the power of powerless speech: the evects ... - alison...

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101 (2006) 243–261

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The power of powerless speech: The eVects of speech style and task interdependence on status conferral �

Alison R. Fragale ¤

Department of Organizational Behavior and Strategy, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, CB #3490, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3490, USA

Received 15 March 2005Available online 6 March 2006

Abstract

Two studies examine the eVects of speech styles and task interdependence on status conferral judgments. In both studies, partici-pants were exposed to an individual who used either a powerful or powerless speech style in a low or high task interdependencegroup, and made judgments about the amount of status to confer to the individual. When task interdependence was low, participantsconferred more status to powerful speakers, whereas when interdependence was high, participants conferred more status to power-less speakers. Furthermore, Study 2 demonstrated that speech styles inXuenced trait inferences about the speaker (agency and com-munality), but these traits were weighted diVerently in status conferral judgments across groups. These Wndings provide insight intoboth the relationship between observed behaviors and status positions and the decision process underlying status conferral judg-ments.© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Status conferral; Speech Styles; Powerful speech; Powerless speech; Task interdependence; Task performance; Agency; Communality

Language is power, in ways more literal than most peo-ple think. When we speak, we exercise the power of lan-guage to transform reality.

– Julia Penelope, Speaking Freely

Is there a “language of success” (Mindell, 2001)? Aglance at the business section of one’s local bookstoresuggests that the answer to this question is a deWnitive

� This research was supported, in part, through the State Farm Doc-toral Dissertation in Business Award and the University of North Car-olina’s Claude and Eleanor George Fund for Teaching and Learning. Iam indebted to Margaret Neale and Larissa Tiedens for their adviceand support throughout this project, and to JeV Edwards for numer-ous invaluable conversations about this work. I am also grateful to Jer-ald Greenberg, action editor, three anonymous reviewers, and PeterKim, Jennifer Overbeck, and Maia Young for their detailed and in-sightful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

* Fax: +1 919 962 4425.E-mail address: [email protected]

0749-5978/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.01.004

yes. The popular press is replete with books oVering stra-tegic prescriptions for how to use language to climb thecorporate ladder. Interested readers can learn “powerwords” (GriYn, 1998), master the art of “power talking”(Walther, 2000), and even discover how to “sound like aleader” (Toogood, 1995). The central tenet unifyingthese works is that one’s communication style aVectssubsequent status attainment at work and in life: Indi-viduals who speak assertively are more likely to gethired, be promoted, and command respect from othersthan individuals who speak in a tentative, uncertainmanner.

This claim has received substantial empirical support.Psychologists and organizational scientists alike havedocumented a consistent relationship between speechstyles and subsequent status attainment. Even holdingmessage content constant, stylistic features of a message,such as hesitations (e.g., “well,” “um”), tag questions(e.g., “That’s interesting, don’t you think?”), hedges

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244 A.R. Fragale / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101 (2006) 243–261

(e.g., “kinda,” “sort of”), disclaimers (e.g., “This may bea bad idea, butƒ”), intensiWers (e.g., “really,” “very”)and formal addresses (e.g., “yes, sir”), inXuence how aspeaker is evaluated. Individuals who speak assertively,by avoiding these tentative speech markers, are judgedby observers as more likely to be hired, promoted, andsupported by superiors (Gallois, Callan, & Palmer, 1992;Parton, Siltanen, Hosman, & Langenderfer, 2002; Wiley& Eskilson, 1985; see also Ng & Bradac, 1993 for areview), and are more inXuential (Erickson, Lind, John-son, & O’Barr, 1978) than individuals who include thesespeech characteristics. These relationships are consid-ered so robust that speech styles have been namedaccording to their consequences: “Powerless” speech is aspeech style deWned by the presence of the abovemen-tioned linguistic markers, whereas “powerful” speech isdeWned by the absence of these markers (Erickson et al.,1978; see also LakoV, 1975).

Although this relationship between powerful speechand subsequent status attainment seems valid on its face,these Wndings raise an important practical and theoreti-cal question that has not been adequately addressed inprior research: Is powerless speech truly as powerless asit seems? Or, under certain circumstances, can powerlessspeech actually be more eVective for obtaining promo-tions and prestige than powerful speech? The Wrst goalof this paper is to answer this question. SpeciWcally, Iexamine whether one particular group-level factor, thelevel of interdependence in a task group, aVects the rela-tionship between speech styles and status attainment. Indoing so, I adopt a deWnition of status used in priorresearch: Status is the extent to which an individual in agroup is seen as prominent, respected, and inXuential byother group members (Anderson, John, Keltner, &Kring, 2001). This deWnition implies that status positionsare socially determined; one can only possess as muchstatus as others are willing to grant. In this sense, statusis conferred to one individual by another individual (orgroup of individuals). The studies in this paper investi-gate individuals’ decisions about how much status toconfer to an actor in an organizational context.

Elucidating the eVects of powerless speech on statusconferral has obvious prescriptive implications for howindividuals should communicate to gain status. However,investigating the relationship between speech styles andstatus conferral has broader theoretical implications aswell. The second goal of this paper is to gain some insightinto the process underlying status conferral judgments.The status beneWts of using powerless speech, if any,depend on how individuals make their status conferraldecisions. Two theoretical perspectives oVer conXictingviews on how status conferral decisions are made, andconsequently lead to diVerent predictions about whetherpowerless speech should ever be status enhancing. Oneperspective, which I refer to as the Wxed criteria perspec-tive, is derived from research on status schemas (e.g., Con-

way, Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, &Xu, 2002; Fiske, Xu, Cuddy, & Glick, 1999) and suggeststhat powerful speech should lead to greater status confer-ral than powerless speech, independent of the context inquestion. The other perspective, which I term the contin-gent criteria perspective, is based on theories of statuscharacteristics (e.g., Berger, Cohen, & Zelditch, 1972; Ber-ger, Conner, & Fisek, 1974) and implies that both power-ful and powerless speech can be status enhancing,depending on the speciWc organizational context. Thestudies presented in this paper are designed to test thevalidity of these two theoretical perspectives.

How do speech styles aVect status?

It is surprising that a behavior as subtle and poten-tially meaningless as one’s speech style should aVectsomething as consequential as one’s ability to get pro-moted or be respected. Yet, individuals often make dis-positional inferences about an actor on the basisobservable behaviors (e.g., Ross, 1977), and these dispo-sitional attributions, in turn, aVect how the actor is eval-uated. A host of behavioral cues—speech styles (e.g.,Erickson et al., 1978; Parton et al., 2002; Wiley & Eskil-son, 1985), speech rates (e.g., Brown, Strong, & Rencher,1973), vocal tones (e.g., Ridgeway, 1987), patterns of eyecontact (e.g., Washburn & Hakel, 1973), and emotionalexpressions (Tiedens, 2001)—have been shown to inXu-ence status positions because they inXuence perceptionsof the actor’s personality traits.

Work in the area of person perception has demon-strated that individuals organize their perceptions of oth-ers around two fundamental trait dimensions (Asch, 1946;Bakan, 1966; Carson, 1969; Fiske et al., 2002; Kiesler,1983; Leary, 1957; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986; Wiggins, 1979).Bakan (1966) referred to these dimensions as agency, orcharacteristics associated with self-assertion and masteryof one’s environment, such as ambition, dominance, andindependence, and communality, or characteristics associ-ated with selXessness and nurturance, such as warmth, sin-cerity, and tolerance. Individuals who use powerful speechare rated by observers as more competent, intelligent, andstrong (i.e., agentic) than individuals who use powerlessspeech (Carli, 1990; Erickson et al., 1978; Parton et al.,2002; Siegler & Siegler, 1976; see also Ng & Bradac, 1993for a review). However, there is some evidence to suggestthat individuals who use a powerless speech style areviewed as nicer, more likeable and good-natured (i.e.,communal) than those who use a powerful speech style(Lee, 1999; Parton et al., 2002).

Even though agency and communality may both beviewed as socially desirable traits for individuals to pos-sess, evidence to date suggests that only the agencydimension is used in making status conferral judgments.That is, when deciding whether to hire, promote, or

A.R. Fragale / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101 (2006) 243–261 245

support an actor, individuals use their impressions of theactor’s intelligence, ambition, and dominance to informtheir judgments, but not their evaluations of the actor’swarmth, sincerity, or agreeableness. For example, indi-viduals who express anger are viewed as more agentic,and consequently are conferred more status, than indi-viduals who express sadness, even though sadnessexpressers are rated as more communal (Tiedens, 2001).Consistent with these Wndings, Wiley and Eskilson(1985) found that the Wve traits individuals believe to bemost important in determining an individual’s qualiWca-tions for a leadership position were all characteristics ofagency: responsible, intelligent, qualiWed, hardworking,and organized. Furthermore, the importance of agencyas a basis for status conferral judgments has been con-veyed through the names of the trait dimensions them-selves: Theories of person perception often refer to theagency and communality dimensions as status and love,respectively (e.g., Carson, 1969; Kiesler, 1983; Leary,1957; Wiggins, 1979).

