Most groups have leaders, individuals with extra power, status, and responsibility. Cultures have presidents, chiefs, or sovereigns. Armies have generals. Sports teams have captains. Committees have chairpersons or heads. A group leader wields power, and where there is a leader, there’s a hierarchical structure.

Conventional wisdom holds that effective leaders are those who possess certain personality traits; thus, they are effective regardless of what kind of situation they and their followers are in. There is some limited evidence that effective leaders tend to be high in the traits of extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness (Judge et al., 2002), and they are more confident in their own leadership abilities (Chemers et al., 2000). However, these correlations are small, meaning that knowing a person’s personality traits tells you surprisingly little about whether that person is or will become an effective leader. Indeed, Simonton (1987) analyzed 100 attributes of past U.S. presidents, including dozens of personality variables, and found no correlation between personality traits and historians’ assessments of their leadership effectiveness. We need a more sophisticated picture of how leaders interact with their followers and the broader social situation.

According to one perspective, effective leaders are transformational (Bass, 1985). The three characteristics of transformational leaders are:

336

There are many examples of transformational leaders; you can probably think of a bunch on your own. Two prototypes are Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa. You are likely familiar with the enduring effect of Dr. King’s vision. Mother Teresa’s vision transformed her order of nuns from a traditional group focused on prayer and contemplation to an action-focused group that had a remarkable positive impact on impoverished people living in the slums—first in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India, and then throughout the world.

However, very few leaders can achieve this high level of influence. What characteristics allow the average leader to be effective? The answer depends on the specific needs of the group members and the goals of the group. We can identify three types of leaders and the needs they satisfy (Fiedler, 1967). Charismatic leaders (see chapter 7) emphasize bold actions and inspire belief in the greatness of the group. Task-oriented leaders focus primarily on the pragmatics of achieving the group’s goals. Relationship-oriented leaders attend primarily to fostering equality, fairness, harmony, and participation among group members (Hogg, 2010).

337

None of these leadership types is more effective than the others in every context; rather, leadership effectiveness depends on a match between leadership type and the situation. Let’s illustrate by looking at leaders in the context of the workplace. In some work situations, group members have clearly defined tasks and are relatively free from conflict. In these highly structured situations, people happily work toward common goals, and so a leader has less need to attend to their feelings or interpersonal dynamics. Task-oriented leaders are most effective in these types of work situations, because they can keep everyone on track toward common goals.

In other work situations, group members are confused about what they should be doing and often have a difficult time working together. Relationship-oriented leaders are the most effective in these types of situations because they can attend to people’s feelings and relationships and ultimately get the group to work together more smoothly (Schriesheim et al., 1994). The broad, take-away message is that the fit of the leader to the particular demands of the situations and the goals and expectations of the group members determine that leader’s appeal and effectiveness.

338

History is replete with scandals involving powerful people who abuse their advantages and turn a blind eye toward the suffering of others. In an oft-told (but apparently unsubstantiated) story, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, supposedly remarked, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake”) on hearing of bread shortages that were threatening the underclass with starvation. The implication is that living with an abundance of resources might make it difficult to comprehend how others might be lacking. Through these cultural legends, we see the idea that power, if it doesn’t corrupt, might at least make one lose sight of how the other half (or more) lives. Let’s consider some of the evidence for this idea.

Loosened Inhibitions

Just as people with power have greater access to and control over resources, they also seem to have greater freedom to do as they please. In contrast, those with little power and low socioeconomic status face many constraints on what they can do and be. Dacher Keltner and colleagues (Keltner et al., 2003) argue that this creates a psychology of behavioral approach for those in greater power positions but a psychology of behavioral inhibition for those in lesser power positions. As we’ve emphasized throughout this textbook, approach and avoidance (or, to use the term employed by these researchers, inhibition) are general motivational orientations toward either achieving positive outcomes and reward (approach) or avoiding negative outcomes and punishments (inhibition).

According to this approach/inhibition theory of power, having an approach orientation means that you engage in goal-oriented behavior without too much concern or awareness of the obstacles that might stand in the way (Whitson et al., 2013). Even standing tall and adopting an upright or powerful posture has been shown to elevate testosterone and reduce cortisol (a stress hormone), perhaps because it prepares the person to confront and overcome challenges (Carney et al., 2010). Other research suggests that a sense of power can create a feeling of distance between the self and others, allowing for the kind of abstract thought needed to make complex decisions (Smith & Trope, 2006; Smith et al., 2008). This can make it easier for those in power to achieve more and solve thorny problems that face the group, but it can also disinhibit people from engaging in hurtful behavior toward people with less power (Galinsky et al., 2006; Guinote, 2007; Keltner et al., 2003).

