Ingratiation Attempts in Real Life: Determinants of Their Success

A total of 272 students at a German university were asked to write down the story of an ingratiation attempt they had made and one they had received. They were then asked to reflect on each episode via a questionnaire. All but one participant reported that they had performed at least one of the four tactics postulated in Jones's ingratiation theory: compliments, favor-doing, opinion conformity, and positive self-presentation. In the case of received ingratiation, we found higher success ratings for nondependent (vs. dependent) partners, for just-being-friendly (vs. attraction-seeking) as the attributed motive, and for honest (vs. nonhonest) compliments and self-presentation. Female senders reported more success than did males (interpretable through existing research on gender differences). Finally, success levels were higher in the sender than in the receiver condition. Thus with our new autobiographical method we have extended the validity of three known determinants of the success of ingratiation attempts and discovered two "novel" factors deserving further research.