Motivated impressions of a powerholder: Accuracy under task dependency andmisperception under evaluation dependency

Two experiments assessed the impression-formation strategies used by asymme trically dependent (powerless) people to form impressions of powerholders. The experiments contrast two types of asymmetrical dependency: task depende ncy (short-term, goal-oriented outcome contingency) and evaluation dependen cy (expecting evaluations of one's performance or abilities). Experiment I hypothesized and found that asymmetrical task dependency increases accuracy -driven impression-formation processes: Task-dependent people attend to inf ormation that disconfirms initial expectancies about a powerholder and, if asymmetrical, do not discount trait information. Experiment 2 found that ev aluation dependency increases motivated misperception to view the powerhold positively. Evaluation-dependent people attend to and then discount negati ve information, which is reflected in their ratings of a powerholder.