For example, in one study, four members of a fraternity were brought into the lab and encouraged to tease each other (Keltner et al., 1998). In each group, two individuals were relatively new to the fraternity and thus had lower status, whereas two were higher-status members of the group. It won’t surprise you that these guys had little difficulty sitting around the room teasing one another (they each took turns so that each fraternity member had the opportunity to tease every other fraternity member who took part in the study). The researchers found that the type of teasing varied depending on who was teasing whom. Higher-status fraternity brothers teased others (regardless of their status) with little concern for whether they might humiliate them or display their dominance over them. But lower-status brothers were more prosocial in the way they teased high-status brothers. They would try to tease their big brothers in ways that acknowledged their status or flattered their strengths. For example, when asked to come up with a nickname for a person using two initials, 30% of lower-status brothers gave higher-status brothers names that were essentially flattering (e.g., MM = Muscle Machine, GM = Girl Magnet). In contrast, only 7% of higher-status brothers gave these positive teases to their lower-status brothers. Most of the time these higher-status brothers gave insulting teases (e.g., PP = Pimple Party, LI = Little Impotent).

339

Less Empathy

We can look at this last finding in terms of subordinates having to monitor what they say around leaders, but it also raises the possibility that those in positions of power are less compassionate toward their subordinates or those who are disadvantaged. More direct evidence for this comes from studies showing that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds (high SES) might be less generous and charitable than people from lower social classes (Piff et al., 2010). In one study, people who were simply reminded of how they are financially better off recommended that people give about 3 percent of their income to charity, whereas those led to think about their disadvantage in society recommended giving away almost 5 percent of one’s income. This finding seems counterintuitive, because we would expect the people with more financial resources to be in a better position to give more to others. However, having lower status can make people more generous because it cues a sense of compassion and egalitarian values. Other data on charitable giving seem to support these trends (see FIGURE 9.5).

Related findings show that people in power positions tend to be insensitive toward less powerful others. For instance, powerful people seem to have difficulty exhibiting a concrete emotional connection to other people’s suffering, sometimes even seeing them as less human (Gwinn et al., 2013; van Kleef et al., 2008). In addition, people in power are more likely to use stereotypes to form impressions of lower status individuals (Goodwin et al., 2000), devalue or take credit for the contributions of their underlings (Kipnis, 1972), and bring to mind implicit prejudices toward outgroups (Guinote et al., 2010). But those in power will be mindful of their subordinates’ individuating characteristics when doing so is relevant to what they are trying to accomplish (Overbeck & Park, 2001).

Together, this research suggests that the benefits of having power can come at the cost of being less able to empathize with or be charitable to those without power.

The fact that most groups have leaders also means that groups are often organized hierarchically, with some members having higher status than others. Although some group members have subordinate roles, they are nevertheless critical for helping the group function as a whole. For example, a beehive is a complex social structure operating in the service of one queen bee, who lays eggs. Although she might seem to have high status in this social hierarchy, the entire system would fail without swarms of female worker bees. Though sterile, the worker bees have the responsibilities of collecting honey, building the nest and caring for the larvae. The sole purpose of the male drones is to mate with a new queen once and then die. (How’s that for a one-night stand?)

340

It’s notable that the bee hierarchy is highly inflexible, with each bee having a fixed role and status. Primate societies are more flexible, but even in chimpanzee colonies, behavioral roles are largely based on biological characteristics such as age, sex, and physical strength. In human societies, although such characteristics are still influential, roles are also far more likely to be based on other socially constructed characteristics.

According to social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), when human societies grow large enough to produce a surplus of food and other basic resources, the division of labor expands beyond fixed roles stemming from biological characteristics to the creation of arbitrary sets, groups of people distinguished by culturally defined roles, attributes, or characteristics. In addition to those who cultivate food, care for children, and offer physical security, our society includes people who specialize in providing spiritual guidance, entertaining us with music and stories, hauling away our trash, or even teaching us about the complexities of our own society. Depending on the cultural values of a society, some of these groups of people are afforded higher status, and their activities are deemed more valuable than those of groups afforded lower status. Social dominance theory proposes that to maintain stable relationships between these different groups, people generally endorse beliefs that legitimize an existing social hierarchy.

