The purpose of this study was to examine dispositional factors such as self-monitoring that affect ingratiatory behavior towards superiors. In particular, we focus on the effect of dispositional factors on two types of ingratiatory behavior, namely, voluntary strategies and reactive strategies. Voluntary strategies consist of other-enhancement and doing favor, and reactive strategies consist of opinion conformity and self-humiliation. Investigations were carried out in 1996 and 2005. Respondents were full-time employees of companies and other institutions. There was no significant difference between the investigation years, so both datasets were analyzed together.
Hypotheses were partly supported: voluntary strategies are determined by craving for praise; reactive strategies are determined by one subscale of self-monitoring (i.e. sensitivity to expressive behavior in others scale) and rejection avoidance. The implications of these findings are discussed.