Personality Moderators of Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: An Integrative Research Review

We used both quantitative and descriptive procedures to summarize the results of studies examining personality moderators of interpersonal expectancy effects. Five hypotheses associated with this research were identified. Three of these hypotheses specify that expecters who have a greater need to influence others, who have a greater ability to encode nonverbal messages, and who are better liked by their targets should produce target behavior more congruent with their expectancies. The remaining two hypotheses specify that targets who are more susceptible to social influence attempts and who are better decoders of nonverbal communication should be more likely to conform to their expecter's wishes. On average, results were in the predicted direction, but effect sizes were small. Expecter personality may be more influential than target personality. The relation between personality and bias may be influenced by incentives, the length of the task, and the social status of the expecter.

Duke Scholars

Author Harris M. Cooper Psychology & Neuroscience