Looks aren't everything: the effect of thinking styles on inferences of competence through demeanour

• Main Author: Lee, Yu Jing
• Other Authors: Albert Lee Kai Chung
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology::Experimental psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168733
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

During competitions, we often evaluate our competitors to see if there is a chance of winning, making inferences on based on physical cues such as demeanour. However, not everyone comes to the same conclusion. Past research has demonstrated cross-cultural differences in demeanour-based inferences of competence. Namely, cultures that predominantly adopt an analytic style of thinking (e.g., North Americans, Europeans) tend to believe that their competitor’s demeanour is convergent with their dispositional competence. Conversely, cultures that predominantly adopt a holistic style of thinking (e.g., East Asians) tend to believe that their competitor’s demeanour is divergent from their dispositional competence. These patterns of thinking are known as convergent and divergent thinking respectively. The current study focuses on establishing a causal relationship between thinking style (convergent vs divergent) and demeanour-based inferences of competence in competitive contexts. First, we had participants recruited from a university in Singapore believe that they were in a competitive setting. Then, to manipulate different styles of thinking, participants viewed a video prime that either showcased a magic trick and its demystification (divergent thinking condition), or a documentary about a penguin chick (control condition). Inference of competence was then measured by participants’ betting behaviour on two competitors who displayed either a competent or non-competent demeanour. We predicted that participants primed with divergent thinking would infer that competitors who appear less competent are competent, more so than participants in the control condition. Overall, our results did not support this hypothesis. We discuss three possibilities behind these findings.