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Attribution of leadership in a resource management situation
Author(s) -
Wit A. P.,
Wilke H. A. M.,
Van Dijk E.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2420190407
Subject(s) - attribution , psychology , social psychology , predictability , resource (disambiguation) , group (periodic table) , computer network , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , chemistry , organic chemistry
Abstract In a resource management game we investigated how regular group members respond to a leader who promotes group success or fails to do so, while operating in a predictable or totally unpredictable environment. The subjects (N = 110) were confronted with a bogus leader who purportedly took decisions on behalf of the whole group. Performance of the leader and Predictability of the environment were manipulated by means of a 2 × 2 factorial design. As predicted, a failing leader received weaker endorsement than a successful leader (Performance main effect). The Performance × Predictability interaction effect was ascribed to two circumstances: (a) As predicted by the attributional approach of leadership (Calder, 1977; Pfeffer, 1977), endorsement of a successful leader was weaker in the Unpredictable than in the Predictable environment. However, (b) endorsement of a failing leader was not significantly weaker in the Predictable than in the Unpredictable environment. Additional data showed that regular group members' attributions played a mediating role.