However, it is possible that attributions of commu-nality may play a role in individuals’ status conferraldecisions as well. The Wxed and contingent criteria per-spectives diVer in their implications about processunderlying status conferral judgments, and hence lead todiVerent predictions about the relative importance ofagency and communality in individuals’ status conferraldecisions. The Wxed criteria perspective (e.g., Conwayet al., 1996; Fiske et al., 1999, 2002) suggests that agencyshould be weighted more heavily than communality instatus conferral judgments across contexts. In otherwords, the criteria on which status conferral judgmentsare based (i.e., agency) should remain Wxed acrossgroups. In contrast, the contingent criteria perspective(e.g., Berger et al., 1972, 1974) implies that status confer-ral decisions should be contingent on the group context:In some groups or organizations, agency may beweighted more heavily than communality in status con-ferral judgments, but the opposite may be true in othergroups. Which of these two perspectives most ade-quately accounts for individuals’ status conferral judg-ments should aVect the consequences of powerlessspeech. The status conferral beneWts of powerless speechdepend on whether, and the extent to which, attributionsof communality are weighted in status conferral judg-ments.

Potential processes underlying status conferral decisions

Fixed criteria perspectiveSocial psychologists have investigated the schemas, or

mental representations, that individuals hold aboutmembers of high and low status groups. Individuals havebeen shown to hold distinct schemas about high and lowstatus others: Members of high status groups (e.g., busi-ness professionals, rich people) are judged by others to

be highly agentic, but not particularly communal,whereas members of low status groups (e.g., housewives,the elderly) are perceived to be highly communal, butnot particularly agentic (Conway et al., 1996; Fiske et al.,1999, 2002).1 Evidence suggests that these status schemasare widely held and applied broadly, regardless of theparticular group or individual in question. For example,observers apply these schemas to individuals based onthe individuals’ occupations (e.g., doctors vs. nurses;Conway et al., 1996), their social categories (e.g., Asians,Blacks, welfare recipients, feminists; Fiske et al., 1999,2002), and even apply these schemas when making judg-ments about members of Wctional groups (Conway et al.,1996).

These Wndings suggest that individuals may base sta-tus conferral judgments on the extent to which actorsconform to these well-developed high and low statusschemas. Individuals perceive high status persons to behighly agentic and view agency as a high status charac-teristic, so when they observe a person that conveysagentic traits they conclude that this person should behigh status (i.e., they confer status to that individual).Similarly, individuals perceive low status others to behighly communal and view communality as a lesser val-ued, low-status characteristic, so when they observe anindividual that conveys communal traits, they concludethat the individual should be low status, and confer lessstatus to that individual.

If individuals rely on these situationally invariantschemas when making status conferral decisions, thisimplies the criteria used in making status judgmentsshould remain Wxed across situations: Observers shouldbase status conferral decisions on perceptions of agency,regardless of the organizational, cultural, or social con-text. Extending this logic to speech styles, powerfulspeech should always result in greater status conferredto the speaker than powerless speech, since the formerconveys a higher level of agency than the latter.

Contingent criteria perspectiveStatus characteristics theory (also referred to as

expectation states theory, Berger et al., 1972, 1974, or

1 Conway et al. (1996) suggest that the content of these high and lowstatus schemas may develop as a result of the correspondence bias(Gilbert & Malone, 1995), whereby observers make dispositional infer-ences about an actor based on the actor’s observable behaviors. Forexample, high status individuals may talk more and dominate conver-sations more than low status individuals, not necessarily because of in-herent diVerences between the two groups, but simply because highstatus individuals are asked for advice, knowledge, and opinions morefrequently than low status individuals. Yet, observers may not recog-nize these situational diVerences, and conclude that high status individ-uals actually are more aggressive, outgoing, intelligent, etc. (i.e., highlyagentic) than low status individuals, but also more rude and argumen-tative (i.e., not very communal). Similarly, observers may interpret thereticence of low status individuals to reXect politeness and respectful-ness (i.e., high communality), but also submissiveness (i.e., low agency).


status generalization, Webster & Driskell, 1978) suggeststhat status is conferred to an actor based on others’assessments of the actor’s expected performance on thetask at hand: Individuals are conferred high status whenthey are expected to perform well on the given task, andconferred lower status when they are expected to per-form poorly. Proponents of this perspective have actu-ally used this argument to explain why status conferraljudgments should be relatively similar across situations(e.g., Ridgeway, 1987; see also Webster & Driskell, 1978):Characteristics of agency, such as assertiveness and con-Wdence, facilitate successful performance in most taskgroups, so behaviors that convey a high level of agency,such as powerful speech, should result in status confer-ral, regardless of the speciWc group in question.

However, by deWning status in terms of expected per-formance, this theoretical framework suggests that statusconferral decisions may actually be more context-depen-dent than the original researchers assumed. If expectationsof performance are what individuals rely on when makingtheir status conferral decisions, then any trait or attributethat is seen as facilitating performance should result instatus conferral. To the extent that the traits or attributesassociated with successful performance change acrossgroups or situations, this implies that the criteria for statusconferral decisions should change as well. In other words,behaviors that convey high agency, such as powerfulspeech, should lead to status conferral in situations whereagency is viewed as a critical determinant of one’s taskperformance, but behaviors such as powerless speech, thatconvey high communality, should lead to status conferralin situations where communality is indicative of successfulperformance.

Distinguishing between these perspectivesCurrent empirical evidence is not suYcient to deter-

mine which of these two perspectives best describes theprocess underlying individuals’ status conferral deci-sions, since both the Wxed and contingent perspectivescan be used to explain the previously observed positiverelationship between perceptions of agency and statusconferral. To distinguish between these perspectives, it isnecessary to examine status conferral decisions acrossgroup contexts. Although both theories predict thatassessments of agency may serve as the basis for statusconferral judgments, they diVer in their predictionsabout whether this relationship generalizes acrossgroups. In this paper, I focus on one group-level factor,task interdependence, which may provide insight intowhich of these processes most adequately accounts forstatus conferral judgments.

Task interdependence

The level of task interdependence in a group is theextent to which group members need to collaborate,

coordinate, or interact with others to complete theirassigned tasks (Thompson, 1967; Wageman, 1995). Thelevel of task interdependence in a group can be aVectedby cultural values of the group, which result in normsabout how work should be completed (e.g., Shea &Guzzo, 1989; Wageman, 1995), or by features of the taskitself, which either require or prohibit collective action(Thompson, 1967). Although all task groups or organi-zations, by deWnition, necessitate some degree of interde-pendence among members, there is substantial variationamong groups in the level of interdependence requiredfor task completion (Wageman, 1995). In general, thegreater the level of task interdependence in a group, thegreater the need for, and expectation of, collective eVortand coordination among group members (March &Simon, 1958; Thompson, 1967).

The level of task interdependence in a group mayaVect the criteria that individuals use when evaluatinggroup members’ performance. When interdependence islow, and individuals work primarily independently,characteristics of agency may be viewed as particularlyimportant predictors of a group member’s performance.High agency is associated with the ability to think inde-pendently, having conWdence in one’s own views, and amotivation for achievement, which are all characteristicsthat should facilitate an individual’s performance whenworking alone. In comparison, characteristics of com-munality, which indicate how an individual relates toand interacts with others, may be viewed as less criticalfor completing work in low interdependence settings,since interaction with others, by deWnition, is relativelylow. Thus, in low interdependence groups, individualsmay place greater weight on assessments of a groupmember’s agency than on communality when judgingthe group member’s expected performance.

In contrast, characteristics of communality may beviewed as more predictive of group members’ perfor-mance than characteristics of agency when task interde-pendence is high. High communality is associated withhigh levels of concern for others, a willingness to becooperative, and a desire for aYliation, which are allcharacteristics that should facilitate an individual’s per-formance when working collaboratively. At the sametime, characteristics of agency may be viewed as less pre-dictive of performance in highly interdependent groups,since the collaborative nature of these groups impliesthat members can pool their collective talents and relymore on the abilities of the group as a whole rather thanon the abilities of any one member: An individual thatexhibits relatively low levels of agentic traits (such asdominance, independence, and competitiveness) maystill be viewed as a star performer in a highly interdepen-dent group if this individual demonstrates an ability torelate to and work with others. Furthermore, agencymay sometimes be viewed as a liability in high interde-pendence groups, since these individuals may be


perceived as preferring and pursuing individual accom-plishments (e.g., personal recognition and achievements)at the expense of group accomplishments (e.g., groupperformance; Ridgeway, 1982). Together, these forcesimply that perceptions of communality may inXuenceexpectations of successful performance to a greaterdegree than perceptions of agency in high interdepen-dence groups.

The Wxed and contingent criteria perspectives makediVerent predictions about whether the level of taskinterdependence in a group should aVect status conferraldecisions. On one hand, a reliance on Wxed criteriaimplies that diVerences in task interdependence shouldnot aVect status conferral judgments. This leads to thefollowing hypotheses derived from the Wxed criteria per-spective:

Hypothesis 1. In both high and low interdependencegroups, speakers using a powerful speech style will beconferred more status than speakers using a powerlessspeech style.

