The Relevance of Who You Know: Why Name Dropping Can Both Be Beneficial and Backfire.

Though name dropping - mentioning one's high status connections to others - is a ubiquitous self-presentation tactic, here we show why it may be a hazardous method of promoting oneself. We argue that name dropping backfires because beyond simply indicating one's position in a social hierarchy; it highlights one's role controlling access to valuable resources (the contacts mentioned). Across four studies, we show that audiences hold various expectations of name droppers. First, we show that audiences expect the third parties mentioned by name droppers to be relevant. When name droppers instead mention irrelevant third parties, audiences not only confer less status on name droppers (Study 1), but are less willing to establish advice ties with them in MBA teams (Study 2). Additionally, we show that audiences hold an expectation that name droppers will connect them to the third parties they mention (Study 3), and that audiences penalize name droppers who are unwilling to meet this expectation when compared to name droppers that are (Study 4). Together, our results suggest that when name dropping backfires, these attempts to indicate one's connection to others ironically isolate name droppers from others in their social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]