Article

Can Confidence Influence Persuasiveness in Disagreements by Conveying Competence versus Dominance? The Moderating Role of Competitiveness

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Abstract

Research has demonstrated that confident individuals gainsocial influence because their confidence signals competence rather thandominance in settings in which they do not experience a disagreement withothers. We extend this research by exploring felt competitiveness, asreflected by perceptions of goal opposition between perceivers andothers. In settings where people experience a disagreement, we explore theimpact of felt competitiveness on the association between expressedconfidence and social perceptions of the expresser’s competence anddominance, and how these shape persuasiveness. We conducted a field studyexamining dyadic interactions between coworkers (Study 1) and two experiments manipulating competitiveness and confidence (Studies 2-3).Results showed that high competitiveness neutralizes the positiveassociation between expressed confidence and perceived competence, thuseliminating the positive indirect effect of expressed confidence onpersuasiveness. Results also demonstrated a stronger positive association betweenexpressed confidence and perceived dominance when competitiveness ishigher. However, perceived dominance did not consistently predict persuasiveness, suggesting that the dominance results should be interpretedwith caution. Overall, our findings offer novel implications regarding howthe social influence processes of confidence expressions are shaped byfelt competitiveness.

Keywords: Confidence, Competence, Competitiveness, Dominance, Persuasiveness

How to Cite:

Rees, L., Tsai, M., Kopelman, S. & Hu, H., (2024) “Can Confidence Influence Persuasiveness in Disagreements by Conveying Competence versus Dominance? The Moderating Role of Competitiveness”, Negotiation and Conflict Management Research 17(2), 153-181. doi: https://doi.org/10.34891/y2w2-qy05

Funding

Authors' institutions at time of data collection