Do Others’ Views of Us Transfer to New Groups and Tasks?

Abstract

The dual nature of the self has been a core concern of social psychology since its inception. We contribute to this longstanding tradition of inquiry by focusing on two lines of research within the expectation states theoretical research program: (1) the study of second-order expectations and (2) research on the durability of expectations. We argue that individuals give priority to others’ expectations over their own, and we compare our model against two alternatives. We also argue that second-order expectations tend to persist across social encounters, even when they are disadvantaging. Results from two experiments confirm the importance of second-order expectations during an initial interaction; however, we find that second-order effects only transfer when they are advantaging. We discuss the implications of our findings for developments within the expectation states theoretical research program and for advancing our understanding of the interplay of status characteristics and competing self motives (consistency vs. enhancement).