Dominance or Leadership Managing the human group

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Dominance or Leadership? Managing the human
group

• Session 5, SP603

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Exercise

• What are in your view some of the greatest
  leaders in our history and why?

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What we know about leadership
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What we know

• Leadership is characteristic of all organized
  human groups
• Military
• Religion
• Nations, countries, and states
• Businesses and other type organizations
• Leadership is a human universal
• The UP Universal People have leaders, though
  they may be ephemeral or situational. The UP
  admire, or profess to admire, generosity and this
  is particularly desired in a leader. No leader of
  the UP ever has complete power lodged in himself
  alone. UP leaders go beyond the limits of UP
  reason and morality. Since the UP never have
  complete democracy, and never have complete
  autocracy, they always have a de facto oligarchy
  (Brown, 1991 p. 138).

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What we know

• Leader-follower patterns are found in our closest
  genetic relatives, the nonhuman primates
• Coalitions among chimpanzees to undermine
  dominant male (Boehm, 1999)
• Control animal in various primate species
  (DeWaal, 1996)
• Voting patterns among baboons about group
  movement (Kummer, 1968)

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What we know.

• Leadership emerges quickly and spontaneously in
  small groups, in the field and in the lab
  (Sherif, 1966 Van Vugt De Cremer, 1999)
• Leadership is one of the most widely studied
  phenomenon in social/organizational psychology
  (Bass, 1990)
• Leadership is one of the most observed, yet
  least understood phenomena on earth (Burns,
  1978)
• Psychological literature on leadership contains a
  wealth of data, but there is little integration
  into an overarching theoretical framework (such
  as evolutionary theory)

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What we need to knowwhat is leadership?

• Most common definition A process of influence
  to attain important group goals (Hollander,
  1985)
• What this definition lacks.
• Leadership is about group coordination it is
  more than a generic social influence strategy
• Goal conflicts there might be conflicts between
  leaders and followers goals
• Importance of followership - why would anyone
  want to follow another organism?

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Evolutionary perspective on leadership

• Why would followers defer to leaders?
• Why follow this particular leader in this
  particular situation? (proximate, psychological
  question)
• Why do we humans have the capacity to engage in
  leader/follower interactions? (ultimate,
  evolutionary question)
• The adaptation question Does leadership and
  followership confer reproductive advantages on
  individuals (or groups)?
• Dont confuse the psychological and evolutionary
  levels of explanation (Barrett, Dunbar, Lycett,
  2002)!

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Two evolutionary theories of leadership

• Leadership as By-product Dominance
• Leadership as adaptive coordination strategy

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Exercise

• What do you think is the relationship between
  leadership and dominance?
• Does leadership have more to do with dominance or
  with prestige in your view?
• Prestige status based on ability to help
• Dominance status based on ability to harm

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Leadership as dominance

• Leadership is a by-product of the evolution of
  status/dominance hierarchies in human groups
  (E.O. Wilson, 1975)
• Individuals compete for resources and those that
  are more successful emerge as dominants - the
  pecking order
• Dominants exercise control over activities of
  subordinates, and they therefore emerge as
  leaders
• But is dominance the same as leadership?

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Leadership as evolved coordination strategy

• Leadership and followership are complimentary
  strategies to solve recurrent coordination
  problems between individuals
• Leading and following are adaptive decision
  rules they have become design features of human
  psychology, because genes that code for these
  behaviours spread through the population by
  virtue of their contribution to human survival
  and reproduction
• Examples of coordination problems that may have
  given rise to adaptations for leadership and
  followership are abound in humans
• Organizing a group hunt
• Defending the group against predators or rival
  groups
• Intervening in disputes between group members
• Who takes the lead?

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The Leader Game (Rapoport, 1967)

• Player 2
• a b
• a 0,0 100, 200
• Player 1
• b 200, 100 -100, -100
• Pay-offs are in fitness benefits
• Payoffs for Players 1, 2 respectively
• Game Equilibriums are in Bold

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Evolutionary hypotheses about the emergence of
leadership

• Extensive literature review
• Bass (1990) Handbook of leadership theory and
  research contains no fewer than 7,500 references
• Relevant chapters on leadership
• PsycINFO search for post 2000 articles on
  leadership

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Hypothesis 1 Leadership correlates with
dominance

• Rationale for prediction Dominant individuals
  can coerce others into following them
• Not supported by the psychological literature,
• Leadership correlates modestly with dominance
  scale (Bass, 1990)
• Groups do not approve of overbearing leaders
  (Boehm, 1999 Lewin et al., 1943, Van Vugt et
  al., 2004 Boehm, 1999)
• Groups dont choose the most dominant person to
  lead their group (Van Vugt De Cremer, 1999)

