Promote up, ingratiate down: Status comparisons drive warmth-competence tradeoffs in impression management

Article history: Received 21 January 2015 Revised 13 August 2015 Accepted 12 January 2016 Available online 16 January 2016 We hypothesized participants would adopt diverging impression management strategies when interacting with lowerversus higher-status others, to disconfirm status-based stereotypes of their own respective coldness or incompetence. In Study 1, downward comparers downplayed their own competence to appear warmer, and upward comparers downplayed their own warmth to appear more competent. In status comparisons with counter-stereotypical targets, Studies 2a and 2b showed impression management strategies no longer diverge, but effects do not reverse, suggesting a combination of stereotype-disconfirming and target trait-matching goals. Study 3 replicates diverging strategies in downward and upward status comparisons and suggests diverging reasons for these strategies: Downward comparers perceive reason to disconfirm status-based stereotypes, while upward comparers perceive reason to match their comparison target. Together, these studies show mere status differences shift individuals' interaction goals in conveying two central dimensions of impression formation, warmth and competence. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.