Symposium presented at the
21st Annual SIOP Conference
Dallas, TX
April 2006
Why an Evolutionary
View of Leadership?
Robert B. Kaiser
Leadership and Evolutionary Psychology
New Perspectives on an Old Topic
Presented at the
21st Annual SIOP Conference
Dallas, TX
April 2006
Robert B. Kaiser
Why an Evolutionary View of Leadership?
Robert B. Kaiser
What Evolution Teaches Us about Leadership
Mark Van Vugt
Genetic Influences on Leadership
Richard D. Arvey
Evolutionary Theory and Applied Psychology
Robert Hogan
University College of London
Why?
• Evolution is a fact.
The most integrative scientific theory:
a touchstone for all other explanations.
• Leadership is vastly important. And the literature
is also vast. But the field has its shortcomings.
– Definition
– Integration
– Explanation
Adrian Furnham, Discussant
Evolutionary Psychology
• Why we are what we are as a function of
surviving and reproducing in the
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness
99% of genus history
50 to 75% of species history
1
Natural selection
• Variation
• Heritability
• Selection
A way of thinking
Solution
Function
“Psychological
adaptations”
Human Social Nature
• Self-preservation, status: Selfish
• Group living, social bonding: Cooperation
• Tribal rivalries: In-group/out-group
Problems in Leadership
• Definition
• Integration
• Explanation
Form
Leda Cosmides & John Tooby (1997)
Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer
Adaptive Problems
on the Savannah
•
•
•
•
Survival, self-preservation
Group membership
Status within the group
Group survival
Key Adaptive Pressures
Within group
• Coordination
• Cooperation
• Solidarity
Between Group
• Alliances
• Rivalries
– Savage warfare
– Gene politics
How do you guide the
group to victory?
How do you get selfish
individuals to get along?
2
Leadership Defined
• functional resource for group survival
• solution to the adaptive problem of
collective effort.
A process of social influence that persuades
selfish individuals to set aside, for some time,
their purely self-interested goals to cooperate
with others in the pursuit of common goals—
chiefly group survival amid competition with
rival groups.
Kaiser & Hogan (2006) Leadership and the fate of organizations
Hogan & Kaiser (2005) What we know about leadership
Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan (1994) What we know…
Implications
• Relative group performance is the
measure of leadership effectiveness
• Genuine leadership is about the fate
of the led, not the leader
Integration
• Lots of empirical generalizations
• No framework to integrate them in a
compelling account of the
phenomenon of leadership
Hogan & Kaiser (2005) What we know about leadership
Van Vugt (in press) Some lessons from the past
Evolutionary thinking is…
• Biological: size, health, energy, age, sex
• Concerned with what goes on within and
between groups
Effectiveness
(between groups)
Emergence
(status within group)
• Inherently ecological and “species typical”
Hogan & Kaiser (2005) What we know about leadership
Kaiser & Hogan (2006) Leadership and the fate of org’s
Problems in Leadership
• Definition
• Integration
• Explanation
- Contingency theory (interactions)
- “One best way”/Trait theories (main effects)
Problems in Leadership
• Definition
• Integration
• Explanation
3
Explanation – Why?
•
•
•
•
Proximate
Ontogenetic
Phylogenetic
Ultimate/functional
Tinbergen (1963) On aims and methods in ethology
Buss (1999) Evolutionary Psychology
16 million living men carrying
his Y-chromosome today
~ 8% of South Asia
4
What Evolution Teaches Us
About Leadership:
Some Lessons From the Past
What we know…
‡
Leader-follower patterns are
found across many group-living
species:
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Mark Van Vugt
University of Kent
[email protected]
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Based on: Van Vugt, M. (in press). Evolutionary origins of leadership and followership.
Personality and Social Psychology Review.
‡
http://www.kent.ac.uk/psychology/department/people/van-vugtm/index.htm
What we know about leadership
Teaching in ants (Franks &
Richardson, 2006)
Voting patterns to determine
direction of group movement
in buffalo (Prins, 1968) and
baboon (Dunbar, 1983;
Kummer, 1968)
“Control” animal in primates
(De Waal, 1996; Wilson,
1975)
Coalition formations in
chimpanzees
‡
overthrowing dominant (De
Waal, 1996)
defending territory (Boehm,
1999; Wrangham & Peterson,
1996)
What we know….