Hypothesis 2. In both high and low interdependencegroups, individuals will weight assessments of an actor’sagency more than assessments of the actor’s communal-ity when making status conferral judgments.

On the other hand, the contingent criteria perspectivepredicts that status conferral decisions should change asa function of the level of interdependence in a group, tothe extent that task interdependence aVects the deWni-tion of successful performance. Thus, the contingent cri-teria perspective leads to the following predictions:

Hypothesis 3a. In low interdependence groups, speakersusing a powerful speech style will be conferred more sta-tus than speakers using a powerless speech style.

Hypothesis 3b. In high interdependence groups, speakersusing a powerless speech style will be conferred morestatus than speakers using a powerful speech style.

Hypothesis 4a. In low interdependence groups, individu-als will weight assessments of an actor’s agency morethan assessments of the actor’s communality when mak-ing status conferral judgments.

Hypothesis 4b. In high interdependence groups, individ-uals will weight assessments of an actor’s communalitymore than assessments of the actor’s agency when mak-ing status conferral judgments.

Study 1

The objective of Study 1 was to investigate whether thelevel of task interdependence in a group would moderatethe relationship between speech styles and status confer-ral. In this experimental paradigm, participants interacted

in an initial task with an individual that used either a pow-erful or powerless speech style and then made judgmentsabout the amount of status to confer to their partner in asubsequent task group, which manipulated the level oftask interdependence required. Status conferral wasassessed in two ways in this study. First, participants madeevaluations of how much status and respect the individualshould have in the task group. Second, prior research haddemonstrated that status is often conferred by endowingindividuals with formal titles that signify their high statusposition (e.g., leader, president, and captain; Tiedens,2001). Thus, status conferral was also assessed throughparticipants’ willingness to recommend the individual forthe formal position of “group leader.”

Method

ParticipantsOne-hundred-twenty-four individuals (51 males, 64

females, and 9 unidentiWed) aYliated with a west-coastuniversity participated in this study in exchange for apayment of $15. Participants were recruited from anelectronic mailing list at the university that advertisesbehavioral studies to university members that haveexpressed an interest in participating in them.

Materials and procedureBetween 6 and 12 individuals participated in each

experimental session. As participants arrived, they wereseated in one of two laboratory rooms, each at individ-ual study carrels with computer terminals. The experi-menter informed participants that they would beparticipating in two decision-making tasks, each withother participants in the experimental session. The Wrstexercise was described as a computer-mediated problem-solving task in which participants would interact with apartner via a computer. In actuality, participants did notinteract with a partner; rather, they “conversed” with ascripted computer program. This exercise was designedto manipulate the speech style of the “partner.” In thepowerless condition, the partner used hedges, hesita-tions, disclaimers, formal addresses, and tag questions,whereas in the powerful condition, the partner did notuse these tentative speech patterns. After completing theWrst task, participants were given instructions for a sec-ond task, described as a 4-person group task, in whichtask interdependence was manipulated. In actuality,there was no second team task; this aspect of the coverstory was included to create a context for the status con-ferral measures of interest in this study, participants’evaluations of their “partner” from the Wrst task.

Experimental design. The design of this study was a 2(Task 1 Partner Speech Style: Powerful vs. Powerless)£2(Task 2 Interdependence: High vs. Low) between-subjectsfactorial design.


Task 1: The desert survival problem. After completingthe general instructions, the experimenter provided spe-ciWc instructions for the Wrst problem-solving exercise.This exercise was a computer-mediated version of theDesert Survival Problem (DSP; LaVerty & Eady, 1974)in which participants rank ordered 12 items (e.g., a mir-ror, a map, two raincoats) in terms of importance forsurvival in a desert.2 First, participants individuallymade initial rankings of the 12 items. Participants werethen asked to engage in a computer-mediated discussionabout their initial item rankings with another individual,described as another participant seated in the other com-puter lab. The experimenter informed participants thatthere was a correct answer to the DSP and that theywould have an opportunity to revise their initial rank-ings after the computer-mediated discussion, so the part-ner discussion task would be an opportunity to gatherinformation that could help participants improve upontheir initial answers.

A web-based computer program (adapted fromShechtman, 2002) was used to facilitate this computer-mediated discussion. The program was designed to cre-ate the impression that the participant was interactingwith an actual partner. The Wrst screen of the programprompted participants to enter their initial rankings ofthe 12 desert survival items and, upon completion, toclick a “send” button to transmit their rankings to theirpartner. After a brief delay, designed to convey theimpression that the discussion partner was typing his orher rankings, the interface displayed both the partici-pant’s rankings and the partner’s rankings. In actuality,the partner’s rankings were a systematic transformationof the participant’s rankings such that (a) the participantand partner disagreed on the rankings for almost all ofthe items and (b) the total magnitude of the disagree-ment was constant across all participants.

The program then prompted participants to type ashort comment explaining their rationale for their rank-ing of the Xashlight and to press “send” when they wereready to transmit the statement to the partner. The part-ner then responded with an analogous rational about theXashlight and a recommendation about how the partici-pant should revise his or her initial ranking of this item.These computer-generated responses were derived froma table based on whether the partner ranking for thatitem was higher or lower than the participant’s, as wellas the partner’s speech condition (powerful or power-less). To create the impression that a partner was actu-ally typing responses, all responses from the partnerwere delayed by a half second per word. After receiving

2 The original Desert Survival Problem required participants to rank15 items. Three items from the original 15-item list, a red and whiteparachute, a pair of sunglasses, and a loaded .45 caliber pistol, were notincluded in this version of the exercise. This modiWcation was made toshorten the amount of time participants spent on Task 1.

the partner’s rational regarding the Xashlight, the pro-cess of sending and receiving rationales about item rank-ings was then repeated for the remaining 11 items.

Although the content of the partner responses washeld constant across conditions, the style of theresponses diVered. For example, in the powerful speechcondition, one statement by the partner read: “The Xash-light needs to be rated higher. It is the only reliable nightsignaling device; also, the reXector and lens could beused to start a Wre, which is another way to signal forhelp. Put it higher.” In the powerless speech condition,the same statement suggesting that the Xashlight shouldbe rated higher read: “Do you think the Xashlight shouldmaybe be rated higher? It may be a pretty reliable nightsignaling device. Also, maybe the reXector and lens couldbe used to start a Wre, which could possibly be anotherway to signal for help”.3

After participants sent and received messages aboutall 12 items, they were given an opportunity to revisetheir initial rankings of these items and then completed a“Communication Style Questionnaire.” This question-naire asked participants to rate aspects of their partner’scommunication style, including their assertiveness andfriendliness. These two items served as manipulationchecks for the speech style manipulation.

Task 2: 4-person group task. After completing this ques-tionnaire, participants were given general instructionsabout the second task. Participants were told that theywould be formed into 4-person groups, and that eachgroup would have the task of calculating merit increasesfor employees in an organization (referred to as the“performance appraisal task”). This task was selectedbecause it has been used in prior studies of task interde-pendence (Saavedra, Earley, & Van Dyne, 1993). Thedescription of the task manipulated the level of taskinterdependence. In the low task interdependence condi-tion, participants read the following instructions (modi-Wcations for the high interdependence condition appearin parentheses):

In the performance appraisal task, 4-person groups willrate employees of an organization on several factors andthen recommend merit increases for each employee. Toreach a merit recommendation for an employee, thereare a series of steps that must be completed. To complete

3 In the studies presented in this paper, speech styles were manipulat-ed through written, rather than oral, communication. Erickson et al.(1978) manipulated presentation style (written vs. oral) in their re-search on the consequences of powerful and powerless speech. Theseresearchers found that observers’ inferences about a speaker dependedon the speech style (powerful vs. powerless), but not on the mode ofpresentation. Consequently, subsequent research has manipulatedspeech style through either written or oral presentation. For example,Parton et al. (2002) used audiotapes, whereas Wiley and Eskilson(1985) and Hosman (1989) both used written transcripts.


these steps and successfully accomplish the performanceappraisal task, the 4 members of the rating team mustwork independently (collectively). Each member of theteam will be given their own set of employees to rate (aspeciWc role to perform), so that each group member willcomplete all (some, but not all) of the steps required toproduce a complete merit recommendation. Given thisdivision of labor, members of the performance appraisalteam will be highly independent of (dependent on) eachother. All members need to be able to work on their own(together) if the task is to be completed successfully.

To reinforce the manipulations, and to check thatparticipants attended to them, two questions were pre-sented below the task instructions: Participants indi-cated the extent to which group members needed tocollaborate and coordinate with others to complete theirtask and the extent to which group members would berequired to complete the task independently. Both ques-tions were presented on 7-point scales (1D not at all;7Da great deal).