Of course, we see cross-cultural variation in the degrees of hierarchy in different societies. Hofstede and Bond (1984) refer to this variation as the power distance in a culture. They define power distance as the degree to which members of a culture or organization (especially those with less power) accept an unequal distribution of power. FIGURE 9.6 indicates countries with high power distance in darker colors and those with low power distance in lighter colors. (Hofstede and Bond did not have relevant data for the countries shown in gray.) Countries higher in power distance have people who are more accepting of hierarchy. Although not a great deal of research has been done on cross-cultural variation in power distance, we have a few rather intuitive findings. For example, in business settings, employees from cultures with low power distance (e.g., the United States and Germany) are more committed to their company if they feel that they have some voice or ability to express their views and appeal to management. In contrast, for people from high-power-distance countries (China, Mexico, Hong Kong), employees’ commitment to the organization does not depend on a sense that management cares about the employees’ perspective (Brockner et al., 2001).

341

Legitimizing Hierarchy

A central idea we have touched on throughout this textbook is that much of our social reality is based on a cultural worldview that is constructed and maintained by the consensus of those who live within that reality. This means that for advantaged groups to stay in power and for group hierarchies to persist, individuals across society need to believe in the legitimacy of their leaders, the institutions that maintain them, and the social system in general. Thus, individuals generally believe that group-based social hierarchy is necessary for a functioning society. However, people vary widely in how much they value social hierarchy, or what is referred to as their social dominance orientation (Sidanius et al., 2001). It is not surprising that those who have greater power and enjoy higher status in society are typically higher in social dominance orientation than those who are socially disadvantaged: Once you have power, you want to keep it. In the United States, for example, Whites tend to score higher in social dominance orientation than Blacks or Latinos (Sidanius et al., 1994).

Social dominance orientation is linked to many aspects of a person’s lifestyle, including the career path he or she chooses. Compared with an average cross-section of people from a community (i.e., jurors), police officers—those responsible for maintaining social order—score higher in social dominance orientation. In contrast, public defenders—those who provide a voice for the economically underprivileged—score lower in social dominance orientation (Sidanius et al., 1994). As you’ve now learned about correlational relationships, the causal arrow here might point both ways. That is, people’s desire for social hierarchy might predict the roles and careers that appeal to them; at the same time, those roles might reinforce their beliefs about the value or vileness of group dominance. What’s more, both social dominance orientation and career choice could be influenced similarly by some additional variable, such as how authoritarian one’s parents were.

In chapter 2, we discussed the importance of a cultural worldview in providing structure and meaning for people’s day-to-day lives as well as an understanding of their very existence. So it should come as no surprise that people are highly motivated to maintain their belief in the legitimacy of the social system, especially if they enjoy the advantages of being at the top of the heap. According to social dominance theory, individuals who are high in social dominance orientation maintain their belief in status hierarchy in part by subscribing to legitimizing myths. These myths include overgeneralized beliefs about the traits possessed by those who are low in social status (e.g., “Those people are all lazy”). They also include overly simplistic beliefs about why people succeed or fail in society. One such belief is that anyone can get ahead if she or he simply works hard enough.

A rather ironic consequence of believing in legitimizing myths is that the people who are advantaged in society may be more likely than underprivileged groups to claim that they are unfairly discriminated against. For example, although both Whites and Latinos can have relatively high levels of social dominance orientation, only for Whites (the more advantaged group in American society) do these beliefs predict increased perceptions that they are victims of ethnic prejudice (Thomsen et al., 2010). Consider the following experiment, in which college students were asked to role play a situation in which they were applying for a managerial position (Major et al., 2002). White participants who learned that they had been passed over for the job by a Latino manager who favored a Latino applicant were more likely to claim that they were discriminated against than were Latino participants who were passed over by a White manager who favored a White applicant. In both of these studies, we see members of the advantaged group, especially those who believe in the legitimacy of their advantaged position, crying foul when their advantaged position seems to be called into question.

342

Legitimizing myths and social roles provide a framework that reinforces the rigidity and stability of the existing social hierarchy. According to system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994), negative stereotypes get attached to groups partly because they help to explain and justify why some individuals are more advantaged than others. For example, if as a culture we label the homeless as being dim-witted, lazy, and dangerous, these traits not only provide us with an account of how a person comes to be living on the street in the first place but also validate our decision to brush off requests for spare change or to avoid voting for social programs to help them. It is more comforting to hold stereotypes that portray the world as a place where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get than to admit that random forces as well as biased systems of structural advantages might have allowed some individuals to enjoy a life of leisure, education, and abundant food while others across the globe face malnutrition, discrimination, and poor access to health care and education.

