College of Behavioral & Social Sciences
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Dark Entanglement: Narcissistic Leaders, Their Followers, and the Contexts They Create.(Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2024-01) Forgo, Emily E.; Hanges, Paul J.; Gruda, DritjonThis chapter describes the complex interplay between narcissistic leaders and their followers and how different contexts influence this dynamic relationship. In contrast to the traditional narcissistic leadership literature, which has concentrated on the leader’s characteristics and tendencies, we apply a relational-based perspective to argue that followers can enhance or suppress these characteristics of the leader. We also discuss how contexts also have a similar effect on leaders and followers. Narcissistic relationships flourish under certain circumstances and whither under others. We argue that a complete understanding of narcissistic leadership requires understanding of and empirical study of the entangled nature of these three variables.Item Stepping into the Breach: Followers Reclaiming Leadership from Formal Leaders(2023) Butler, Alexander I; Hanges, Paul; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Recently, DeRue (2011) reconceptualized leadership as a dynamic process in which individuals engage in interdependent and interlocking acts of leading and following called “double interacts.” The behaviors that take place in double interacts are categorized as claims and grants, and they signify the assertion or bestowment of status as leader or follower in interpersonal exchanges. The present study (N = 367) builds upon DeRue’s theoretical model by testing antecedents to claiming and granting. Results show that leader behavior predicts followers’ decisions to claim or grant leader status. Furthermore, followers’ trust perceptions mediate the relationship between leader behavior and claiming and granting, and leader identity magnitude moderates the mediating effect of trust. This study has implications for understanding leader influence, claiming and granting, trust, and leader identity construction.Item Why We Follow Narcissistic Leaders(Harvard Business Review, 2023-01-30) Gruda, Dritjon; Hanges, Paul J.A recent study aimed to understand narcissistic leaders and who is most likely to follow them. The results revealed a few patterns. If you are someone who is always looking out for others, empathizes with others, and seeks harmony and consensus in your team (known as agreeable followers), you are more likely to be susceptible to following a narcissistic leader. If you are someone who gets anxious and worried easily or likes to get started on work projects early on to prevent anxiety as a deadline draws closer (known as neurotic followers), you probably prefer engaging with narcissistic leaders.Item Abusive and Supportive Leadership Effects on Masculinity & Aggression towards Women(2020) Epistola, Jordan; Hanges, Paul J; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Masculinity is a highly-valued but elusive status in society. This is due to its socially conferred nature. While masculinity is associated with good traits, it is also associated with negative traits such as aggression against others. Negative masculine traits occur when males lose masculine status and seek to reestablish it. While research has identified contexts that elicit masculinity loss, research to date has not focused on the role leaders play in shaping followers’ interpretations of such contexts. The present study sought to address this by examining the effect of supportive versus abusive leadership on followers’ experience of masculinity in potentially threatening contexts. Dahl, Vesio & Weaver’s (2015) research method for threatening masculinity was expanded upon to test this. Results revealed significant differences in public discomfort and anger between supportive and abusive leadership. Leadership also impacted followers’ hostility towards women through changes in masculinity loss stress. Surprisingly, Dahl et al.’s (2015) method for threatening masculinity could not be replicated. Potential explanations, as well as theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.Item Why are Leaders Perceived as Abusive: Evaluating the Definition of Abusive Leadership with an Experimental Examination Comparing Harmful Leader Intentions, Behaviors, and the Frequency of Leader Actions(2020) Levine, Benjamin Ryan; Grand, James A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Abusive leadership, subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in systematic and repeated hostile behaviors that violate the interests of the organization, subordinates, or both, is a widespread issue with far reaching consequences. It is consequently vital for organizations to monitor and neutralize these behaviors, to improve the lives of individual employees and their overall company performance. Unfortunately, research on abusive leadership is muddled as many researchers have coined their own terms for similar behaviors and phenomena. The lack of clarity and agreement on the definition is a continual source of friction in this research area, and it presents a roadblock for practitioners seeking to reduce abusive leadership. The current research leveraged an experimental methodology to critically examine and refine the definition of abusive leadership through testing its three core assumptions. Drawn from the three core assumptions, three factors, leader intentions, the frequency of exposure to leader behavior, and the harm caused by