Partner evaluation questionnaire. The main dependentmeasure of interest in this study was participants’ evalu-ations of the leadership potential of their partner fromthe Wrst task. After receiving the general instructions forthe second task, participants were informed that each ofthe 4-person task groups would have a designatedleader, and to choose those leaders, the experimenterwanted to solicit each participant’s opinion about thepartner they worked with in the Wrst task. Participantsanswered three questions about how much status to con-fer to their partner in the 4-person group: Participantsindicated the extent to which they would recommendtheir partner to be the leader in the 4-person group, howmuch status they thought their partner should have inthe task group, and how much respect their partnershould receive from other members of the task group.These questions were assessed on 7-point scales (1Dnotat all; 7Da great deal) and were averaged to create acomposite measure of status conferral (�D .76). Addi-tionally, participants indicated the extent to which theythought their partner had the ability to perform well inthe group (assessed on a 7-point scale anchored by1Dnot at all and 7D very much). This question served asa measure of the partner’s expected performance in theTask 2 group.

After completing this questionnaire, the experimenterinformed participants that there was no second task andthe experiment was Wnished. Participants were fullydebriefed and paid for their participation.

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations for the depen-dent measures are reported in Table 1. The data from 12

participants were excluded because they suspected thattheir Task 1 conversation partner was actually a com-puter program.4 Data from one additional participantwere excluded because the participant failed to followinstructions. Thus, all reported analyses are based on theremaining 111 participants.

Manipulation checksSpeech style. Participants in the powerful speech condi-tion (coded as 1) rated their partner’s communicationstyle as signiWcantly more assertive (MD 6.3) than par-ticipants in the powerless speech condition (coded as ¡1;MD 4.6), bD .89, t (109)D7.32, p < .001. Participants inthe powerless speech condition rated their partner’scommunication style as signiWcantly more friendly(MD 4.8) than participants in the powerful speech con-dition (MD3.1), bD¡.84, t (109)D¡6.50, p < .001.

Task interdependence. Participants in the low task inter-dependence condition (coded as ¡1) indicated that theirgroup members would need to work more independentlyto complete their assigned task (MD6.4) than did partic-ipants in the high task interdependence condition (codedas 1; MD3.5), bD¡1.4, t (109)D¡9.73, p < .001. Con-versely, participants in the high task interdependencecondition indicated that their 4-person group wouldrequire a higher level of collaboration and coordinationto complete their assigned task (MD6.3) than did partic-ipants in the low task interdependence condition(MD 2.5), bD1.9, t (109)D13.76, p < .001.

4 These suspicious participants were roughly evenly distributedacross all conditions of the study. To determine whether participantssuspected they were not interacting with an actual partner, I examinedthe transcripts of their desert survival discussion (which were recordedby the web-based discussion program) and their questionnaire re-sponses (which provided a space for participants to justify their ratingof their partner’s leadership potential). Participants were coded as sus-picious if they noted, in either or both of these places, that they thoughttheir partner was not real.

Table 1Means, standard deviations, and correlations of dependent measures inStudies 1 and 2

Note. Study 1 N D 111, Study 2 N D 56.¤ p < .05.

¤¤ p < .01.¤¤¤ p < .001.

Mean SD 1 2 3

Study 11. Status conferral 4.42 1.20 —2. Expected performance 5.34 1.28 .52¤¤¤ —

Study 21. Status conferral 4.18 1.17 —2. Perceived agency 4.79 .93 .43¤¤¤ —3. Perceived communality 4.35 .92 .34¤¤ ¡.32¤ —


Status conferral judgmentsI regressed status conferral on speech style, task interde-

pendence, and the interaction between the two. The resultsof this analysis can be seen in Table 2, Regression 2. Therewas a marginally signiWcant main eVect of task interdepen-dence (MlowD4.6, MhighD4.2, bD¡.20, t(107)D¡1.85,pD .067). However, this main eVect was qualiWed by a sig-niWcant interaction between the partner’s Task 1 speechstyle and the level of task interdependence in the Task 2group (bD¡.28, t(107)D¡2.50, pD .014). As may be seenin Fig. 1, when task interdependence was low, participantswhose partner used a powerful speech style thought thattheir partner should be conferred more status in the Task 2group than did participants whose partner used a power-less speech style, t(107)D1.81, pD .073. However, whentask interdependence was high, participants that interactedwith a powerless speaker in Task 1 thought their partnershould be conferred more status in the second task groupthan did participants that interacted with a powerfulspeaker, t(107)D1.72, pD .089. Thus, Hypotheses 3a and3b, predicting an interaction between speech style andinterdependence, were supported, but Hypothesis 1, pre-dicting a main eVect for powerful speech, was not.

Performance expectationsThe above Wndings provide support for the contingent

criteria perspective, which suggests that the criteria for sta-tus judgments in a group should change as the criteria forsuccessful performance changes across groups. To deter-mine whether the partner’s speech style in Task 1 aVectedparticipants’ expectations of the partner’s performance inTask 2, I regressed expected performance on speech style,task interdependence, and the interaction between the two(see Table 2, Regression 6). This analysis revealed only asigniWcant interaction between speech style and task inter-

dependence (bD¡.32, t(107)D¡2.65, pD .009). As may beseen in Fig. 2, when Task 2 was described as a low interde-pendence task, participants that interacted with a powerfulspeaker in Task 1 thought that their partner would per-

Fig. 1. Study 1: Status conferral as a function of partner’s Task 1speech style and Task 2 interdependence.

Fig. 2. Study 1: Performance expectations as a function of partner’sTask 1 speech style and Task 2 interdependence.

Table 2Study 1: OLS regressions to predict status conferral and expected performance

Note. N D 111. For speech style, powerful speech was coded 1 and powerless speech was coded ¡1. For task interdependence, low interdependencewas coded ¡1 and high interdependence was coded 1. Continuous independent measures were mean-centered before conducting analyses, and thesemean-centered variables were used in computing the interaction terms between continuous and categorical predictors. Regression models are pre-sented vertically; numbers across the top of the table in parentheses signify diVerent regression models, and the labels across the top of the table sig-nify the dependent measure for the regressions in the columns below. Entries in the columns represent unstandardized regression coeYcients.

9 p < .10.¤ p < .05.

¤¤ p < .01.¤¤¤ p < .001.

Measures Status conferral Expected performance

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Constant 4.42¤¤¤ 4.41¤¤¤ 4.42¤¤¤ 4.42¤¤¤ 5.34¤¤¤ 5.33¤¤¤

Speech style .01 .01 .01 .02 ¡.01 ¡.01Task interdependence ¡.219 ¡.209 ¡.179 ¡.179 ¡.09 ¡.08Speech £ interdependence ¡.28¤ ¡.13 ¡.13 ¡.32¤¤

Expected performance .46¤¤¤ .46¤¤¤

Performance£ interdependence .02R2 .03 .08 .31 .31 .01 .07�R2 .05¤ .23¤¤¤ .00 .06¤¤


form better in the Task 2 group than did participants thatinteracted with a powerless speaker, t(107)D1.83, pD .069.However, when Task 2 was described as a high interdepen-dence task, participants that interacted with a powerlessspeaker thought their partner would perform better on thesecond task than did participants that interacted with apowerful speaker, t(107)D1.92, pD .058.

The contingent criteria perspective also implies thatthe eVects of an individual’s speech style on status con-ferral judgments should be mediated by expectations ofthe individual’s performance in the group: an individ-ual’s speech style provides a cue to how the individualwill perform in a group, the these performance expecta-tions, in turn, inXuence how much status the individualshould be conferred. Following the procedures recom-mended by Baron and Kenny (1986) and Edwards andLambert (2004), I regressed status conferral on the inde-pendent variable (speech style), the moderator (taskinterdependence), the interaction between the indepen-dent variable and the moderator, the proposed mediator(expected performance), and the interaction of the medi-ator and the moderator (see Table 2, Regression 4).5

5 To determine whether the mediator (expected performance) andthe dependent measure (status conferral) were distinct constructs, Iconducted a two-factor conWrmatory factor analysis in which the fac-tors were performance and status conferral, which had one and threeitems, respectively. For performance, the item loading and measure-ment error variance of the single item were Wxed to reXect the assumedreliability of the item (Hayduk, 1987), and for status conferral, the itemloadings and measurement error variance were freely estimated. Theseanalyses revealed that, if the reliability of the single performance itemwas assumed to be .65 or higher (a reasonable assumption—see Wa-nous & Hudy, 2001; Wanous, Reichers, & Hudy, 1997 for discussionsof the reliability of single-item measures), the performance and statusconferral measures achieved discriminant validity, as indicated by afactor correlation whose 95% conWdence interval excluded unity (Ba-gozzi & Phillips, 1982).

Expected performance signiWcantly predicted status con-ferral (bD .46, t (105)D 5.78, p < .001) and, comparingthis model to Regression 2, the interaction betweenspeech style and task interdependence was no longer sig-niWcant when expected performance was added into themodel (bD¡.13, t (105)D 1.31, n.s.). To interpret theseeVects, I then conducted a moderated path analysis (seeFig. 3) to determine the speciWc form of mediation inquestion by examining simple paths (or slopes) at eachlevel of the moderator variable (Edwards & Lambert,2004). The Wrst thing to note is that speech styles exertedsigniWcant, yet opposite, eVects on expected performanceacross levels of the moderator variable (task interdepen-dence). When task interdependence was low, powerfulspeech was associated with higher performance expecta-tions, whereas when interdependence was high, powerfulspeech was associated with lower performance expecta-tions. Furthermore, the path from the mediator(expected performance) to the dependent variable (sta-tus conferral) was statistically signiWcant in both highand low interdependence conditions, and the magnitudeof this path did not diVer across levels of the moderator.

