Self–Other Miscalibration in Sponsorship Perceptions

Abstract: Sponsorship, third-party advocacy that places a candidate into an opportunity, can be a socially ambiguous signal in the workplace. We propose a self-other miscalibration that is, sponsees (as compared to observers) would perceive themselves to have higher competence, earned success, legitimacy, and lower instrumentality in their relationships. In a scenario-based experimental study, participants evaluated a sponsored analyst from three assessment perspectives: self-assessment (participants as sponsees evaluated themselves), expected peer assessment (participants thought about how others would evaluate them as being sponsees), or peer assessment (participants evaluating their sponsored peers). Participants in both self-assessment and expected peer assessment perspectives tended to report higher perceptions of competence, earned success, and legitimacy, but lower perceptions of instrumentality in relationships as compared to those in the peer assessment perspective, supporting the proposed self–other miscalibration. Next, we plan to investigate the roles of observer rank (peer vs. superior) and visible homophily in influencing these perceptions.

Keywords: sponsorship, self–other miscalibration, social perception, experimental study