Flattery drives, or maybe is driven by, the research efforts of a team at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s School of Business and Management. One might infer that from this study:
“Insincere Flattery Actually Works: A Dual Attitudes Perspective,” Elaine Chan and Jaideep Sengupta, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. XLVI, 2009, (Thanks to Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.) It says:
“The authors show that even when flattery by marketing agents is accompanied by an obvious ulterior motive that leads targets to discount the proffered compliments, the initial favorable reaction (the implicit attitude) continues to co-exist with the discounted evaluation (the explicit attitude). Further, the implicit attitude has more influential consequences than the explicit attitude, highlighting the subtle impact that flattery can exert even when it has been consciously corrected for.”
BONUS: Note that the journal chooses, at least when making reprints, to use Roman numerals to identify its volume numbers.