To test for mediation, I then used a bootstrap proce-dure to test the magnitude of the indirect eVect (the eVectof speech style on status conferral through the mediator,expected performance) at each level of the moderatorvariable. Mediation is indicated when the size of an indi-rect eVect diVers signiWcantly from zero (Shrout & Bol-ger, 2002). I implemented the bootstrap by drawing 1000random samples with replacement from the full sample(Efron & Tibshirani, 1993; Stine, 1989). The indirecteVect was computed using each of these bootstrap sam-ples, and based on these results, I constructed bias-cor-rected conWdence intervals to ascertain whether theindirect eVect diVered signiWcantly from zero (see MacK-innon, Lockwood, & Williams, 2004). In the low interde-

Fig. 3. Study 1: Simple paths at each level of the moderator variable (task interdependence). Note. N D 111. For speech style, powerful speech wascoded 1 and powerless speech was coded ¡1. Figure entries are unstandardized path coeYcients. Paths with underlined coeYcients are signiWcantlydiVerent (p < .05) across levels of the moderator variable. +p < .10, *p < .05, ***p < .001.

Low Task Interdependence

High Task Interdependence

-.11

.48***-.33*

SpeechStyle

ExpectedPerformance

.15

.44*** .31+

SpeechStyle

ExpectedPerformance

Status Conferral

Status Conferral


pendence condition, the indirect eVect from the originaldata set was 0.14 (0.31¤ 0.44), and the 90% conWdenceinterval for this eVect excluded zero (0.01, 0.31), indicat-ing a marginally signiWcant indirect eVect in the lowinterdependence condition. In the high interdependencecondition, the indirect eVect from the original data setwas ¡0.16 (¡0.33¤ 0.48), and the 95% conWdence inter-val excluded zero (¡0.37, ¡0.02), indicating a signiWcantindirect eVect in the high interdependence condition.Collectively, these Wndings support the conclusion thatexpected performance mediated the relationshipbetween speech styles and status conferral in both thelow and high interdependence conditions.

Discussion

The Wndings of Study 1 extend our current under-standing of status conferral judgments in several ways.First, these Wndings suggest that behaviors that havebeen traditionally deemed ineVective for enhancing one’sstatus position may not necessarily be so. When anupcoming task necessitated independent work, theresults replicated prior research: Participants were morelikely to recommend their partner for a leadership posi-tion in the group, and they thought the partner shouldreceive more status and respect in the group, when thepartner used a powerful speech style than when the part-ner used a powerless speech style. However, this patternreversed when the task necessitated interdependentwork, and greater status was conferred to the partnerwhen the partner used a powerless speech style. To date,little value has been attributed to powerless speech, andconventional wisdom generally counsels against the useof such tentative speech patterns. On the surface, charac-teristics of powerless speech, such as hesitations, qualiW-ers, and disclaimers, seem to convey only negativemessages about the speaker, such as the speaker’s lack ofcertainty (i.e., low agency). However, these negative attri-butions may be oVset by attributing characteristics ofcommunality to the speaker, and consequently behaviorssuch as powerless speech may be status-enhancingin situations where communality is valued for perfor-mance. Thus, this study suggests that the relationshipbetween an individual’s verbal and nonverbal cues andtheir conferred level of status may be more complex thanpreviously thought.

Second, this study provides greater insight into theprocess underlying status conferral decisions. Consistentwith the predictions derived from the contingent criteriaperspective, the eVects of speech styles on status confer-ral judgments depended on the level of task interdepen-dence in the group. In further support of this perspective,these eVects were mediated by expectations of the part-ner’s likely performance. In contrast, the Wxed criteriaperspective, predicting that powerful speech would leadto greater status conferral than powerless speech regard-

less of the level of interdependence, was not empiricallysupported. Thus, this study provides a more conclusivetest of the process underlying status judgments thanthose conducted in prior empirical research.

Study 2

The objectives of Study 2 were both to replicate thepattern of results obtained in Study 1 and to explore therole of agency and communality in individuals’ statusconferral decisions. In support of the contingent criteriaperspective, Study 1 demonstrated that the status bene-Wts of powerful versus powerless speech depended on thelevel of task interdependence in a group. This perspec-tive also predicts these eVects are due to the diVerentialweighting of agency and communality in status judg-ments across groups that vary in task interdependence(Hypotheses 4a and 4b): In low interdependence groups,individuals should weight agency more than communal-ity as a basis for status conferral judgments, whereas inhigh interdependence groups, individuals should weightcommunality more than agency. To explore this possibil-ity, participants in Study 2 were asked to rate an actoron several agentic and communal traits.

Another objective of Study 2 was to replicate Study1’s pattern of results using a more ecologically validmanipulation of task interdependence. In Study 1, par-ticipants were explicitly instructed to use either an inde-pendent or interdependent process in Task 2. In reality,however, individuals do not always receive such explicitinstructions about how a task should be completed.Rather, the increasing prevalence of self-managed workteams implies that organizational members are oftengiven tasks to complete, and left to their own devices todetermine the appropriate processes (Wageman, 1995).In such cases, one important factor that is likely to aVectthis process decision is the culture of the group or orga-nization. Organizational culture has been conceptualizedas a form of social control; a way to communicate toorganizational members about the values and normsthey are expected to uphold (O’Reilly & Chatman,1996). An important cultural distinction has been madebetween individualistic and collectivistic cultures (e.g.,Chatman, Polzer, Barsade, & Neale, 1998; Earley, 1993).One of the most distinguishing characteristics betweenthese two types of cultures is the level of task interdepen-dence that they foster (Chatman et al., 1998; Cox, Lobel,& McLeod, 1991): In comparison to individualistic cul-tures, collectivistic cultures place greater emphasis oncollaborative work and collective action (i.e., they havenorms of high task interdependence; Hofstede, Neuijen,Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990; Wagner & Moch, 1986). In thisway, an organization’s culture communicates the level oftask interdependence that is expected of its membersthrough implicit means—without explicitly mandating a


particular process, organizational cultures provide cuesas to the way that work should be completed. In supportof this assertion, Chatman et al. (1998) found that theidentical task was completed with greater or lesserdegrees of interdependence depending on the organiza-tional culture: When participants were placed in a workgroup that was described as collectivistic, participantsreported greater interaction and collaboration in thework process than when the group was described as indi-vidualistic. Thus, regardless of the speciWc task at hand,organizational cultures provide implicit cues about howthat task should be and is likely to be completed.

In this study, participants’ perceptions of the level oftask interdependence expected in an organization weremanipulated by asking participants to read a descriptionabout a collectivistic or individualistic organizationalculture. Participants were then exposed to an organiza-tional member that used either a powerful or powerlessspeech style, and then made trait ratings and judgmentsabout the amount of status that should be conferred tothe individual.

Method

ParticipantsFifty-six individuals (24 males, 32 females) aYliated

with a west-coast university participated in this experi-ment in exchange for a $5 payment. Participants wererecruited from an electronic mailing list that advertisesbehavioral studies to university members that haveexpressed an interest in participating in them.

Materials and procedureApproximately 10 individuals participated in each

experimental session. Participants Wrst read a briefdescription of an organization and then read a transcriptof a phone call that was made by an employee of theorganization. Participants read either a collectivistic(high task interdependence) or individualistic (low taskinterdependence) organizational culture description andeither a powerful or powerless version of the conversa-tion transcript. Thus, the design of the study was a 2(Task Interdependence: High vs. Low)£ 2 (Speech Style:Powerful vs. Powerless) between-subjects factorialdesign. After reading the conversation transcript, partici-pants completed a questionnaire to measure the amountof status they conferred to the speaker, and their percep-tions of the speaker’s agency and communality.

Manipulation of organizational culture. The two cul-tural descriptions were adapted from Chatman et al.(1998), which demonstrated the eVects of organiza-tional culture on task interdependence. To reinforcethe cultural distinctions, the organizations were givennames that were consistent with the expected level ofinterdependence in each condition. The low interdepen-

dence organization was named Solo Ventures and thehigh interdependence organization was named AlliancePartners. In the low interdependence condition, partici-pants read the following organizational description(modiWcations for the high interdependence conditionappear in parentheses):

Solo Ventures (Alliance Partners) is an organizationknown for valuing individualism (collaboration). Thepresident and founder of Solo Ventures (Alliance Part-ners), M.L. Smith, is still the driving force of the com-pany’s culture. He and the founding senior managers areproud of Solo Ventures’ (Alliance Partners’) reputationin the industry as an individualistic (team) organization.At Solo Ventures (Alliance Partners), individual eVortand initiative (cooperation and teamwork) are highlyvalued and rewarded, and competition (cooperation)among individuals is considered to be the best roadtoward innovation and success. Employees are rewardedbased on their independent achievements (teamwork)and their individual (team’s) contributions to Solo Ven-tures’ (Alliance Partners’) success. Thus, both employeesand outsiders categorize Solo Ventures (Alliance Part-ners) as having a very individualistic (collectivistic) cor-porate culture.

