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I Follow, Therefore I Lead: A Longitudinal Study of Leader and Follower Identity and Leadership in the Marines
Kim Peters & Alexander Haslam
British Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is acknowledged that identity plays an important role in a person's leadership development. To date, however, there has been little consideration of the possibility – suggested by the social identity perspective – that individuals who identify as followers may be especially likely to emerge as leaders. We test this possibility in a longitudinal sample of recruit commandos in the Royal Marines. Recruits rated their identification with leader and follower roles five times over the course of their 32‐week training programme. Recruits’ leadership and followership were evaluated by their commanders, and their leadership was assessed by their peers. Analysis indicated that while recruits who identified as leaders received higher leadership ratings from their commanders, recruits who identified – and were perceived – as followers emerged as leaders for their peers. These findings suggest that follower and leader identities underpin different aspects of leadership and that these are differentially recognized by others.
Negotiation as the Art of the Deal
Matthew Jackson et al.
Stanford Working Paper, April 2018
Abstract:
Negotiation is a ubiquitous and consequential form of economic interaction. It is deal-making in the absence of a designer. We propose a theory of negotiation in which deals have many aspects. This leads to new results showing that efficient trade is possible even with substantial asymmetric information, which we show via both theory and experiments. In a robust class of settings of asymmetric information, the benefits of identifying areas of mutual gain redirect agents away from posturing and manipulating their share of the pie towards growing the pie. We show that equilibria are efficient, with significant implications for applications.
Yes we can? Group efficacy beliefs predict collective action, but only when hope is high
Smadar Cohen-Chen & Martijn Van Zomeren
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, July 2018, Pages 50-59
Abstract:
Surprisingly, hope is under-researched in contemporary social-psychological explanations of collective action and social change. This may be because collective action research typically focuses on “high-hope” contexts in which it is generally assumed that change is possible (the main appraisal of hope), and thus the main question is whether “we” can change the situation through collective action (i.e., group efficacy beliefs). This line of thought implies that such beliefs should only motivate collective action when hope is high. To test this hypothesis, we conducted three experiments in contexts that were not “high-hope”. In Study 1, conducted within the “low-hope” context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we found that manipulated group efficacy beliefs did not increase individuals' collective action intentions. Studies 2 and 3 used the contexts of NHS privatization in the United Kingdom and Gun Control Reform in the United States — contexts that were neither “low-hope” nor “high-hope”, which enabled us to manipulate hope and group efficacy beliefs together in one design. Consistent with our hypothesis, findings of both experiments revealed that group efficacy beliefs only predicted collective action when hope was high. Replicating Study 1, when hope was low, group efficacy had no effect on collective action intentions. We discuss our findings in light of the idea that only when hope for social change is established, the question of whether “we” can create change through collective action becomes relevant. Without hope, there can be no basis for agency, which informs goal-directed action.
The Rapid Evolution of Homo Economicus: Brief Exposure to Neoclassical Assumptions Increases Self-Interested Behavior
John Ifcher & Homa Zarghamee
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, August 2018, Pages 55-65
Abstract:
Economics students have been shown to exhibit more selfishness than other students. Because the literature identifies the impact of long-term exposure to economics instruction (e.g., taking a course), it cannot isolate the specific course content responsible; nor can selection, peer effects, or other confounds be properly controlled for. In a laboratory experiment, we use a within- and across-subject design to identify the impact of brief, randomly-assigned economics lessons on behavior in the ultimatum game (UG), dictator game (DG), prisoner's dilemma (PD), and public-goods game (PGG). We find that a brief lesson that includes the assumptions of self-interest and strategic considerations moves behavior toward traditional economic rationality in UG, PD, and DG. Despite entering the study with higher levels of selfishness than others, subjects with prior exposure to economics instruction have similar training effects. We show that the lesson reduces efficiency and increases inequity in the UG. The results demonstrate that even brief exposure to commonplace neoclassical economics assumptions measurably moves behavior toward self-interest.
Looking into your eyes: Observed pupil size influences approach-avoidance responses
Marco Brambilla, Marco Biella & Mariska Kret
Cognition and Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The eyes reveal important social messages, such as emotions and whether a person is aroused and interested or bored and fatigued. A growing body of research has also shown that individuals with large pupils are generally evaluated positively by observers, while those with small pupils are perceived negatively. Here, we examined whether observed pupil size influences approach-avoidance tendencies. Participants performed an Approach-Avoidance Task using faces with large and small pupil sizes. Results showed that pupil size influences the accuracy of arm movements. Specifically, individuals were less prone to approach a face with small pupils than a face with large pupils. Conversely, participants were less prone to avoid a face with large pupils than a face with small pupils. Collectively, these findings suggest that perceivers attend to a facial cue – pupil size – when interacting with others.
Tolerance to ambiguous uncertainty predicts prosocial behavior
Marc-Lluís Vives & Oriel FeldmanHall
Nature Communications, June 2018
Abstract:
Uncertainty is a fundamental feature of human life that can be fractioned into two distinct psychological constructs: risk (known probabilistic outcomes) and ambiguity (unknown probabilistic outcomes). Although risk and ambiguity are known to powerfully bias nonsocial decision-making, their influence on prosocial behavior remains largely unexplored. Here we show that ambiguity attitudes, but not risk attitudes, predict prosocial behavior: the greater an individual’s ambiguity tolerance, the more they engage in costly prosocial behaviors, both during decisions to cooperate (experiments 1 and 3) and choices to trust (experiment 2). Once the ambiguity associated with another’s actions is sufficiently resolved, this relationship between ambiguity tolerance and prosocial choice is eliminated (experiment 3). Taken together, these results provide converging evidence that attitudes toward ambiguity are a robust predictor of one’s willingness to engage in costly social behavior, which suggests a mechanism for the underlying motivations of prosocial action.
The Persistent Power of Promises
Florian Ederer & Frédéric Schneider
Yale Working Paper, May 2018
Abstract:
This paper investigates how the passage of time affects trust, trustworthiness, and cooperation. We use a hybrid lab and online experiment to provide the first evidence for the persistent power of communication. Even when 3 weeks pass between messages and actual choices, communication raises cooperation, trust, and trustworthiness by about 50 percent. Lags between the beginning of the interaction and the time to respond do not substantially alter the trustworthiness of the responder. Our results further suggest that the findings of the large experimental literature on trust that focuses on laboratory scenarios, in which senders are forced to choose their actions immediately after communicating with recipients, may translate to more ecologically valid settings in which individuals choose actions outside the lab and long after they initially made promises.