Psychologist Gordon Allport has defined social psychology as a discipline that uses scientific methods to “understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human beings.” Social psychologists then apply these ideas to a wide variety of areas, including leadership. While there are countless principles, theories and ideas that social psychologists have identified, there are a few that seem especially relevant to leadership and three that I would like to highlight.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
The Fundamental Attribution Error is a principle developed by a psychologist named Lee Ross. The principle basically says, when attempting to understand or explain the actions of others, people tend to give too much weight to personality factors and not enough weight to situational or contextual factors. In other words, when we don’t have information about a person’s situation, we tend to explain their behavior in terms of their personality (e.g. “they’re an idiot”).
For example, let’s say you’re driving down a busy street and suddenly the car next to you speeds up, cuts you off and makes a right turn into a parking lot causing you to slam on your brakes. Your reaction is most likely something like, “What a jerk,” and you may even make a certain gesture to show your displeasure. You have attributed their behavior to personality characteristics.
Now, let’s say you’re driving down the street, you have two small children in the back seat who are crying, you’re rushing to get home because you have a lot to do, and you suddenly remember you need milk. If you don’t make a move now, you’ll miss the turn into the store and have to circle back around, costing precious time in rush hour traffic. Even though you may realize it’s a “jerky move,” you attribute your actions to your situation, not personality characteristics (I’m not a jerk).
As leaders, when we don’t know what a person’s situation is, our tendency is going to be similar; we will be quick to explain someone’s misbehavior as willful non-compliance or due to other negative personality characteristics and will likely come down hard on him/her.
However, when we know our people and take the time to see the world through their eyes, we are better able to suspend judgment and take a closer look at why they did what they did. It takes self-discipline to give someone the benefit of the doubt long enough to understand the situation from their perspective. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should excuse misbehavior, rather that we need to be aware of this tendency and to make sure we have the whole picture before we determine how to respond to the situation.
Learned Helplessness
In the late 1960s, Martin Seligman coined the term “learned helplessness” based on his observations during an experiment. In this study, he took a group of dogs and put them in harnesses for a period of time, then released them. For Groups 2 and 3, he also put them in harnesses, but gave them an electrical shock. The dogs in Group 2 could stop the shock by pressing a lever, which most learned to do quickly. Each dog in Group 3, however, was paired with a dog in Group 2.
Every Group 3 dog also had a lever but it did not do anything, and their shock stopped only when the paired dog in Group 2 pressed its lever. To the dogs in Group 3, the shock seemed to come and go randomly. As a result of their experiences, the dogs in Group 3 learned that there was nothing that they could do to control or escape what was happening to them. Since they learned they were helpless, most stopped fighting when the shocks came and just took them.
In a follow-on experiment, Seligman took the same dogs and put them in a metal box with a low partition over which they could jump to escape a shock.
The dogs in Groups 1 and 2 quickly learned to jump the partition when a shock came, but most of the dogs in Group 3 stayed put and again simply took the shock even though it would have been easy to escape it. Seligman observed that the lessons these dogs had learned in the first experiment stayed and affected how they responded to the negative situation in the second experiment.
As leaders, it is vitally important that we understand how past experiences will continue to affect how people feel about themselves and their careers. Sometimes, these lessons are positive and serve to motivate people to push themselves and grow. In other cases, these lessons hold people back as they have learned that nothing they do matters and fighting just makes you tired. Often, these people will also show signs of depression and have difficulty getting motivated with even simple tasks. When we see someone who does not appear to be living up to his/her potential, we must seek to understand why so that we can properly mentor, get them help when needed, and assist them in regaining their sense of control over their life and career.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy
A third concept, the self-fulfilling prophesy, suggests that people unconsciously act in ways that make what they believe or expect to happen come true. A classic experiment that illustrates this was performed by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in the late 1960s.
At the beginning of the school year, these researchers randomly selected a few children in an elementary school class and told the teacher that these children would be the class’s top performers because they were much smarter than the others. In reality, the children were all about equal in their abilities. By the end of the school year, the selected students actually were consistently performing at a level higher than the other students. The researchers concluded and follow-on research showed that the higher performance was the result of unconscious actions and attitudes that the teacher showed toward the students she believed were smarter.
The self-fulfilling prophesy is so strong that even the top researchers must take steps to control it when they are designing studies. One of the best, most objective research models is called the randomized, double-blind model. This model puts degrees of separation between the researcher and the people who are collecting the data so that the researcher’s expected or desired outcome does not unintentionally influence the outcomes of the study.
As leaders, we often quickly develop impressions of and attitudes toward those we lead. Many times, these impressions are based on information that may have little or no relevance to the person’s abilities in the work center (e.g. athletic ability or looks), or come from others trying to unfairly influence the leader’s perception of the member.
In fact, in the book “Sway,” brothers Ori and Rom Brafman discuss the many random and extremely subtle things that unconsciously influence our opinions and actions. The lesson is that people will live up to a leader’s expectation of them.
If you believe that a particular person will be a poor performer in your organization, it is likely that they will contribute very little other than what is required.
However, if you believe and treat each person as one who has tremendous potential, you will unconsciously respond to them in ways that will push them to fulfill that potential. Even if this is not possible because of past experience with the person, being aware of the tendency to give people we like or expect great things from extra positive attention will help leaders treat all their folks more fairly and in a manner most likely to draw out the best.