Immediately following these organizational descrip-tions, participants answered three questions about theorganization. On separate 7-point scales (1Dnot at all;7D very much), participants indicated the importance ofbeing a team player in the culture, the importance ofworking independently, and the level of interpersonalinteraction that was required in the organization. Thesequestions served to conWrm that the manipulations hadthe intended eVects on perceptions of the expected levelof task interdependence in the two organizations.

Manipulation of speech style. After reading the organiza-tional description, participants were instructed to imag-ine that they worked for this organization and that oneday, as they were working at their desk, they overheard aconversation in which Robert, an employee seated at anearby desk, was talking on the phone to Michael,another employee. To enable participants to focus onone member of the conversation, only Robert’s side ofthe conversation was presented. The conversation cen-tered on the discussion of an upcoming deadline forRobert and Michael (adapted from Holtgraves, Srull, &Socall, 1989). The content of Robert’s speech was identi-cal in both versions of the transcript, but the versionsdiVered in the style in which the content was delivered.In the powerless version, Robert used hedges, hesita-tions, disclaimers, formal addresses, and tag questions,whereas the powerful version of the interview did notcontain these tentative speech patterns. The two versionsof the conversation transcript are presented in theAppendix.


Post-task questionnaire. After reading the conversationtranscript, participants completed a questionnaire. Allquestions were assessed using 7-point scales (1Dnot atall; 7D very much). First, participants rated the extent towhich they thought Robert possessed nine agentic traits(competent, conWdent, independent, competitive, intelli-gent, ambitious, dominant, unambitious [reverse scored],and submissive [reverse scored]) and eight communaltraits (likeable, tolerant, sincere, good-natured, warm,and cold [reverse scored], agreeable, and quarrelsome[reverse scored]). The Wrst Wve traits in each of these cate-gories were taken from Fiske and colleagues’ scales ofcompetence and warmth (which correspond to thedimensions of agency and communality, respectively;Fiske et al., 2002). The remaining items were taken fromWiggins (1979) interpersonal circumplex dimensions ofagency and communality. The relevant traits were aver-aged to create composite measures of agency (�D .89)and communality (�D .90). Second, participants madedecisions about how much status to confer to Robert.Participants were informed that Robert, who had justcompleted the training phase of his employment, wasinterested in a permanent position in the company, andthat their responsibility was to make decisions about hisfuture status in the company. Participants thenresponded to three status conferral questions, whichwere selected because they are similar to measures usedin prior studies investigating speech styles and organiza-tional status conferral (Gallois et al., 1992; Parton et al.,2002; Tiedens, 2001; Wiley & Eskilson, 1985). Partici-pants rated how much social status Robert should haveif he were to have a permanent position in the organiza-tion, how likely they would be to promote Robert into apermanent position in the organization, the extent towhich Robert had the qualities to be a success in theorganization. The three status measures were averagedto create a composite measure of status conferral(�D .79). Finally, participants rated the assertiveness andfriendliness of Robert’s speech. These items served asmanipulation checks.

After completing the questionnaire, participants werefully debriefed and paid for their participation.

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations for the depen-dent measures are reported in Table 1.

Manipulation checksSpeech style. As in Study 1, participants in the powerfulspeech condition (coded as 1) rated Robert’s speech assigniWcantly more assertive (MD5.3) than participantsin the powerless speech condition (coded as ¡1;MD4.0), bD .66, t (54)D 3.63, pD .001. Participants inthe powerless speech condition rated Robert’s speech assigniWcantly more friendly (MD 5.1) than participants in

the powerful speech condition (MD3.9), bD¡5.9,t (54)D¡3.48, pD .001.

Task interdependence. The organizational descriptionshad the intended eVects on participants’ perceptions ofthe level of task interdependence expected in these orga-nizations. Participants thought that there would be moreinteraction among organization members in the highinterdependence culture (coded as 1; MD6.4) than in thelow interdependence culture (coded as ¡1; MD3.4),bD1.5, t (54)D10.40, p < .001. Also, participants thoughtthat the ability to be a “team player” was more impor-tant in the high interdependence culture (MD 6.3) thanin the low interdependence culture (MD 2.3), bD2.0,t (54)D 12.19, p < .001, whereas the ability to work inde-pendently was seen as more important in the low inter-dependence culture (MD6.6) than the highinterdependence culture (MD 3.2), bD¡1.7,t (54)D¡12.82, p < .001.

Status conferral judgmentsI regressed status conferral on speech style, task inter-

dependence, and the interaction between the two. Asmay be seen in Table 3, Regression 2, this analysisrevealed only a signiWcant interaction between speechstyle and task interdependence (bD¡.43, t (52)D¡2.86,pD .006). In the low interdependence culture, partici-pants awarded signiWcantly more status to Robert whenhe used a powerful speech style than when he used apowerless style, t (52)D 2.00, pD .051 (see Fig. 4). Thispattern was reversed, however, in the high interdepen-dence culture: Robert was awarded more status when heused powerless speech than when he used powerfulspeech, t (52)D2.05, pD .046. Thus, consistent with theresults of Study 1, Hypotheses 3a and 3b, predicting aninteraction between speech style and interdependence,were supported, but Hypothesis 1, predicting a maineVect for powerful speech, was not.

Perceptions of agency and communalityTo determine whether speech styles aVected partici-

pants’ perceptions of Robert’s traits, I Wrst regressed per-ceptions of Robert’s agency on speech style, taskinterdependence, and the interaction between the two(Table 3, Regression 6). This analysis revealed only a maineVect of speech style (bD .34, t (52)D2.86, pD .006): Rob-ert was perceived as more agentic in the powerful speechcondition (MD5.1) than in the powerless speech condi-tion (MD4.5). I then conducted a similar analysis withperceptions of Robert’s communality as the dependentmeasure. This analysis revealed that speech styles exertedthe opposite eVects on perceptions of Robert’s communal-ity (Table 3, Regression 8; bD¡.33, t (52)D¡2.88,pD .006): Robert was perceived as more communal in thepowerless speech condition (MD4.7) than in the powerfulspeech condition (MD4.0).


Mediation of trait perceptionsTo determine if individuals weighted these assess-

ments of agency and communality diVerently in thetwo organizations as the basis for their status conferraldecisions, I examined the extent to which agency andcommunality mediated the relationship between speechstyle and status conferral in each organization. Iregressed status conferral on the independent variable(speech style), the moderator (task interdependence),the interaction between the independent variable andthe moderator, the proposed mediators (agency andcommunality), and the interaction of each of the medi-ators with the moderator (see Table 3, Regression 4).Comparing this model to Regression 2, the interactionbetween speech style and task interdependence is nolonger signiWcant when agency and communality areadded into the model (bD¡.09, t (48)D¡0.77, n.s.).Furthermore, agency (bD .76, t (48)D 5.90, p < .001)and communality (bD .63, t (48)D 4.67, p < .001) both

Fig. 4. Study 2: Status conferral as a function of speech style and taskinterdependence.

signiWcantly predict status conferral. These main eVectsneed to be interpreted with caution, however, becausethis model also reveals signiWcant two-way interactionsbetween task interdependence and agency (bD¡.26,t (48)D¡2.02, pD .049) and task interdependence andcommunality (bD .33, t (48)D 2.43, pD .019). These twocoeYcients suggest that the extent to which individualsused agency and communality as bases for their statusconferral judgments depended on the organization inquestion (i.e., moderated mediation).

To interpret these interactions between the trait medi-ators and task interdependence, I again followed themoderated path analysis procedure recommended byEdwards and Lambert (2004). As may be seen in Fig. 5,the paths from both mediator variables (agency andcommunality) to the dependent variable (status confer-ral) were all statistically signiWcant, indicating that per-ceptions of both agency and communality aVected statusconferral judgments in both organizations. However, themagnitude of these paths diVered across levels of themoderator variable (task interdependence): Agency wasa stronger predictor of status conferral when task inter-dependence was low than when it was high. Conversely,communality was a stronger predictor of status confer-ral when task interdependence was high than when itwas low. I also compared the magnitude of the agencyand communality path coeYcients within levels of themoderator. In the low interdependence condition, thepath from agency to status conferral (bD1.02) diVeredsigniWcantly from the path from communality to statusconferral (bD .30, F (1, 48)D 52.73, p < .001), indicatingthat agency was a stronger predictor of status conferralthan communality when interdependence was low. How-ever, in the high interdependence condition, the pathfrom communality to status conferral (bD .96) was

Table 3Study 2: OLS regressions to predict status conferral, agency, and communality

Note. N D 56. For speech style, powerful speech was coded 1 and powerless speech was coded ¡1. For task interdependence, low interdependence wascoded ¡1 and high interdependence was coded 1. Continuous independent measures were mean-centered before conducting analyses, and thesemean-centered variables were used in computing the interaction terms between continuous and categorical predictors. Regression models are pre-sented vertically; numbers across the top of the table in parentheses signify diVerent regression models, and the labels across the top of the table sig-nify the dependent measure for the regressions in the columns below. Entries in the columns represent unstandardized regression coeYcients.¤ p < .05.

