The upside of being an underdog: When expectations lift performance

Workers perform better when they believe others expect them to fail. Photo / Getty Images

What happens when we think that others expect us to fail? My research shows that these "underdog expectations" can actually motivate people to try to prove others, especially those they find less credible, wrong — leading them to perform better.

In one study, I surveyed 371 employees in a consumer packaged goods company in the US, asking about the extent to which they were seen as an underdog by others. Seven weeks later, their supervisors evaluated their performance. I found that experiencing underdog expectations was a significant predictor of performance, even after controlling for employees' own expectations for success. In other words, people who believed that others did not expect them to be successful were more likely to receive higher performance evaluations from their supervisors.

These results established a positive correlational link between underdog expectations and work performance in a corporation. To assess causality in a more controlled environment, I conducted a follow-up experiment with 330 online workers, asking them to do a computer task that involved clicking on rapidly moving circles. They were told that someone was observing their performance on the task. After participants completed a 15-second practice round, they received one of three messages — stating underdog expectations, high expectations or neutral expectations — from the observer; unbeknown to them, the expectations were randomly assigned to them. Participants then performed the task, which was five minutes long and required a combination of effort and focus to do effectively. I found that those who experienced underdog expectations performed the best — above and beyond those who received high or neutral expectations.

Why do underdog expectations lead individuals to perform better? There are of course countless stories about underdogs being successful. One recurrent theme among these stories is the desire to prove others wrong.

To understand whether this motivation explains why underdogs perform effectively, I ran another lab experiment with 156 students in a business school, having them complete a negotiations simulation. Before they started negotiating, my team told them that researchers made predictions on their likelihood of negotiating effectively. Once again, we randomly assigned them either underdog, high or neutral expectations before they prepared and negotiated with their counterpart. After the negotiation, we asked them questions about their desire to prove others wrong, their self-confidence and their assertiveness.

Again, I found that those who experienced underdog expectations performed better than those who experienced high or neutral expectations. In addition, I found that, as opposed to having greater self-confidence or being more assertive, the desire to prove others wrong was what explained why those experiencing underdog expectations performed better.

Of course, underdog expectations do not always translate to success. There are many more examples of people failing to overcome the low expectations others set for them. So when does being an underdog lead to success rather than failure?

I wondered whether it has to do with what we think about the people holding the expectations of us — whether we are driven to prove others wrong only when we don't trust their opinions in the first place.

I ran a final study with 589 online workers to find out whether someone's credibility was shaped when their low expectations boosted someone else's performance. In the study, I reran the computer task of clicking on a target, but with a twist: Before participants received randomly assigned underdog, high or neutral expectations, they were also randomly assigned information about the observer's credibility. Specifically, participants in the high-credibility condition read that the observer was a high performer in the same task and had an excellent track record of predicting others' performance. In the low-credibility condition, participants read that the observer was a poor performer and was often incorrect about others' performance.

The results supported my predictions: Underdog expectations boosted performance only when the perceived credibility of observers was low. What was striking, however, was why this happened. Contrary to what I thought, underdog expectations from both less and more credible observers motivated workers to aim to prove others wrong. But this motivation only translated to better performance in the face of less-credible observers, whereas it backfired when it came from more-credible observers.

Underdog expectations boosted performance only when the perceived credibility of observers was low. Photo / Getty Images

It appears that trying to prove highly credible people wrong may have fostered a sense of anxiety, which undermined subsequent performance. In contrast, people experiencing underdog expectations from less-credible observers were able to harness the desire to prove others wrong toward the task and perform successfully.

Do these results mean that leaders should set low expectations for their team to try to boost performance? Of course not. But they do suggest a few things to keep in mind when you're trying to motivate yourself or your team.

First, build your own confidence by identifying the skills and qualities that can help you succeed. In all my studies, individuals had a requisite level of self-confidence and maintained this despite experiencing underdog expectations. Employees should know that you believe in their potential for success, even if others do not. One way to achieve this is by providing resources and training to build their confidence and promote their success.

Second, if you want to stay motivated in the face of underdog expectations, you need to think about why those expectations aren't credible. Consider why observers who see you as an underdog might not have an accurate picture of how effective you are or why you can be successful. If you are the leader, you want to make sure your employees know that you think others' low expectations are not credible. You can even undermine their credibility by pointing to ways in which they were wrong in the past.

Third, it's important to recognise that trying to prove others wrong is a double-edged sword. Leaders, if you want your underdogs to be successful when expectations are credible, you may need to ensure that proving others wrong does not cultivate anxiety or detract from the attention required to succeed at the task at hand. Prior research has shown that reappraising anxiety as excitement, preparing for potential setbacks or developing a pre-performance ritual can help manage the anxiety that proving others wrong may sometimes create for employees.

Our world is full of feel-good stories of underdogs being successful. My work suggests that more people can achieve success when they think that others view them as underdogs — if they view others as less credible and channel their motivation to prove them wrong toward performing better.

Written by: Samir Nurmohamed

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