Although it’s easy to understand why members of advantaged groups would want to maintain their legitimizing beliefs, the more remarkable phenomenon is that members of objectively disadvantaged groups in society often do, too. As we noted in our discussion of social identity theory earlier in this chapter, it’s quite common for individuals to show ingroup bias, a preference for their own group over outgroups. This bias is often greater in advantaged groups than in disadvantaged groups. Conversely, some members of disadvantaged groups actually show a preference for the higher-status group over their own (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). For instance, some studies show that Arabs living in Israel and Latinos living in Los Angeles (who both value group hierarchy and believe that the hierarchy in their respective societies is legitimate) were more favorably disposed toward the higher-status majority group than toward their own (Levin et al., 2002).

As noted in the earlier description of the concept of power distance, group hierarchies can be preserved only with some amount of buy-in from those who have lower status. The existence of complementary stereotypes, whereby groups are ascribed both positive and negative characteristics, are one way to get that buy-in. Kay and Jost (2003; Kay et al., 2007) have shown that people believe that the social system is fairer and more just after they are exposed to stories of those who are poor but happy or rich but dishonest than after they are exposed to stories of people who are poor and unhappy or rich and honest. We seem to like it when groups that are socially disadvantaged seem satisfied with their lives and groups that are especially well off are miserable or untrustworthy.

This might also mean that it’s not so bad to be part of the working classes, living from paycheck to paycheck, if you believe that the upper classes are snobbish, cold, dishonest, and depressed. In a similar way, although most women reject stereotypes that suggest that women are less competent or intelligent than men, a large percentage still endorse the idea that women are more moral or warm (Glick & Fiske, 1996). In this way, members of disadvantaged groups who endorse positive stereotypes for their groups (e.g., when a woman proclaims that women are more caring then men) inadvertently may be promoting the very system that keeps them in their disadvantaged place.

To acknowledge instead a sense of disadvantage requires a comparison with others who are more advantaged. Karl Marx famously wrote:

A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut…. [T]he occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls” (Marx, 1847).

As Marx’s quote suggests, we tend to compare ourselves with similar others or with those who are close by. Because societies tend to segregate themselves socially and physically on the basis of class membership or other similarities, we most often compare ourselves with people like us—people who might be disadvantaged in the same way. This means that disadvantages can often go unnoticed, or at least fade into the background of our more salient day-to-day experience.

343

A classic study demonstrated this phenomenon, known as relative deprivation. When they surveyed soldiers in the U.S. Army, Stouffer and colleagues (Stouffer et al., 1949) found interesting discrepancies between the men’s reported satisfaction with aspects of their jobs and the actual facts about their jobs. For example, a job in the air corps led to twice as many opportunities for promotion than did a job in the military police. But men in the military police reported much higher satisfaction with their access to promotion opportunities than did men in the air corps. Why? Because men in the air corps were more likely to come into contact with their promoted peers and feel unhappy about their own subordinate status. With fewer promoted peers in the military police, M.P.s proved that ignorance can sometimes be bliss.

Predicting Social Change

Clearly social upheaval does sometimes happen, and people in disadvantaged groups often do become disillusioned with a system that makes life difficult for them, their friends, and their families. To predict when these social changes will occur, researchers have drawn on social identity theory. This theory highlights several factors that can determine whether members of lower status groups choose to work within the system toward their own individual goals (try to increase individual mobility) or resist and try to change the status quo in the service of group goals (engage in collective action). In a nutshell, those who fight for the cause of their disadvantaged group often believe that (1) the boundaries between groups are impermeable; (2) the current structure is illegitimate but also unstable; and thus (3) it can be changed.

Together, these three perceptions increase identification with and loyalty to the ingroup, which promotes actions to elevate the status of that group (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Research has supported these ideas with both experimental studies that create groups in the lab (Ellemers et al, 1988) and survey research with real-world groups (DeWeerd & Klandermans, 1999). These groups include East Germans reacting to having subordinate status to West Germans and Dutch farmers protesting against government legislation that would affect agriculture.

344

The permeability of group boundaries, sometimes studied as the belief in a meritocracy or the belief that one can advance one’s lot in life through hard work, is particularly interesting as a predictor of collective action. During the 1960s in America, the fight for civil rights was spearheaded by the black power movement. Most of the members of this movement, however, were not the poorest and most disadvantaged Blacks but rather were members of the emerging Black middle and upper class (Caplan, 1970). Although individual mobility efforts can allow people to rise within their group, sometimes a move to collective action does not happen until relatively advantaged members of a lower-status group run up against a barrier that seems to prevent further success. It only might be at this point that the system seems rigged against them and that something in addition to their individual efforts toward individual goals is needed for further advancement.