¤¤ p < .01.¤¤¤ p < .001.

Measures Status conferral Agency Communality

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

Constant 4.18¤¤¤ 4.21¤¤¤ 4.20¤¤¤ 4.12¤¤¤ 4.79¤¤¤ 4.80¤¤¤ 4.35¤¤¤ 4.36¤¤¤

Speech style ¡.01 ¡.01 ¡.05 ¡.01 .34¤¤ .34¤¤ ¡.33¤¤ ¡.33¤¤

Task interdependence ¡.06 ¡.06 ¡.00 ¡.00 ¡.17 ¡.17 .12 .12Speech ¤ interdependence ¡.43¤¤ ¡.30¤ ¡.09 ¡.05 ¡.17Agency .73¤¤¤ .76¤¤¤

Communality .60¤¤¤ .63¤¤¤

Agency £ interdependence ¡.26¤

Communality £ interdependence .33¤¤

R2 .00 .14 .50 .61 .16 .16 .14 .18�R2 .14¤¤ .36¤¤¤ .11¤¤ .00 .04


signiWcantly larger than the path from agency to statusconferral (bD .50, F (1, 48)D 3.98, pD .052).

I again used a bootstrap procedure, drawing 1000random samples with replacement from the full sample,to test the magnitude of the two indirect eVects at eachlevel of the moderator variable. In the low interdepen-dence condition, the indirect eVect through agency was0.40 (0.39 ¤ 1.02), 95% CI: (0.15, 0.75), and the indirecteVect through communality was 0.05 (¡0.16 ¤ 0.30),95% CI: (¡0.31, 0.03). Furthermore, the 95% conW-dence interval for the diVerence in absolute values ofthe two indirect eVects excluded zero (0.07, 0.71), indi-cating that the indirect eVect through agency was largerthan the indirect eVect through communality in the lowinterdependence condition. In the high interdepen-dence condition, the indirect eVect through agency was0.15 (0.29 ¤ 0.50), 95% CI: (0.01, 0.40), and the indirecteVect through communality was ¡0.48 (¡0.50 ¤0.96),95% CI: (¡0.91, ¡0.21). The 95% conWdence interval ofthe diVerence in absolute values of the indirect eVectsexcluded zero (¡0.69, ¡0.02), indicating that the indi-rect eVect through communality was larger than theindirect eVect through agency in the high interdepen-dence condition. Together, the results of the moderatedpath and bootstrap analyses suggest that agency was astronger predictor of status conferral judgments thancommunality when task interdependence was low, butcommunality was a stronger predictor than agencywhen task interdependence was high. These Wndingsare contrary to the predictions of the Wxed criteria per-

spective (Hypothesis 2), but are supportive of contin-gent criteria perspective whereby the criteria used as abasis for status conferral judgments change acrossgroups as the attributes necessary for successful perfor-mance change (Hypotheses 4a and 4b).

Discussion

The results of Study 2 replicate and extend the Wnd-ings of Study 1. The eVects of speech styles on statusconferral decisions were moderated by the level of taskinterdependence in the group in question. When partici-pants were exposed to an individualistic organizationalculture associated with norms of low task interdepen-dence, participants thought that Robert should be con-ferred more status when he used a powerful speech stylethan when he used a powerless speech style. However,when participants were exposed to a collectivistic orga-nizational culture with norms of high task interdepen-dence, participants thought that Robert should beconferred more status when he used a powerless speechstyle than when he used a powerful speech style. Further-more, this pattern of results was driven by the diVerentialimportance of agency and communality as a basis forstatus conferral judgments in the two organizations. Inthe low interdependence culture, participants weightedperceptions of Robert’s agency more than perceptions ofcommunality in making their status conferral judgments.However, the reverse was true in the high interdepen-dence culture: participants weighted communality more

Fig. 5. Study 2: Simple paths at each level of the moderator variable (task interdependence). Note. ND 56. For speech style, powerful speech wascoded 1 and powerless speech was coded ¡1. Figure entries are unstandardized path coeYcients. Paths with underlined coeYcients are signiWcantlydiVerent (p < .05) across levels of the moderator variable. +p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Low Task Interdependence

High Task Interdependence

-.18

-.50** .96***

.50**.29+

SpeechStyle

Perceived Agency

Perceived Communality

.00

-.16 .30+

1.02***.39*

SpeechStyle

Perceived Agency

Perceived Communality

Status Conferral

Status Conferral


than agency in making their status conferral decisions.Together, these Wndings provide further support for thecontingent criteria perspective, which suggests that sta-tus conferral decisions are based on expectations of taskperformance, and that agency and communality areweighted diVerently in determining performance expec-tations, based on the expected level of task interdepen-dence in the group. In contrast, the Wxed criteriaperspective, which predicted that agency would be theprimary criteria for status conferral judgments, regard-less of the group context, was not empirically supported.

It is also important to note the beneWts and limita-tions of the operationalization of task interdependenceused in this study. In Study 1, task interdependence wasmanipulated by explicitly instructing participants to useeither an independent or interdependent task process.Although this manipulation isolates the construct ofinterest, it does not necessarily represent the only waythat task interdependence is communicated to groupmembers in everyday organizational life. Task interde-pendence is frequently conveyed through subtle, implicitchannels. That is, organizational members are often toldwhat tasks to complete, but are not necessarily told howto complete them, and consequently need to look forcues that tell them what process is appropriate or nor-mative (Wageman, 1995). Thus, the objective of Study 2was to investigate a context in which task interdepen-dence was communicated implicitly, rather than explic-itly. Task interdependence was operationalized throughorganizational culture, based on prior research whichhas demonstrated that organizational culture (in partic-ular, individualism and collectivism) aVects the extent towhich group members complete their tasks indepen-dently or interdependently (Chatman et al., 1998; Coxet al., 1991). Although this manipulation is not as spe-ciWc as that used in Study 1, it strengthens the conclu-sions that can be drawn from the current research byimproving the ecological validity of the task interdepen-dence manipulations. The two diVerent operationaliza-tions of task interdependence used across the two studiesare evidence for the robustness of the phenomenon:Regardless of whether interdependence is communicatedexplicitly (as in Study 1) or implicitly (as in Study 2), theresults on status conferral decisions are the same.

General discussion

In the two studies in this paper, participants madestatus conferral judgments about an actor that usedeither a powerful or powerless speech style. When taskinterdependence in a group was low, actors were con-ferred more status when they used a powerful speechstyle than when they used a powerless speech style. Thispattern replicates the results of prior empirical studieslinking powerful speech to high status positions (Erick-

son et al., 1978; Gallois et al., 1992; Parton et al., 2002;Wiley & Eskilson, 1985). However, when task interde-pendence was high, the reverse pattern occurred: Actorsthat used a powerless speech style, containing hesita-tions, disclaimers, and hedges, were conferred more sta-tus than actors that used a powerful speech style. Study 1demonstrated that the relationship between an actor’sspeech style and subsequent status conferral was medi-ated by participants’ perceptions of the actor’s expectedperformance in the group. Study 2 demonstrated thatthese relationships were due to the trait inferences thatparticipants made about the actors: In low interdepen-dence groups, participants weighted agency more thancommunality when making status conferral judgments,whereas in high interdependence groups, participantsweighted communality more than agency.

Implications

These studies have a number of implications for ourunderstanding of status conferral judgments and theprocess underlying these decisions. Most speciWcally,these Wndings provide evidence for the power of power-less speech. Although generally devalued, these studiessuggest that powerless speech may be more status-enhancing than powerful speech in certain contexts.Consequently, powerless speech may be a useful commu-nication behavior for those that wish to gain organiza-tional standing. This prescription runs counter to thecurrent popular wisdom that the use of powerless speechcharacteristics will “brand you as emotional, sentimen-tal, a sob sisterƒall pejoratives that won’t win you thejob or promotion you seek.” (Mindell, 2001, p. 32). Toremain consistent with prior research in this area (Erick-son et al., 1978), I have used the terms powerful andpowerless to distinguish between these two frequentlyobserved speech styles, but, in fact, the studies presentedin this paper suggest that these terms are misnomers.

At a more general level, these Wndings suggest that therelationship between an individual’s external attributes(i.e., their characteristics and behaviors) and the individ-ual’s conferred status position may be more complexthan prior researchers have assumed. Prior empiricalinvestigations of status conferral have focused on verbaland nonverbal behaviors that aVect the amount of statusconferred to an actor. The takeaway from much of thisliterature is that certain behaviors lead to status confer-ral whereas others do not. This is the case for research onspeech styles (e.g., Erickson et al., 1978; Parton et al.,2002; Wiley & Eskilson, 1985), but also for a host ofother verbal and nonverbal behaviors as well, such asspeech rates (Brown et al., 1973), vocal tones (Ridgeway,1987), patterns of eye contact (Washburn & Hakel,1973), and emotional expressions (Tiedens, 2001). How-ever, even though status conferral decisions occur withingroup contexts, research to date has paid relatively little


attention to speciWc group features that may aVect thebehaviors that are most status enhancing. The Wndingsof the current research suggest that the predominantresearch question should be shifted from “What behav-iors are eVective for enhancing one’s status in a group?”to “When (and why) are these particular behaviors eVec-tive?”