leader behavior, were included to provide the first experimental test of the influence of each factor on perceptions of abusive leadership. A longitudinal design was utilized to model the influence of frequency of exposure, and leader intentions and the harm of leader behaviors were specifically manipulated in the study. Across five trials, 208 participants completed tasks and interacted with videos of a confederate leader. After each trial, participants provided ratings of their perceptions of the leader’s abusiveness. Results from a repeated measures ANOVA and an HLM growth model suggested strong support for the influence of leader intentions, harm of leader behaviors and frequency of exposure on perceptions of abusive leadership. Guidance for updating the definition of abusive leadership, theoretical and practical implications of the study, as well as future directions are also discussedItem The influence of societal norms on leader categorization(2017) Levine, Benjamin Ryan; Grand, James A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Leadership prototypes, cognitive structures representing organized knowledge about the ideal leader, are central to the process of leader categorization. Culture is believed to influence the content and structure of leadership prototypes, however the majority of existing research centered on the influence of cultural values. The purpose of this research was to incorporate societal norms, specifically cultural tightness-looseness, the strength of norms and acceptance for deviance in a society, into the study of leadership prototypes. Drawing from literatures on Leader Categorization Theory, leadership prototypes, and cultural tightness-looseness, the current research investigated the influence of tightness-looseness on the structure and content of leadership prototypes across cultures. Study 1 examined the structure of leadership prototypes as a function of cultural tightness within a country using a large archival data set. It suggested that individuals in tighter cultures were less discriminating in the attributes they valued in leadership prototypes than individuals in looser cultures. Study 2 utilized a policy capture methodology to evaluate the influence of tightness-looseness on the importance of singular attributes in leadership prototypes. Results indicated that individuals who endorsed tighter norms were more willing to categorize individuals as leaders than individuals who endorsed looser norms. Implications of these findings for understanding leader categorization and its relationship to cultural tightness-looseness in particular are discussed.Item Service, Sacrifice, and Citizenship: The Experiences of Muslims Serving in the U.S. Military(2013) Sandhoff, Michelle; Segal, David R; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The events of 9/11 and the subsequent "War on Terror" activated long standing stereotypes in the United States that portrayed Muslims as fundamentally different from other Americans. In this project, I interview 15 Muslims who have served in the U.S. military since 9/11 to determine if and how the activation of this us/them boundary shaped their military experiences. I find that the us/them atmosphere that characterizes civilian discourse about Muslims is present in the military. However, most of my respondents felt that it had little practical effect on them. I discuss this in terms of the presence but irrelevance of this boundary. I connect this finding to the history of racial integration in the U.S. military, arguing that characteristics of the military, including an emphasis on policies of equal opportunity, the ability to compel certain behaviors, and the nature of military service, which promotes close contact among diverse individuals, can mitigate some of the negatives effects of being othered. While most of my respondents had positive experiences, in some units the us/them discourse was exacerbated, creating atmospheres of distrust and suspicion which led to negative outcomes including harassment, accusations, and decisions by Muslim service members to leave the military. A theme that emerged in exploring this dichotomy of experience among my respondents was the role of leadership. Leadership that saw value in diversity and was invested in supporting it, mitigated negative effects of othering, making this an irrelevant frame. However, leadership that repeated stereotypes or fears reinforced this tension, creating toxic environments in which Muslim service members felt excluded. I began this project with the expectation that citizenship would be a central narrative for Muslim service members, as it was for Japanese Americans in World War II. However, the respondents in my sample rarely use their military service to directly make claims on citizenship. They do however express institutional motivations to serve and engage in dialogue, bridge building, and other aspects of everyday citizenship.Item Getting on the Same Page: How Leaders Build Trust Consensus in Teams and Its Consequences(2012) Fulmer, C. Ashley; Ostroff, Cheri; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Existing organizational research has demonstrated that team members' trust in leaders is positively related to a team's bottom-line outcomes. However, little is known about how collective trust in leaders develops among team members. To address this gap, the present study examines the effects of multiple emergent processes on the extent to which team members exhibit consensus in trust in their leader. In particular, it was proposed that