An experimental approach to the use of ingratiation tactics under homogeneous and heterogeneous dyads

Abstract The present research investigated the occurrence of ingratiation as mediated by the sex of sender and recipient in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design and also explored the underlying structure and preference of ingratiation overtures. Subjects were instructed to enact the role of interviewees and were motivated either to make themselves amiable or to act spontaneously to improve evaluation accorded by the interviewer. It was hypothesized that ingratiation behaviours would be distinguished from spontaneous behaviours for the investigated opinion conformity, self‐presentation, other‐enhancement and smiling. These main effects were found and specified by the sex variables in the expected direction with modesty as an ingratiation tactic under the female homogeneous dyad, more ingratiation overtures under the heterogeneous than homogeneous dyads on some verbal measures, and less ingratiation smiling under the male homogeneous dyad. Further, verbal and nonverbal overtures were shown to possess a different structure, and a multivariate analysis of variance revealed opinion conformity to be the most sensitive differentiator between the verbal ingratiation overtures. The discussion deals with the search for the subtleties in ingratiation messages and emphasizes some provocative findings.