Professed impressions: What people say about others affects onlookers’ perceptions of speakers’ power and warmth

During a conversation, it is common for a speaker to describe a third-party that the listener does not know. These professed impressions not only shape the listener’s view of the third-party but also affect judgments of the speaker herself. We propose a previously unstudied consequence of professed impressions: judgments of the speaker’s power. In two studies, we find that listeners ascribe more power to speakers who profess impressions focusing on a third-party’s conscientiousness, compared to those focusing on agreeableness. We also replicate previous research showing that speakers saying positive things about third parties are seen as more agreeable than speakers saying negative things. In the second study, we demonstrate that conscientiousness-power effects are mediated by inferences about speakers’ task concerns and positivity-agreeableness effects are mediated by inferences about speakers’ otherenhancing concerns. Finally, we show that judgments of speaker status parallel judgments of agreeableness rather than of power, suggesting that perceivers use different processes to make inferences about status and power. These findings have implications for the literatures on person perception, power, and status. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. It seems almost inevitable that when two people start talking, the topic of conversation will turn to a third person. Sometimes, a mutual exchange of gossip ensues: Donny and Marie, for instance, may discuss what each thinks of their mutual acquaintance Harry. Other times, Donny tells Marie about Sally, whomMarie has never met before. We have all played each of these roles and have learned much about many Harrys and Sallys along the way. But what does Marie learn about Donny, the speaker, from these conversations? In the past decade, a growing number of scholars have examined the impact of what we call professed impressions, when someone like Donny publicly professes his impression of another person. Some scholars have found that the traits a speaker ascribes to a third party can boomerang, with perceivers ascribing those very traits—perhaps automatically and unwittingly—to the speaker herself (e.g., Carlston & Skowronski, 2005; Crawford, Skowronski, & Stiff, 2007; Skowronski, Carlston, Mae, & Crawford, 1998). Other scholars have shown that speakers declaring liking for a third party are themselves liked and those declaring disliking are disliked by listeners (Gawronski & Walther, 2008). In the present paper, we extend the scholarship about professed impressions in two ways. First, we reveal how professed impresll rights reserved. s School, 707 Uris Hall, 3022