the most important factors for the emergence, and the degree of consensus, of collective trust in leaders should have the same referent target as the collective construct (i.e., the leader) and concern behaviors that involve interactions between the leader and team members. Thus, the leader behavior and interactions variables of showing concern, leading by example, and monitoring were expected to exert stronger influence on the consensus in trust in leaders than leader attributes (ability and integrity) and team factors (open communication and demographic diversity). Further, the degree of consensus in trust in leaders was predicted to have both an independent and interaction effect with the mean level of trust in leaders in influencing team performance and voice behavior. Three waves of survey data were collected from teams with new leadership in a large academic military institution. Data from 719 team members from 105 teams were used to test these predictions by analyzing consensus concurrently and changes in consensus over time. The results generally supported the relative importance of leader showing concern and leading by example on the degree of consensus in trust in leaders in the concurrent model. For changes in consensus, leading by example was particularly important. In addition, while consensus was not independently related to the team performance and voice behaviors, it interacted with the mean level in influencing the outcomes in both the concurrent and change models. Taken together, the findings suggest that some leader behaviors are important for the development of collective trust or consensus in trust in leaders, and further suggest that consensus can act as a boundary condition for the effect of the mean level of trust in leaders on team outcomes. By focusing on the consensus in trust in leaders, this research begins to shed light on how consensus in trust develops among team members with respect to their leader and has implications for understanding trust, leadership, and emergence.Item Information Control: Leadership Power in the U.S. House of Representatives(2011) Curry, James Michael; Lee, Frances E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Most congressional scholarship argues that legislative leaders--majority party leaders and committee chairs--are strongly constrained, weak agents of their rank-and-file. This study argues that information, and leaders' ability to control it, is a significant and independent source of power for leaders in the House of Representatives. Most rank-and-file members of Congress lack the time and resources necessary to track, study, or become deeply involved in legislating on most bills considered by the House. As a result, they rely on sources that can synthesize the information they need to decide whether or not to support the bill, offer an amendment, or take other actions. The party leadership and committee chairs, because of their staff and resource advantages, are important sources of information for the rank-and-file. However, legislative leaders often exploit their informational advantages to help their preferred legislation gain easy passage through the chamber. Along with the ability to perpetually collect information on rank-and-file preferences, and provide leadership-approved information about legislation, legislative leaders also have an arsenal of tools to limit the availability of information including withholding legislative language, scheduling votes on short notice, and using large and complex legislation as a vehicle. This information control puts leaders in the driver's seat, allowing them to lead the chamber by shaping the information driving the debate on a bill. Thirty interviews with members of Congress and congressional staff, along with a unique dataset of important legislation considered by the House of Representatives are used to support this theory. Leaders are found to employ information control tactics strategically, to aid the passage of their priority legislation and in response to the potential for significant influence from outside groups. The study, overall, suggests that legislative leaders in the House are more influential than they are typically perceived to be and that participation in congressional policymaking is often restricted.Item Development and Validation of the Toxic Leadership Scale(2008-06-11) Schmidt, Andrew A.; Hanges, Paul J; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While many publications focus on traits and behaviors that make leaders effective, some leaders engage in dysfunctional and destructive behaviors. These "toxic leadership" styles have been largely unexplored. The goals of this study were to empirically derive the dimensions of toxic leadership, to create a reliable and valid survey that measures the construct, to explore convergent and discriminant construct validity, and to perform a preliminary examination of subordinate outcomes that may result from working under a toxic leader. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies across military and civilian sectors, this study suggests that toxic leadership is composed of the following five dimensions: abusive supervision, authoritarian leadership, narcissism, self-promotion, and unpredictability. Toxic leadership is differentiable from other leadership constructs (e.g., transformational, LMX) and its dimensions significantly predict employee outcomes such as turnover intentions, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with the supervisor. Implications for future research are discussed.