Thank you all for your responses. I found the answer independently - I was looking for the Pratfall EffectPratfall Effect described in Elliot Aronson's 1966 paper "The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness" in Psychonomic ScienceElliot Aronson's 1966 paper "The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness" in Psychonomic Science.
The paper's The paper's abstract reads:
"An experiment was performed which demonstrated that the attractiveness of a superior person is enhanced if he commits a clumsy blunder; the same blunder tends to decrease the the attractiveness of a mediocre person. We predicted these results by conjecturing that a superior person may be viewed as superhuman and, therefore, distant; a blunder tends to humanize him and, consequently, increases his attractiveness."
An experiment was performed which demonstrated that the attractiveness of a superior person is enhanced if he commits a clumsy blunder; the same blunder tends to decrease the the attractiveness of a mediocre person. We predicted these results by conjecturing that a superior person may be viewed as superhuman and, therefore, distant; a blunder tends to humanize him and, consequently, increases his attractiveness.
More information on the Pratfall Effect can be found here: Wikipedia, Psychology Archive
Aronson, E., Willerman, B., & Floyd, J. (1966). [The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness.][1] Psychonomic Science, 4(6), 227-228.