This research also provides empirical support for thecontingent criteria perspective suggested by status char-acteristics theory (e.g., Berger et al., 1972, 1974). TheWndings of the current studies indicate that as the criteriafor evaluating successful performance changes acrossgroups, individuals’ criteria for status conferral judg-ments change as well. Of the existing theoretical perspec-tives on status conferral, this perspective is the one thathas been the most explicit about the process underlyingstatus conferral judgments. At a theoretical level, statusconferral decisions are presumed to be based on perfor-mance expectations. However, empirical tests of this per-spective have generally equated attributions of agencywith performance expectations, and most evidence for aperformance-based process comes from studies that linkcharacteristics associated with agency, such as gender,race, and communication behaviors, to high status posi-tions in task groups (see Webster & Driskell, 1978 for areview). While these Wndings are consistent with the con-tingent criteria perspective, conclusive evidence for thisperformance-based status conferral process has beenlacking, since multiple processes can account for theseprior empirical results. SpeciWcally, the Wxed criteria per-spective suggested by status schema theories (Conwayet al., 1996; Fiske et al., 1999, 2002) implies that agencywill be used as the criteria for status conferral judgmentsregardless of the group context. This suggests a compet-ing decision process that could explain the empiricalrelationship between perceptions of agency and statusconferral judgments. The current studies were designedto provide a more stringent test of the contingent criteriaperspective, and help to distinguish this perspective fromanother competing theoretical account.

Possible boundary conditions and future directions

The current research also has some limitations thatare worthy of mention. Most importantly, the currentstudies investigate situations in which individuals havenot yet been assigned hierarchical positions, eitherbecause they are new to an existing group, or the groupis in its formative stages and no hierarchy has yetformed. In other words, these studies investigate howstatus positions are created. Individuals face such situa-tions frequently throughout their lives. Individualschange jobs and join new organizations, and organiza-tions often create cross-functional task forces or work-groups. Although outside the scope of this paper, it isalso interesting and important to think about how status

positions can be changed. That is, once an individual hasbeen conferred a particular status position, how do theindividual’s observed behaviors aVect his or her subse-quent placement in the status ordering? The Wndings ofthe current studies may or may not generalize to thesetypes of changes in status positions. An alternativehypothesis in such situations is that communicationbehaviors lose their potency as status signals once a sta-tus hierarchy has already been created. However,another possibility is that observed behaviors may inter-act with prior status positions to inXuence future statusconferral. For example, once an individual has beenplaced in a low status position, the use of powerfulspeech may be seen as evidence that the individual is act-ing out-of-role (e.g., Rudman, 1998). Consequently, theindividual may not be able to gain status from this lowstatus position by using powerful speech, regardless ofthe level of interdependence in a group.

In a similar vein, future research might address howspeech styles interact with other individual characteris-tics or behaviors to inXuence status judgments. Priorresearch has demonstrated that demographic character-istics, such as gender, ethnicity, and age, inXuence statusconferral judgments (see Webster & Driskell, 1978 for areview). These demographic diVerences may also moder-ate the relationship between speech styles and statusconferral. For example, women are generally stereotypedas highly communal, and can sometimes be evaluatednegatively if they violate this stereotype (e.g., Rudman,1998). In the studies presented in this paper, the genderof the target was either unspeciWed (Study 1) or male(Study 2). It is possible that powerless speech may resultin even greater status conferral for women, since thisspeech style is associated with the stereotypically femaletrait of communality. Additionally, a host of other ver-bal and nonverbal behaviors have been linked to statusattainment, such as speech rates (e.g., Brown et al., 1973),vocal tones (e.g., Ridgeway, 1987), patterns of eye con-tact (e.g., Washburn & Hakel, 1973), and emotionalexpressions (Tiedens, 2001). However, most studies todate have focused on only one of these behaviors in anygiven study, and consequently have not examined theeVects of simultaneous expression of multiple behaviors.Thus, it may be worthwhile to examine how observersmake sense of multiple, and possibly conXicting, verbaland nonverbal behaviors when making status judgments.

Finally, the current research also demonstrates that theeVects of speech styles on status positions require observersto make corresponding inferences about a speaker’s likelypersonality traits. That is, speech styles only aVect statusconferral judgments because they inXuence the traits andqualities that the speaker is believed to possess. Yet theremay be instances in which observers’ do not make the pre-dicted trait inferences on basis of speech styles. This couldoccur because observers’ possess more “objective” infor-mation about an actor’s agency and communality (e.g.,


prior interactions with the actor, or knowledge of theactor’s past performance evaluations). In cases whereobservers have access to other indicators of the actor’sagency and communality, the eVects of an actor’s speechstyle on these two trait inferences may diminish, and maynot signiWcantly aVect the amount of status conferred tothe actor. Furthermore, the role of trait inferences in statusconferral judgments suggests that, although speech stylesmay be used as strategies to gain status, they may not suc-ceed if they are perceived as such. Observers are generallyvery willing to make dispositional inferences based on anindividual’s observed behaviors, but these inferences maybe discounted if other alternative explanations are avail-able (Morris & Larrick, 1995). If observers believe that anindividual is deliberately altering their speech style, or anyother behavior, to inXuence how they are perceived, thesebehaviors may be less likely to produce the desired eVects.

Conclusion

Language is a deWning feature of human interaction.Consequently, it is important to understand how lan-guage can shape the nature of interpersonal relation-ships. Of particular interest in organizational contexts

is the ability of language to aVect a speaker’s promi-nence, respect, and position (i.e., their status). As Ngand Bradac (1993, p. 1) state, “languageƒdoes morethan neutrally inform hearers or readers. It is inevita-bly an instrument for enacting, recreating, or subvert-ing power.” Yet despite this recognition, ourknowledge about how language aVects status positionshas remained incomplete. Based on prior empiricalresearch, many have argued that a “language of suc-cess” exists: an assertive manner of speaking that hasbeen shown to improve an individual’s status position(Erickson et al., 1978; Gallois et al., 1992; Ng & Bra-dac, 1993; Parton et al., 2002; Wiley & Eskilson, 1985).The implication of this assertion is that there exists alsoa corresponding “language of failure”: an unassertivestyle of speech that is unlikely to lead to status confer-ral. However, the studies presented in this paper sug-gest that this may be an oversimpliWcation, andmultiple languages may lead to status attainment,depending on the particular features of the task ororganizational context in question. As a result, the cur-rent studies improve our understanding of how statusconferral decisions are made, and in doing so, providedgreater insight into the relationship between subtle,observable behaviors and subsequent status positions.

Appendix A

Study 2: Conversation transcript with powerful and powerless speech styles

Robert: Hi Michael, it’s Robert.Michael:Robert: I saw a message that you called me?Michael:Robert: I’m ok. It’s been (pretty) hectic lately, (hasn’t it?)Michael:Robert: The Jackson project(?) Unfortunately, it’s going a little slow right now.Michael:Robert: (Wellƒ) one of the (kind of) big problems is that we haven’t received the projections from the accounting

department yet.Michael:Robert: You should tell them to hurry things up (Do you think you could possibly ask them to hurry things up a

little?)Michael:Robert: I know. (I’m not really sure, but) I (think we really) need the results of the Xerox project to help guide us.

(I totally don’t want to be a pain or anything, but do you know) why haven’t we received them yet?Michael:Robert: (It seems like) we need those results. (Would it be possible for you to maybe) call the guys at Jackson and

ask them to extend the deadline (?)Michael:Robert: Yes, I’m going to ask Jack’s department to help, although they’re pretty busy these days, (you know?)Michael:Robert: I can’t (UmƒI’m not sure if I can. You’re the expert, but it seems to me) the group’s already feeling too

pressured right now.(continued on next page)


Note. ModiWcations for powerless speech appear in parentheses.

Appendix A (continued)

Michael:Robert: I agree. A team meeting is (could be) a good idea.Michael:Robert: Let’s meet Thursday, the 24th. (Well, I don’t know. Maybe Thursday, the 24th?)Michael:Robert: (Maybe) 1 o’clock.MichaelRobert: (Yes sir, that sounds) Wne (to me.)Michael:Robert: (Well, I could be wrong, but I think) we still need to Wnd a way to speed this project up (a) little. Do you

think it would be at all possible to have the team postpone working on the IBM project until after the Jackson project is done?

Michael:Robert: I know. But (it seems like) the Jackson project is probably more important.Michael:Robert: (Umƒ)One other thing. Bill needs someone to make a presentation on the Jackson project at the monthly

board meeting. (Please don’t think I’m putting words in your mouth, but) I told him you would do it.Michael:Robert: Great. (Is there) anything else (we should talk about?)Michael:Robert: Ok, (I’ll talk to you) later, (Michael).

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