‡
Leadership emerges quickly and spontaneously among groups of strangers in the
field and the lab (Sherif, 1966; Van Vugt & De Cremer, 1999)
‡
Leadership matters, but the rate of leadership failure is estimated at as much as
60%-75% (Hogan et al., 1994)
‡
Leadership is one of the most widely studied phenomenon in social/organizational
psychology (Bass, 1990)
‡
Psychological literature on leadership contains a wealth of data, but there is very
little integration into an overarching theoretical framework (such as evolutionary
theory) and no cross-fertilization between disciplines interested in leadership
“The academic tradition is a collection of dependable empirical nuggets, but it is also a
collection of decontextualized facts that do not add up to a persuasive account of
leadership” (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005)
‡
What we know…
‡
Leadership is characteristic of all organized
human groups (Bass, 1990; Hogan, Hogan, &
Curphy, 1994)
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‡
Military
Religion
Nations, countries, and states
Education
Business
Leadership is a human universal:
“The UP [Universal People] have leaders, though they may be
ephemeral or situational. The UP admire, or profess to
admire, generosity and this is particularly desired in a
leader. No leader of the UP ever has complete power
lodged in himself alone. UP leaders go beyond the limits of
UP reason and morality. Since the UP never have complete
democracy, and never have complete autocracy, they
always have a de facto oligarchy” (Brown, 1991; p. 138).
Any psychological theory of leadership must ultimately be consisted with evolutionary
theory to explain its own assumptions (e.g., where do leader prototypes come from?)
An evolutionary perspective on leadership
From an evolutionary perspective, the really puzzling
behaviour is followership (why would any organism
voluntarily defer to another?)
Asking the Why-question (Tinbergen, 1963)
‡
‡
‡
‡
Why follow this particular leader at this particular point in
time? (psychological or proximate question)
How does one become a leader or follower? (the
developmental or ontogenetic question)
When did leadership first emerge in our and other species?
(historical or phylogenetic question)
Why did leadership and followership evolve? (ultimate or
evolutionary question); adaptation and natural selection
5
Two evolutionary hypotheses on
leadership (Van Vugt, in press)
‡
Preference for leaders in a group crisis
(Van Vugt & De Cremer, 1999; JPSP)
7
Leadership as byproduct dominance
‡
Leadership as
adaptive coordination
strategy
‡
Leadership as costly
signal (sexual
selection)
A dominance theory of leadership
Leadership is a by-product of the
emergence of dominance hierarchies in
group living species (Buss, 2004;
Nicholson, 2000; Wilson, 1975)
‡ Individuals compete for scarce resources
and the winners dominate the losers – the
notorious pecking order
‡ Dominants exercise control over group
activities, and therefore emerge as leaders
sometimes
6
5
preference
for leader 4
type
3
2
1
This is not supported in the human (psychological)
literature
‡
‡
‡
Leadership correlates very modestly with
dominance scales (Bass, 1990; Stogdill, 1974)
Groups do not vote for dominant leaders, even in
a crisis (Rutte & Wilke, 1984; Van Vugt & De
Cremer, 1999)
Groups react negatively to autocratic leaders
(Boehm, 1999; Lewin et al., 1943, Van Vugt et
al., 2004)
democratic
appointed
elected
external
internal
types of leadership
Moving away from autocratic leaders
(Van Vugt et al., 2004; JESP)
‡
Hypothesis: Leadership correlates with
measures of dominance
autocratic
40
35
30
25
% exit from
20
group
15
10
5
0
autocratic
democratic
laissez-faire
leadership style
Leadership as evolved game
strategy
‡
Leadership and followership are complimentary strategies
in coordination games;
‡
These strategies have become design features of organisms
as genes that code for these strategies have spread
through the population by virtue of the superior decision
rules they adopt (Maynard-Smith, 1982)
‡
Examples of coordination/cooperation problems:
„ Group movement (e.g., to a new waterhole, hunting
ground)
„ Group defense
„ Resource distribution
„ Peacekeeping
6
Hypothesis: Leadership correlates with
measures of (social) intelligence
The Leader Game
Rationale: Individuals better at reading other’s preferences are more
likely to emerge as leaders
Player 2
Player 1
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Follow
Lead
Follow
0,0
100, 200
Lead
200, 100
-100, -100
‡
Pay-offs are in fitness benefits
Payoffs for Players 1, 2 respectively
Game Equilibria are in Bold
Leading is the risky option
Game can be easily solved in sequential play
Possible selection for adaptations associated with timing
Hypothesis: Leadership correlates with
initiative-taking
Rationale: First movers are more likely to emerge as leaders
Supported in the psychological literature:
‡
A large study among AT&T-executives (Bray & Howard,
1983) found that leaders differed in activity and energy
levels, industriousness, ambition, and readiness to make
decisions
‡
Leadership correlates with traits associated with initiative
taking (Bass, 1990; Hogan & Kaiser, 2005)
Assertiveness
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‡
Supported in the literature
Impatience
Self-esteem
Extraversion
Openness
Risk-taking
Participation in group activities predicts leadership
(the “babble” hypothesis); Sorrentino & Boutillier,
1975) .
