Moral Antecedents of Status Self-Misperceptions

Abstract

Recent research has shown that individuals’ self-perceptions of status can, and perhaps often, diverge from their actual status socially conferred by their groups. Status self-misperceptions, especially in the form of self-enhancement, furthermore, can evoke important consequences for individuals and groups, such as reduced efforts and task performance. Yet, it remains unclear what causes people to misperceive their own status in the group, despite a potential price in losing social acceptance and affection. Drawing on recent development in status and morality research, we theorize an individual’s symbolic moral characteristics (e.g., identities and behaviors) as a crucial antecedent of status self-misperceptions, and the individual’s narcissistic personality as a moderator. Based on a multi-source survey on student friendship dyads, we find that symbolic moral identity, but not internalized moral identity, can indeed evoke status self-misperceptions, mainly in the form of self- enhancement. We, moreover, find that narcissistic individuals with high symbolic moral identity are most likely to have overly positive status self-perceptions, lending initial support to our theory.