HC 4: Follower-Centric Approaches Flashcards
Activation and application of a category to a target to (4)
- infer a lot of important information about the target,
- understand and predict the actions of the target,
- coordinate our own actions in relation to the target, and
- understand the actions of fellow percievers of the same targe
What is a Leader Category
A fuzzy, ill-defined knowledge structure, that enables us to distinguish leaders from non-leaders
It contains, features and properties, that individually, are not necessary nor sufficient to warrant the inclusion in the category
What does that mean? it can contain, dominance, intelligence,….
Social Cognition and Human Cognition
Human cognition is at least in part based on
categories
Categories contain vast amount of information
and conceptual knowledge
Categories are crucial for efficient and effective
communication and cooperation
What are Categories?
Categories are symbolic knowledge structures that are stored in long-term memory and that serve as a stable, internal, mental model.
Instead of processing each instance of an object, event, person, or animal as novel, people transform their “transient experiences into internal models”
Activation and application of a category to a target allow us infer a lot of important information about the target, understand and predict the actions of the target,
coordinate our own actions in relation to the target, and understand the actions of fellow percievers of the same target
What is the Leader Category?
A fuzzy, ill-defined knowledge structure, that enables us to distinguish leaders from non-leaders
Family resemblance principle
(Leadership Categories)
Family resemblance principle
The higher the proportion of attributes a
target shares with other category members,
the more prototypical it is deemed to be
What does the LC contain?
Structured around traits (Lord et al., 1984)
traits are central to human thinking and memory processes and are automatically and spontaneously applied when perceivers are confronted with others’ behavior
traits are so hardwired into our thinking that we perceive much of the inanimate and animal world in trait terms
Lord et al., 1984 study- free recall method- participant spontaneously generated 59 leader traits, with different prototypicality
What does the LC contain?
Three-level structure (Rosch, 1978)
- Superordinate
- Basic
- Subordinate
What does the LC contain?
Explain the three-level structure (Rosch, 1978)
- Superordinate
- SUPERORDINATE: the broadest, most abstract features common to most leaders, and unique to the category ( little overlap with contrasting category)
What does the LC contain?
Explain the three-level structure (Rosch, 1978)
- Basic
- BASIC: incorporates context, Lord et al. (1984) have argued that individuals distinguish
11 different basic level leaders: business, finance, minor ity, education, religion, sports, national politics, world politics, labor, media, and military.
Although Lord et al.’s work is seminal, it is worth noting that this structure is based on a single study and that alternative basic level categories may exist
What does the LC contain?
Explain the three-level structure (Rosch, 1978)
- Subordinate
- SUBORDINATE: further differentiating features, providing a more detailed and complete understanding of leadership- e.g. sex
Variability and Stability of LC
Most groups within a society share a common understanding of leadership
Findings indicate that university students and employees possess similar mental models of leadership, as do employees who differ in terms of age, organizational tenure, organizational position (Epitropaki & Martin, 2004; Offermann et al., 1994), and organizational identification (Martin & Epitropaki, 2001).
Sex differences in leadership category
Men’s leader prototype appears to include traits such as domineering and pushy, whereas women’s prototype includes traits such as interpersonal sensistivity
Cultural differences in leadership category
Javidan et al., 2006
For instance, research suggests that individuals vary cross-culturally in how they react to abusive leaders (Bond, Wan, Leung, & Giacalone, 1985) or violations of justice principles (Tsui et al., 2007). Such findings underscore the possibility that Western leadership conceptualizations may not be universally endorsed
For instance, results at this level of analysis suggest that the 10 clusters of nations differ significantly in terms of the extent to which they emphasize charismatic/value-based lead ership, a form of leadership that focuses on motivating and expecting high outcomes from individuals.
On individual level leadership category is relatively stable (Epirtropaki & Martin, 2004)
Asked respondents to indicate how descriptive a series of traits were of a business leader in general, assessed on two occasions, 1 year apart.
Why stability emerged in their research, it is necessary that readers first recognize that although humans are capable of careful, conscious, serial thought, more often than not the world is experienced through a nonconscious system
Development of the Leadership Category (4)
1) From early life the LC is unconsciously and slowly acquired via associations
2) The LC becomes more abstract and elaborated
3) High degree of similarity between young children and adults in predicting leadership outcomes
4) Maternal and paternal characteristics inlfuence the LC
Development of the Leadership Category explain studies
Seemingly, their findings suggest that very early on, children associate facial features with personality characteristics (i.e., competent), which are used to make leadership decisions similar to those generated by adults.
Together, these two studies indicate that the standards utilized to form leadership perceptions consolidate at a very early age.
An important practical implication of this work is that it suggests that interventions intended to undermine biased leadership categories
(e.g., emphasis on masculine characteristics) may be most efficacious at a very early age.
Use an application of the LC
Category use can happen in a top down manner and generate stereotypic judgments
Category use can affect memory of events
For instance, several studies have documented that perceivers confuse unobserved category-consistent behavior with behaviors that were actually observed.
Recognition based application of the LC
whereby the perceiver draws upon the characteristics of the target to make a leadership judgment
The greater the overlap that exists between a target’s perceived features and the category held in long-term memory, the more strongly the category label leader will be applied to a target.
Target fit to the LC can mediate employee
outcomes
demonstrated that perceived supervisory fit to the leader category impacted the quality of the leader–member exchange (LMX) and, indirectly through LMX, influenced employee organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and well-being.
Factors associated with application of
the LC
Height
Individual and group goals
Also: talkativeness, attractiveness, masculinity,
perceptual salience
Explaination Dominance associated with LC
Dominant individuals lord over us, we look up to them, they are high in the food chain, they are at the top of the organizational chart, and they look down on us from high upon their thrones. The bodily experience of looking up, versus down, relates to leadership, power, and dominance and, hence, data indicate that we are more fluent in processing status information when it is presented in the appropriate spatial location (Schubert, 2005) and that vertical information conveyed through an organizational chart colors our leadership perceptions (Giessner & Schubert, 2007).
Where does Target Catergorization depend on?
target categorization depends not only on fit to the central tendency of a category, but also on the end-state or goal toward which a perceiver is striving.
it seems clear that we do forgo our freedom in part because leaders promote group survival and success
Inference based application of the LC
Attribution of group performance to leaders is not contingent on when performance information is delivered, or subject familiarity with the leader
Contemporary work conducted within the context of CEO selection further suggests that perceivers
may be predisposed to the inferential path way and only default to recognition-based processes when
confronted with ambiguity regarding performance
What do direct comparisons of the recognition pathway and inferential pathway indicate?
Direct comparisons of the recognition pathway and inferential pathway indicate
that they additively impact leadership judgment, but that the relative weighting of each may depend on national culture
Contemporary work conducted within the context of CEO selection further suggests that perceivers
may be predisposed to the inferential path way and only default to recognition-based processes when confronted with ambiguity regarding performance
Leader’s fit to group category modulates follower’s evaluations of leaders: differences found in: (5)
1) failure to reach goals,
2) self-sacrificial behaviour,
3) procedural fairness,
4) distributive justice,
5) group oriented rethoric
e.g. failure to reach goals: although their perceived ability to deliver success is critical and failure is typically not an option for leaders, not all failures are equal and, at times, leaders may be granted a license to fail by subordinates