Many leader traits have a substantial heritable component
(Arvey, 2006; Judge et al., 2002)
But, leaders can move too far ahead
of their troops!
‡
‡
‡
In Bass’ (1990) review, no less than 58 studies are reported, the
majority of them (48) finding a positive relationship between
intelligence and leadership. The average correlation coefficient
across the studies is +.28.
In an archive study of the personalities of former US presidents,
Simonton (1994) found evidence for superior intellectual abilities
among presidents (Goethals, 2005).
IQ component that is most strongly associated with leadership is
the verbal ability test (Korman, 1968).
Using observational measures of empathy – how leaders work
with specific members in a group setting – reveals positive
associations between leadership and empathy (Mann, 1959).
Hypothesis: Leadership should emerge whenever there is a
need for group coordination
Rationale: Individuals only follow someone if there are likely
benefits of coordinated action
Supported in research
‡
‡
‡
Leadership emerges quickly if there is an intergroup conflict
(Sherif, 1966) or a resource crisis (Van Vugt & De Cremer,
1999)
Leadership is suppressed in highly cohesive groups (Haslam
et al., 1998), or when a technology is available that renders
central coordination unneccessary (Kerr & Jermier, 1978)
In stressful situations (such as one’s imminent death),
individuals look for leaders with charismatic qualities
(Cohen et al., 2004);
Leadership and mortality threat
(Cohen et al. 2004; PS)
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
Evaluation of 3.1
leader
3
exam salient
mortality salient
2.9
2.8
2.7
2.6
charismatic
relationship
type of leader
7
Charismatic leadership: Evolutionary
roots?
A short evolutionary history of
leadership
‡
‡
‡
‡
‡
Leadership derives from a simple coordination problem like
group movement, which does not require much intelligence
and, hence, can be observed in many animal groups (social
insects, birds, mammals)
In humans (and perhaps other primates), leadership has
been co-opted to solve group cooperation problems, such
as punishment of cheaters, and redistribution of resources
Advanced cognitive facilities such as theory of mind and
language have opened up opportunities to have leadership
in large groups (Dunbar, 2004)
For much of our evolutionary past, leadership was informal
and egalitarian (Boehm, 1999).
Leadership has probably only become formalized since the
agricultural revolution, which made it possible for leaders to
accumulate resources and use them to protect their
privileged position, resulting in an increased power
difference between leaders and followers (Diamond, 1997).
Hypothesis: Leadership correlates with
traits signalling generosity and fairness
Rationale: Fear of exploitation
determines that individuals
should select leaders that appear
generous and fair
‡
‡
‡
Leader’s fairness is an important
concern for followers – both
distributive (Thibaut & Walker,
1975) and procedural (Tyler &
Lind, 1992)
In the ultimate bargaining game
the proposer (leader) often
comes up with a fair allocation
(Fehr & Fishbacher, 2003)
Leaders are more generous than
followers (Hardy & Van Vugt,
2006); but see De Cremer & Van
Dijk (2005)
90
80
70
60
%
contributions 50
to public 40
good 30
20
10
0
leaders
followers
Other predictions: Leadership correlates
with indices of health, age, and sex
Health:
Rationale: The delay in benefits makes followers sensitive
to cues about the health and vitality of leaders:
Healthy-looking individuals attract more followers
(Simonton, 1994)
‡
Age:
Rationale: Age should predict leadership in knowledge
domains, but not in physical domains
‡
(Bass, 1990)
Gender:
Rationale: Status and reproductive success are linked for
men but not as much for women (Buss, 2004).
