That high-tech device you’re wearing or using doesn’t mean you’re a geek. In fact, it means you’re perceived as a leader (you could be a geek, too, I suppose).
“Familiarity with and usage of new high-tech products appears to be a common manifestation of innovative behavior,” said Steve Hoeffler of Vanderbilt University and Stacy Wood of North Carolina State University. “Those who are tech-savvy are also perceived as authoritative on other subjects and as leaders.”
Hoeffler and Wood co-wrote a paper titled “Looking Innovative: Exploring the Role of Impression Management in High-Tech Product Adoption and Use.”
One part of their study included interviews with actors categorized by appearance and other variables.
“We taped them once where they took down a note using an old-fashioned calendar, then did another one where they whipped out an electronic calendar and did it that way,” Hoeffler said in Research News @ Vanderbilt.
Test subjects viewed the actors who used the electronic calendars as more authoritative.
In another part of the study, resumes that showed candidates were high-tech savvy were viewed more favorably compared to those who were not. Also, females who used high-tech devices benefited more than males who exhibited the same behavior.
“This finding runs counter to the backlash effect typically found in impression management research in business settings,” Hoeffler and Wood write. “Female job evaluations typically suffer after engaging in the same self-promoting impression management strategies that benefit their male counterparts.”
Finally, as with most anything in life, acting confident was the key in making a good impression. People don’t even need to know how to use a high-tech devices, as long as they looked like they knew what to do with them.
“Just possession is 90 percent of the game,” Hoeffler said. “And there are maybe 10 percent of situations where you have to display the ability to use it.”
(photo credit: gruntzooki via photopin cc)
