Vertical Relationships - Power, Status and Leadership 2

Question 1

what is social status

Answer 1

· According to social and organizational psychological theory, people care deeply about their own social worth or social reputation (Blader & Chen, 2014; Blader & Yu, 2017)
· Respect & Admiration - the extent to which an individual or group is respected or admired by others (Ridgeway & Walker, 1995; Magee & Galinsky, 2008)
· Deference - status equals the amount of voluntary deference one receives (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001)

Question 2

who gains social status?

Answer 2

· High social status is given to those individuals who have competencies that are valuable to the group and are willing to advance group goals:
- Committed group members (Willer, 2009)
- Self-less and generous group members (Flynn et al, 2012; Hardy and Can Vugt, 2006)
- Extraversion (Anderson et al, 2001)
- Dominance (Anderson and Kilduff, 2009)
- Competence displaying (Anderson et al 2006)

Question 3

who gains social status 2

Answer 3

· Participants
- 71 undergraduate students
· Design
- Participants were either paired with high ($.95) or low ($.05) contributing player
· Key outcome measure
- Rate status - honourable, prestigious, respected
· Procedure
- 6-person Public Goods game with initial endowment of $5, in which player decides how much of $1 they contribute to public good
- Any contribution to public good is doubled and equally divided between all players. If all players contribute, they can double their endowment, but any free-rider can benefit without taking the risk of loosing their contribution.
· Results - participants paired with a high contributing partner assigned higher status to their partner, who was thought to be more motivated to help the group

Question 4

high status’ other-orientation

Answer 4

· High social status leads to greater other-orientation and pro-sociality:
- Perspective taking (Blader et al, 2016)
- Generosity (Flynn et al, 2006; Hardy and Van Vugt, 2006)
- Pursue collective interest (Willer, 2009)

Question 5

high status’ other-orientation 2

Answer 5

· Participants
- 396 working adults from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
· Status manipulation
- Recall of high / low status episode
- Recall of high / low power episode
· Procedure
- Spatial perspective-taking task
· Results - high status participants showed increased levels of perspective taking, but high power participants showed reduced levels of perspective taking

Question 6

what is leadership?

Answer 6

· Leadership - process of influencing others in a manner that enhances their contribution to the realisation of group goals (Hollander, 1959)

Question 7

power without status

Answer 7

· Participants
- 86 working adults
· Measures
- Status (e.g., “To what extent does your position at work give you high status in the eyes of others?”)
- Power (authority to hire and fire people in their organizations)
- Interpersonal Conflict (e.g., “I often have personal disagreements with others at my place of work”)
· Results - individuals with high power but without status reported greater relationship conflict at work

Question 8

power with perspective-taking

Answer 8

· Participants
- 256 undergraduates assigned to dyads
· Social Power manipulation
- Assigned to either boss or employee role
· Procedure
- Perspective-taking exercise or control
- Modified version of the hidden-profile ‘‘murder-mystery’’ decision task
- Modified version of the hidden-profile “murder-mystery” decision task:
- Results - perspective-taking training for high power participants (boss) yielded the greatest improvement for dyadic outcome.

Question 9

paternalistic leadership

Answer 9

· a leadership style that combines strong discipline and authority with fatherly benevolence (Farh & Cheng, 2000, p.91)
· managers take a personal interest in workers’ off-the-job lives and attempt to promote workers’ personal welfare
· people in authority consider it an obligation to provide protection to those under their care and in exchange expect loyalty and deference
· prevalent and effective in many business cultures, such as in the Middle East, Pacific Asia, and Latin America

Question 10

powerholders’ responsibility

Answer 10

· Participants
- 87 American and 70 Japanese undergraduate students
· Outcome Measures
- the extent to which participants felt responsible for:
a. cutting their own salary
b. the employees who received pay cuts
c. the employees they fired
d. the families of the fired employees
e. a year later there was an increase in crime in the area.
· Results - Japanese participants felt more responsibility for others across a wider range of targets