Thus, men should seize leadership positions more
quickly if there are large status benefits to be
gained
‡
Some myths about leadership
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Leadership is a recent human invention
Leadership is dominance
Leaders are made
Leadership is inevitable
Leaders and followers’ goals are always in tune
The greater the benefits for leaders, the more likely men
compete for these positions (CEO-evidence?)
Male coalitions are more hierarchical in humans (possibly
due to a history of intergroup conflict), and
therefore men should lead in a more autocratic
manner
(Eagley & Johnson, 1990)
8
Genetic and Environmental Components
of Leadership Role Occupancy
Richard D. Arvey, University of Minnesota
Co-authors: Maria Rotundo, Wendy
Johnson, Zhen Zhang, Matt McGue
Evidence that such traits are
also heritable
Heritability—The proportion of variance
accounted for by genetic factors
Cognitive functioning: Well established
finding that the heritabilities are around .50
Personality: Jan, Livesley, & Vernon (1996)
showed that the “Big Five” factors were also
heritable:
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Neuroticism—41%
Extroversion--53%
Openness—61%
Agreeableness—41%
Conscientiousness—44%
Lohelin (1992) gave similar estimates
“Are Leaders Born or Made?”
Frequent question—long history
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Galton (1869) found that individuals who
had attained “eminence” in their field was
rare, but was more prevalent among family
members
Problem: Families share common
environment and genes
People have well developed opinions on
this issue
Potential Traits Posited to be
Related to Leadership
Cognitive Dimensions: Lord, et al. (1986)
meta-analysis of relationship between
intelligence and leadership emergence (.50)
Personality: Many dimensions suggested
(e.g. aggressiveness, cooperativeness,
achievement, etc.)
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Evidence that personality factors are indeed
related to different facets of leadership
(Schneider, et al., 1999; Judge, Bono, Illies, &
Gerhardt, 2002; Chang & Drasgow, 2001)
Little direct evidence for the
heritability of Leadership
Twin Studies-Identical twins share 100% of
their genes, fraternal twins share 50% on
average
Johnson, Vernon, McCarthy, Molson, Harris, &
Jang (1998)
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Used Monozygotic (n=183) and Dizygotic (n=64)
same sex twin pairs
Used a self-report measure—Multifactor
Leadership Questionnaire (80-items)
Š Measure of 9 different concepts: Attributed charisma,
idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual
stimulation, etc.
Johnson, et al. Results
While limited evidence for significant
heritabilities for the nine scales, a
general factor--“Transactional
Leadership”—showed a heritability of
48%
Another general factor—
”Transformational Leadership”—showed
a heritability of 59%
9
Our Recent Study
Measures
Bio-History Measure of Leadership
To investigate the role of genetic
influences in explaining these traits and
leadership
In addition, to examine the roles played
by personality factors in explaining
leadership
Sample
Surveys sent out to 1116 males
Total sample of 650 (response rate of
58%)—426 with complete data
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Monozygotic (MZ) pairs: 119 (n=238)
Dizygotic (DZ) pairs: 94 (n=188)
Predominately white (98%)
Mean age = 36.8 (s.d. = 1.54)
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List the work-related professional associations in
which they served as a leader
Positions at work held that would be considered
managerial or supervisory in nature
We standardized and summed these two scores to
from a “Work Leadership Scale”
Correlated with other variables according to
expectations
Other Measures
Personality Measures:
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Tellegen’s “Differential Personality
Questionnaire”: Social Potency,
Achievement
A general factor of Positive Affectivity
One factor of Negative Affectivity
Analyses
Sample description
Assumptions with twin research:
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34.3% working in production,
construction, operating, maintenance,
material handling jobs
26.6% working in professional,
paraprofessional, or technical
occupations
No differences observed between twin
types on these variable.
