weight

in behavioral reactions”(Fiske et al., 2007, p. 77; see also Cacioppo,

Gardner, & Berntson, 1997; Willis & Todorov, 2006; Wojciszke &

Abele, 2008). Wojciszke & Abele (2008, p. 1139) noted that communal

traits “are identified faster in a lexical decision task”and that “global

impressions of real persons”are better predicted by communion com-

pared to agency. Casciaro and Lobo (2008), using network data from

three different organizations, found that people tended to seek task

resources from people that they liked, whereas those who exhibited

negative interpersonal affect were essentially ignored in task‐related

interactions, making competence “irrelevant.”

One possibly productive way to begin to resolve this theoretical

conflict and achieve greater theoretical understanding of the role of

competence and warmth in interpersonal choice is to examine the con-

ditions under which people would give more weight to competence

than to sociability and vice versa as they evaluate others. We suggest

that one factor that may affect people's preference for competence

(vs. sociability) is reward interdependence, situations in which people's

economic rewards are based partly upon the collective performance

of their group or team (e.g., Campion, Medsker, & Higgs, 1993;

Saavedra, Earley, & Vandyne, 1993; van der Vegt & van de Vliert,

2002).

1

We argue that when people make unconstrained evaluations

and choices, a situation that characterizes much if not most of the

research on social judgment, it is natural for them to favor warm,

friendly, and sociable individuals. There is little to no reason not to

do so and social desirability pressures dictate a preference for

niceness. However, we predict that when people anticipate that their

economic outcomes are (partly) determined by those with whom they

choose to work, a situation quite common in actual work organizations,

it is likely that they will weight competence and ability more strongly.

This preference arises, in part, because reward interdependence

activates a more instrumental and strategic orientation toward inter-

personal choice.

We pursue this argument in three studies that make the follow-

ing theoretical and empirical contributions. First and most fundamen-

tally, we provide evidence for the effect of reward interdependence

on people's weighting of competence versus sociability in making

interpersonal evaluations. Although there is a general consensus

among scholars that people give more weight to sociability than they

do to competence (e.g., Fiske et al., 2007), the studies reported

here identify one important domain in which this is likely to be less

true: organizational contexts that entail a higher degree of reward

interdependence.

Second, our research develops a more nuanced view of interper-

sonal choice that departs from the majority of the social–psychological

literature by showing that people decide differently when there are

economic consequences to their choices. In many if not most of the

studies on interpersonal choice and status conferral, rarely are there

economic consequences of any kind facing the individuals making the

judgments (for an exception, see Casciaro & Lobo, 2008). For instance,

in Cuddy, Fiske, and Glick's (2004, p. 707) study of how having a child

affects perceptions of warmth and competence for men and women,

“participants rated three fictitious consultants on traits reflecting

warmth and competence, and on three discrimination proxy items

aimed at capturing the degree to which the consultant is professionally

valued or discriminated against.”In that study, as is the case of almost

all research that uses narrative descriptions of candidates, dummy

resumes, or videotaped interviews (e.g., Pingitore, Dugoni, Tindale, &

Spring, 1994), participants' own economic rewards do not depend on

what the person that they choose does or might do, nor do the evalu-

ators obtain status or other symbolic (let alone economic) rewards

from the accuracy or other consequences of their judgments. But it

is eminently plausible that confronting economic or other conse-

quences can affect interpersonal choice.

Third, our research contributes to a deeper understanding of the

psychology of reward interdependence. Scholars (e.g, DeMatteo, Eby,

& Sundstrom, 1998; Garbers & Konradt, 2014) have noted that much

of the existing research on reward interdependence has focused on

identifying the particular conditions that make team rewards effective.

But there are very few theoretically driven investigations that illumi-

nate how team rewards influence psychological processes such as

interpersonal choice. To our knowledge, our work is the first to explore

how reward interdependence in teams affects people's cognitions

about what they come to value in their task partners.

Finally, our findings provide an important insight about impression

management in organizational contexts. Cuddy et al. (2011) have

noted that the conflicting findings and the need for more research on

the importance of sociability and competence have made it difficult

to answer questions about what strategies individuals should

pursue in specific situations to be more successful. Here, we provide

one answer as to when it might be more beneficial to highlight compe-

tence and when it might be more beneficial to highlight sociability.

1

Consistent with work by previous scholars (DeMatteo et al., 1998), our use of

the term “reward”pertains specifically to monetary rewards (e.g., compensation

and bonuses) as opposed to nonmonetary rewards such as status, respect, or

recognition.

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