The Leader's Sense of Legitimacy as a Source of His Constructive Deviation
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to determine how persons placed in the position of "leader" variously employ their legitimacy to exert influence through innovative deviation. Ss were 40 male undergraduates drawn from 52 who initially had come together in groups of at least 12 each to take part in a discussion of urban problems. They were then separated and each S was led to believe that he either had been appointed or elected leader of a team, and either as "top choice" or "third choice." The team was allegedly meeting in another room to consider alternative action programs to alleviate urban problems. As leader, each S's task was to exercise his own judgment in setting the priorities for these action programs, after taking account of recommendations received as messages from other team members. The major dependent measure was the leader's rejection of these recommendations on critical trials, when presented with a reverse ordering of the true preference ranking obtained from pilot work with similar Ss. The results indicated that both source of authority and strength of endorsement affected the willingness of leaders to deviate from team choices, with 'elected' leaders significantly more inclined to manifest such deviation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1969
- Accession Number
- AD0696539
Entities
People
- Edwin P. Hollander
- James W. Julian
- Richard M. Sorrentino
Organizations
- University at Buffalo