Roger Federer Writes For This Blog
the email was composed by the researchers and alongside information about age, where the student lived, the casual job they had, the email also included one of three degrees of name-dropping in relation to the star tennis player Roger Federer (particularly popular in his home country of Switzerland where this research was conducted). A control condition email made no mention of Federer.
After reading this introductory email, the participants rated their future research partners. Those participants who read an email from a student claiming to be friends with Federer, or both friends and an exercise partner of his, subsequently rated their future research partner as less likeable and less competent than participants who read an email from a student who simply said they were a Federer fan, or who didn’t mention him at all.
The participants also rated how manipulative they thought their future research partner was and it was clear from these scores that claiming to be friends with Federer backfired because it led the name-dropping students to appear manipulative.
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