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Getting away from dominant leaders (Van Vugt et
al., 2004)
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Preference for leaders (Van Vugt De Cremer,
1999)
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Hypothesis 2 There should be benefits associated
with leadership (and followership)

• Rationale for prediction Leaders must benefit
  from their actions and more so than followers who
  should be better off than non-followers.
• Supported by research
• Teams are better off with a good leader than a
  bad leader or having no leader at all (Hogan et
  al., 1994).
• Leaders are wealthier than followers (Bass, 1990)
  - CEO production worker 4311
• Leaders are healthier, and experience less stress
  (Marmot, 2004)
• Leaders have more mating opportunities (Chagnon,
  1997 Perusse, 1993). Clinton on his liaison with
  Lewinsky I did it for the worst possible
  reason.because I could.
• But what about actual reproductive success?
  (Betzig, 1986)

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Emperors and harems (Betzig, 1996)
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Hypothesis 3 Leadership correlates with
initiative-taking

• Rationale Individuals inclined to make a first
  move are more likely to emerge as leaders (see
  the leader game)
• Supported by the psychological literature
• One study among ATT-executives (Bray Howard,
  1983) found that they differed from ordinary
  employees in activity and energy levels,
  industriousness, ambition, and readiness to make
  decisions.
• Leadership correlates with measures of
• Assertiveness
• Self-esteem
• Extraversion
• Risktaking
• Participation in group activities (the babble
  hypothesis) .
• These traits have a genetic component (Ilies et
  al., 2004)

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Hypothesis 4 Leadership correlates with measures
of (social) intelligence

• Rationale Intelligent individuals know better
  how to coordinate the actions of multiple actors,
  and socially intelligent ones are more persuasive
  in attracting followers
• Supported by the literature
• In Bass (1990) review, no less than 58 studies
  are reported, the majority of them (48) finding a
  positive relationship between intelligence and
  leadership. The average correlation coefficient
  across the studies is .28.
• In an archive study of the personalities of
  former US presidents, Simonton (1994) found
  evidence for superior intellectual abilities
  among most presidents (Goethals, 2005).
• IQ component that is most strongly associated
  with leadership is the verbal ability test
  (Korman, 1968).
• Using observational measures of empathy how
  leaders work with specific members in a group
  setting has revealed positive associations
  between leadership and empathy (Mann, 1959).

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But, leaders can be too intelligent!
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Hypothesis 5 Leaders are more altruistic (Hardy
Van Vugt, 2005)
Rationale leaders want to maintain their
privileged position through acting generous
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Hypothesis 6 Leadership emerges when there is a
group threat or opportunity

• Rationale People only follow leaders if there
  is a need for it if they recognize that there
  is a coordination problem
• Supported by research
• Leadership emerges quickly if there is an
  intergroup theat (Sherif, 1966) or a resource
  crisis (Van Vugt De Cremer, 1999)
• Leadership is suppressed in highly cohesive
  groups (Haslam et al., 1998) or when a technology
  is available that renders central coordination
  unneccessary (e.g., Internet)
• In crises, individuals look for leaders with
  charismatic qualities who offer a vision for the
  future (Cohen et al., 2004)
• When the chips are down, people are prepared to
  attribute charisma to really anyone (e.g., Peter
  Sellers in Being There Nicholson, 2000) such
  is the urge for leadership

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Leadership and mortality threat (Cohen et al.
2004)
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Hypothesis 7 Leadership correlates with indices
of health, age, and sex

• To attract followers, leaders should appear
  healthy (Simonton, 1994)
• Age predicts leadership with knowledge problems,
  but not with physical problems
• Males are more quickly to emerge as leaders
  (Aries, 1976), because there are status benefits
  associated with leading
• But females make better leaders sometimes (Eagly
  Johnson, 1990)

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Exercise

• Design an experiment to test the idea that
• more attractive people are more likely to emerge
  as leaders in groups
• Leadership correlates with social intelligence
• Leaders are more generous than followers

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Some myths and realities about leadership

• Myth Groups can get rid of leadership
• Reality Leadership automatically emerges once
  there is a need for coordination
• Myth Anyone can be trained to become a leader
• Reality There is a genetic basis for leadership
  there are born-leaders
• Myth Leaders do what is best for the group
• Reality There are frequent conflicts between
  leaders and followers relationships between
  leaders and followers is, at best, ambivalent
  (Van Vugt Hogan, 2005)
• Myth Democratic leadership can be imposed upon
  groups
• Reality Democracies emerge only under special
  circumstances

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