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Equal Environments Assumption
Assume additive genetic effects
V = Vg + Vs + Vns
Vs=variance due to the shared environments
experienced by twins reared together in the same
families
Vns=variance due to experiences of twins due to
exogenous or external factors and error
The covariance between the MZ twins reflects
variance due to shared environment and heredity
only (Vg + Vs)
The covariance for DZ twins reflects .5 heredity
(Vg) + variance due to shared environment (Vs)
Therefore, MZ twins should be more similar than
DZ twins
10
Equal Environments
Assumption
Environmental effects (e.g. income, SES, books, parental
presence and behavior, etc.) are about the same for both twin
types
Some criticism of this assumption—Idea is that identical twins
are treated more similarly and therefore demonstrate more
similarity in measured traits
Other research shows some evidence for MZ twins being treated
more similarly
Bouchard’s review indicates that no impact on either IQ or
personality
We correlated the degree of contact the twins had with each
other and leadership similarity and found no relationship
Preliminary Model
Intraclass correlations
MZ DZ
Leadership .37 .00
SP
.58 .19
Ach
.47 .11
Preliminary evidence for the heritabilities of
leadership using these measures
One estimate of heritability is: (IntraclassMZIntraclassDZ)*2
Structural equation modeling
Can give estimates of how much variance to
apportion to different sources:
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Genetic (additive)
Shared Environmental factors*
Non-shared environmental factors**
*The covariance for MZ twins carries information on
both Vg and Vs. So, Vs can be calculated by
Vs=intraclassMZ –h2
**Calculated by “what’s left over”; also includes error
Model Estimates (Best Fitting)
Genetics Shared Non-shared
Envir
Envir
Leadership
SP
Ach
Pos Affect
Neg Affect
.30
.54
.43
.34
.49
.00
.00
.00
.00
.00
.70
.46
.57
.66
.51
Results (continued)
Intra-class correlations indicate significant
heritabilities for the Leadership and other
measures
Model testing procedures indicate significant
heritabilities for Leadership and other
measures.
Roughly 30% of the variation in measured
leadership is associated with genetic factors.
Shared Environment plays minor role
Other Analyses
Measure of personality were correlated
against leadership measure: Social
Potency (.23) and Achievement (.17)
These personality factors also
demonstrated significant heritabilities
Power too low to discern potential
mediation effects
11
p
Sample
(with Zhang, Krueger, Avolio)
MZ twins (107 pairs, n = 214)
DZ twins (89 pairs, n = 178)
Intraclass for MZ = .51, DZ = -.05
Heritability estimate of .32
Shared Environment factor also nonsignificant
Questions?
Do individuals with different genetic
backgrounds experience objectively similar
environments differently to produce
dramatically different outcomes?
Are there specific environmental interventions
that we can specify that will contribute to
leadership emergence and effectiveness?
What role does early environmental
experiences play in interaction with genetic
structures in influencing leadership
emergence and effectiveness?
Two Developmental Factors
Assessed
Work Experiences (Training and
development, Prior Challenges in jobs, etc.)
Family Experiences (Parents, Other family
members, Religious Beliefs, etc.)
Both significantly related to Leadership
variable (.48 and .19) but only Work
Experiences significant after partialling out
genetic factor
Evolutionary Theory and
Applied Psychology
Robert Hogan
Presented at the
21st Annual SIOP Conference
Dallas, TX
April 2006
Handouts available at
www.kaplandevries.com
Discussion
Why an Evolutionary View of Leadership?
Robert B. Kaiser
Assumptions: Early environments for MZ and
DZ are roughly equal
Problems with self-report measures—
verification needed
No identification of specific gene structures
Didn’t look at more complex models (e.g.
interactions, dominance, etc.)
Many developmental implications that need
exploration
What Evolution Teaches Us about Leadership
Mark Van Vugt
Genetic Influences on Leadership
Richard D. Arvey
Evolutionary Theory and Applied Psychology
Robert Hogan
University College of London
Adrian Furnham, Discussant
12