Sociable and aggressive dominance: Personality differences in leadership style?

https://doi.org/10.1016/1048-9843(93)90003-CGet rights and content

Abstract

Two types of dominance are distinguished on the basis of questionnaires: sociable dominance and aggressive dominance. In an emergent leadership situation, persons who have a high score on either scale or both scales are dominant according to an external criterion. However, in social interaction these persons attain their goals in a different way. In addition, the higher a person's score on sociable dominance, the higher this person is rated by peers on task leadership. In contrast, the higher a person's score on aggressive dominance, the lower this person is rated on socioemotional leadership. A high scorer on sociable dominance expects to be the center of social activity and attention, and generally reports better social relationships than persons who have a high score on aggressive dominance. These results are supported by observations of nonverbal behavior, which indicate that sociably dominant and aggressively dominant persons differ in the extent to which they verbalize, look at other persons, and receive attention from peers. The types also differ in their need to dominate others, in self-aggrandizing tendencies, and in their tolerance of uncertainty. Both types seem to have characteristics that help, as well as others that hinder, them in being successful leaders. The results complicate rather than elucidate the relations between personality and leadership, and are discussed against the background of a long history of confusing results in attempts to relate personality characteristics to successful leadership.

References (69)

  • N. Freedman

    The analysis of movement behavior during the clinical interview

  • F.J. Yammarino et al.

    Person and situation views of leadership: A multiple levels of analysis approach

    Leadership Quarterly

    (1991)
  • J. Alcock

    Animal behavior: An evolutionary approach

    (1979)
  • M. Argyle

    Social interaction

    (1969)
  • E.J. Aries et al.

    Dispositional and situational influences on dominance behavior in small groups

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1983)
  • R.F. Bales

    The equilibrium problem in small groups

  • B.M. Bass

    Stogdill's handbook of leadership

    (1981)
  • B.M. Bass

    Bass & Stogdill's handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications

    (1990)
  • R.R. Blake et al.

    Reactions to intergroup competition under win-lose conditions

    Management Science

    (1961)
  • D.S. Butt et al.

    Comparison of strategies in developing scales for dominance

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1968)
  • D.S. Butt et al.

    Differential correlates of dominance scales

    Journal of Personality

    (1969)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    The sixteen personality factors questionnaire

    (1957)
  • R. Christie et al.

    Studies in Machiavellism

    (1970)
  • J. Cohen

    A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales

    Educational and Psychological Measurement

    (1960)
  • R. De Jong

    Sociale ondersteuning, spanning en stemming

    (1987)
  • F.B.M. de Waal

    The organization of agonistic relations within two captive groups of Java-monkeys

    Zeitschrift fuer Tierpsychologie

    (1977)
  • A.L. Edwards

    Edwards personality preference schedule

    (1959)
  • S.L. Ellyson et al.

    Power, dominance, and nonverbal behavior: Basic concepts and issues

  • S. Epstein

    Traits are alive and well

  • T. Falbo

    Multidimensional scaling of power strategies

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1977)
  • E.A. Fleishman et al.

    Leadership and supervision in industry: An evaluation of a supervisory training program

    (1955)
  • A. Furnham et al.

    Stressful situations

  • H.G. Gough

    Manual for the California psychological inventory

    (1957)
  • H.G. Gough et al.

    A personality scale of dominance

    Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

    (1951)
  • A.J.M.W. Hagendoorn

    Conceptuele Systemen: Een onderzoek naar de betekenis van de dimensie concreet-abstract in cognitieve processen

    (1976)
  • H.H. Harnan

    Modern factor analysis

    (1976)
  • R.G. Harper et al.

    Non-verbal communication: The state of the art

    (1978)
  • H. Heckhausen

    Motivation und handeln (Motivation and action)

    (1989)
  • R. Helmreich et al.

    Short forms of the Texas social behavior inventory (TSBI), an objective measure of self-esteem

    Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society

    (1974)
  • N.M. Henley

    Body politics: Power, sex, and nonverbal communication

    (1977)
  • E.P. Hollander

    Leadership and power

  • D.N. Jackson

    The Jackson personality inventory

    (1976)
  • D. Jenkins et al.

    Development of an objective psychological test for the determination for the coronary prone behavior pattern in employed man

    Journal of Chronic Disease

    (1967)
  • O.P. John

    The “big five” factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and in questionnaires

  • Cited by (63)

    • Interdependence approaches to the person and the situation

      2021, Measuring and Modeling Persons and Situations
    • In the eye of a leader: Eye-directed gazing shapes perceptions of leaders' charisma

      2019, Leadership Quarterly
      Citation Excerpt :

      To replicate our initial findings, we employed the same design as study 1. In contrast to study 1, however participants filled in self-rating questionnaires measuring charismatic leadership (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5X-Short, Avolio & Bass, 2004; Conger-Kanungo scale, Conger, Kanungo, Menon, & Mathur, 1997), leader motivation (Motivation to Lead, affective identity, Chan & Drasgow, 2001), dominance (Kalma, Visser, & Peeters, 1993) and leader prototypicality (Antonakis et al., 2011). Furthermore, we collected audio-visual recordings of all participants' motivational speeches.

    • Pubertal development, social factors, and delinquent involvement among South Korean male adolescents

      2017, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice
      Citation Excerpt :

      Self-esteem was measured by summing the responses to six items from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) (alpha = 0.77). Both forms of dominance were measured by drawing on Kalma and associates' scales (see Kalma et al., 1993). For aggressive dominance, four items that appear to tap the construct effectively were chosen from the original 10-item scale.

    • High intrasexual competition is related to inflated height reports in male junior soccer players

      2017, Personality and Individual Differences
      Citation Excerpt :

      Participants also completed two scales which assessed sociable and aggressive dominance, consisting of 8 items for the sociable dominance scale, and 7 items for the aggressive dominance scale. Both original scales are reliable—with Cronbach's alphas of 0.79 and 0.68, respectively—and have been validated using observational data in social interactions (Kalma et al., 1993). Spanish versions of the scales (Mailhos, Buunk, & del Arca, 2013) were used in the current study.

    • Signature size signals sociable dominance and narcissism

      2016, Journal of Research in Personality
      Citation Excerpt :

      Moreover, these results are not dependent on which of the three operationalizations of signature size is used (see Supplementary Tables S3 and S4). According to Kalma et al. (1993) the main difference between sociable and aggressive dominance can be understood in terms of social orientation: while the former is characterized by a positive attitude towards others, a central position in groups, a strong need to dominate and a solid self-esteem, the latter is better described by a negative attitude towards other people, a peripheral position in groups, and a strong need to realize one’s own goals even at the expense of personal relationships. Given the positive association of signature size and sociable dominance, larger signatures could be interpreted as a signal of the inclination to stand out and occupy a central position within a group.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text