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Psychologist Gordon Allport has defined social psychology as a discipline that uses scientific methods to “understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human beings.” Social psychologists then apply these ideas to a wide variety of areas, including leadership. While there are countless principles, theories and ideas that social psychologists have identified, there are a few that seem especially relevant to leadership and three that I would like to highlight.
The Fundamental Attribution Error
The Fundamental Attribution Error is a principle developed by a psychologist named Lee Ross. The principle basically says, when attempting to understand or explain the actions of others, people tend to give too much weight to personality factors and not enough weight to situational or contextual factors. In other words, when we don’t have information about a person’s situation, we tend to explain their behavior in terms of their personality (e.g. “they’re an idiot”).
For example, let’s say you’re driving down a busy street and suddenly the car next to you speeds up, cuts you off and makes a right turn into a parking lot causing you to slam on your brakes. Your reaction is most likely something like, “What a jerk,” and you may even make a certain gesture to show your displeasure. You have attributed their behavior to personality characteristics.
Now, let’s say you’re driving down the street, you have two small children in the back seat who are crying, you’re rushing to get home because you have a lot to do, and you suddenly remember you need milk. If you don’t make a move now, you’ll miss the turn into the store and have to circle back around, costing precious time in rush hour traffic. Even though you may realize it’s a “jerky move,” you attribute your actions to your situation, not personality characteristics (I’m not a jerk).
As leaders, when we don’t know what a person’s situation is, our tendency is going to be similar; we will be quick to explain someone’s misbehavior as willful non-compliance or due to other negative personality characteristics and will likely come down hard on him/her.
However, when we know our people and take the time to see the world through their eyes, we are better able to suspend judgment and take a closer look at why they did what they did. It takes self-discipline to give someone the benefit of the doubt long enough to understand the situation from their perspective. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should excuse misbehavior, rather that we need to be aware of this tendency and to make sure we have the whole picture before we determine how to respond to the situation.
Learned Helplessness
In the late 1960s, Martin Seligman coined the term “learned helplessness” based on his observations during an experiment. In this study, he took a group of dogs and put them in harnesses for a period of time, then released them. For Groups 2 and 3, he also put them in harnesses, but gave them an electrical shock. The dogs in Group 2 could stop the shock by pressing a lever, which most learned to do quickly. Each dog in Group 3, however, was paired with a dog in Group 2.
Every Group 3 dog also had a lever but it did not do anything, and their shock stopped only when the paired dog in Group 2 pressed its lever. To the dogs in Group 3, the shock seemed to come and go randomly. As a result of their experiences, the dogs in Group 3 learned that there was nothing that they could do to control or escape what was happening to them. Since they learned they were helpless, most stopped fighting when the shocks came and just took them.
In a follow-on experiment, Seligman took the same dogs and put them in a metal box with a low partition over which they could jump to escape a shock.
The dogs in Groups 1 and 2 quickly learned to jump the partition when a shock came, but most of the dogs in Group 3 stayed put and again simply took the shock even though it would have been easy to escape it. Seligman observed that the lessons these dogs had learned in the first experiment stayed and affected how they responded to the negative situation in the second experiment.
As leaders, it is vitally important that we understand how past experiences will continue to affect how people feel about themselves and their careers. Sometimes, these lessons are positive and serve to motivate people to push themselves and grow. In other cases, these lessons hold people back as they have learned that nothing they do matters and fighting just makes you tired. Often, these people will also show signs of depression and have difficulty getting motivated with even simple tasks. When we see someone who does not appear to be living up to his/her potential, we must seek to understand why so that we can properly mentor, get them help when needed, and assist them in regaining their sense of control over their life and career.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy
A third concept, the self-fulfilling prophesy, suggests that people unconsciously act in ways that make what they believe or expect to happen come true. A classic experiment that illustrates this was performed by Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in the late 1960s.
At the beginning of the school year, these researchers randomly selected a few children in an elementary school class and told the teacher that these children would be the class’s top performers because they were much smarter than the others. In reality, the children were all about equal in their abilities. By the end of the school year, the selected students actually were consistently performing at a level higher than the other students. The researchers concluded and follow-on research showed that the higher performance was the result of unconscious actions and attitudes that the teacher showed toward the students she believed were smarter.
The self-fulfilling prophesy is so strong that even the top researchers must take steps to control it when they are designing studies. One of the best, most objective research models is called the randomized, double-blind model. This model puts degrees of separation between the researcher and the people who are collecting the data so that the researcher’s expected or desired outcome does not unintentionally influence the outcomes of the study.
As leaders, we often quickly develop impressions of and attitudes toward those we lead. Many times, these impressions are based on information that may have little or no relevance to the person’s abilities in the work center (e.g. athletic ability or looks), or come from others trying to unfairly influence the leader’s perception of the member.
In fact, in the book “Sway,” brothers Ori and Rom Brafman discuss the many random and extremely subtle things that unconsciously influence our opinions and actions. The lesson is that people will live up to a leader’s expectation of them.
If you believe that a particular person will be a poor performer in your organization, it is likely that they will contribute very little other than what is required.
However, if you believe and treat each person as one who has tremendous potential, you will unconsciously respond to them in ways that will push them to fulfill that potential. Even if this is not possible because of past experience with the person, being aware of the tendency to give people we like or expect great things from extra positive attention will help leaders treat all their folks more fairly and in a manner most likely to draw out the best.