Effects of behavioral causes and consequences on perceived competence of leaders and subordinates

Abstract

People expect leaders' behaviors to be more strongly caused by dispositional than by situational factors, compared with subordinates' behavior. Also, people expect leaders' behaviors to have more consequences than subordinates' behaviors. Given these expectancies, we hypothesized that subordinate behavior that has dispositional causes and produces consequences, would be perceived as stereotype inconsistent and, hence, be regarded as highly informative. Subjects read behavior descriptions of leaders or subordinates. Information about causes (dispositional, situational) and consequences (yes, no) was manipulated. Confirming our hypothesis, subordinate behavior with dispositional causes produced more extreme inferences. For consequences, an unexpected converse pattern was obtained: Leader behavior without consequences produced less extreme inferences. Findings are discussed in terms of stereotype effects and differential judgments of subordinates and leaders.