Jeroen Stouten

When Do People Find Cooperation Most Justified? The Effect of Trust and Self–Other Merging in Social Dilemmas

On the basis of goal/expectation theory, it was predicted that just as in interpersonal relationships, cooperation in social dilemma groups would increase only if both trust was high and group members had a common goal of cooperation. Introducing new measures of both these two processes to the social dilemma arena, the goal of mutual cooperation was assessed by the process of self—other merging (the IOS scale), and trust by assessing the extent to which one trusted others and one believed one was perceived as trustworthy by the others. The results showed that when both self—other merging and trust was high, cooperation was indeed highest. Implications for the specific functions of trust and self—other merging in social dilemmas are discussed.

Violating Equality in Social Dilemmas: Emotional and Retributive Reactions as a Function of Trust, Attribution, and Honesty:

In social dilemmas, equality is an important coordination rule. When equality is violated, people seek explanations. In Experiment 1, the authors assessed dispositional trust and found that especially high trusters were affected by the given explanation. High trusters reacted less negatively to external than internal explanations. Experiment 2, using a manipulation of trust in others, revealed a similar pattern across a wider range of negative emotions. In Experiment 3, the authors only induced high trust and showed that when the external explanation turned out to be a lie, emotional and retributive reactions became more negative. Moreover, attribution information did not influence reactions when participants realized that the information was dishonest.

Clusterwise Simultaneous Component Analysis for Analyzing Structural Differences in Multivariate Multiblock Data

Many studies yield multivariate multiblock data, that is, multiple data blocks that all involve the same set of variables (e.g., the scores of different groups of subjects on the same set of variables). The question then rises whether the same processes underlie the different data blocks. To explore the structure of such multivariate multiblock data, component analysis can be very useful. Specifically, 2 approaches are often applied: principal component analysis (PCA) on each data block separately and different variants of simultaneous component analysis (SCA) on all data blocks simultaneously. The PCA approach yields a different loading matrix for each data block and is thus not useful for discovering structural similarities. The SCA approach may fail to yield insight into structural differences, since the obtained loading matrix is identical for all data blocks. We introduce a new generic modeling strategy, called clusterwise SCA, that comprises the separate PCA approach and SCA as special cases. The key idea behind clusterwise SCA is that the data blocks form a few clusters, where data blocks that belong to the same cluster are modeled with SCA and thus have the same structure, and different clusters have different underlying structures. In this article, we use the SCA variant that imposes equal average cross-products constraints (ECP). An algorithm for fitting clusterwise SCA-ECP solutions is proposed and evaluated in a simulation study. Finally, the usefulness of clusterwise SCA is illustrated by empirical examples from eating disorder research and social psychology.

The personality basis of justice: The five-factor model as an integrative model of personality and procedural fairness effects on cooperation

Building upon the self‐based model of cooperation (De Cremer & Tyler, 2005), the present study investigates the relationship between the five‐factor model (FFM) and cooperation. Study 1 (N = 56), an experiment conducted in the laboratory, and Study 2 (N = 116), a field study conducted in an organisational context, yielded a moderator effect between neuroticism and procedural fairness in explaining cooperation. Study 3 (N = 177) showed that this moderator effect was mediated by the self‐uncertainty and relational variables proposed by the self‐based model of cooperation. It is concluded that the FFM is useful in explaining cooperation and contributes to a better understanding of (procedural) fairness effects. Moreover, the necessity to build integrative, multi‐level models that combine core and surface aspects of personality to explain the effects of fairness on cooperation is elaborated upon. Copyright

I'm doing the best I can (for myself) : Leadership and variance of harvesting in resource dilemmas

Previous research on social dilemmas has shown that leadership can be an effective means to supervise a common resource and that group members prefer a leader when confronted with high variance between group members’ harvests. In this article, the authors investigate how leaders and followers react to variance. The results of an experimental study indicate that leaders are especially likely to harvest more than followers (and to deviate from the optimal harvest) when there is high variance between group members’ harvests. Moreover, this role effect was explained, at least partly, by the fact that compared with followers, leaders felt more entitled to higher harvests. The findings suggest that assigning leadership may, under certain situations, lead to inefficiency in managing the common resource.

A situational touch: How touch affects people's decision behavior

While the majority of previous findings have shown that interpersonal touch positively affects human interactions (e.g., cooperation), it is unclear whether touch truly is only positively rather than negatively received, and which situations might influence this differential effect. The present research argued and demonstrated that in a competitive situation touch negatively affects cooperative interactions between the persons involved. Specifically, we showed that in a competitive rather than a supportive environment interpersonal touch on the shoulder will reduce helping behavior towards the person invoking the touch. The first author is a doctoral fellow of the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT). This work was supported by STRT1/10/013TBA from the Research Fund of the KULeuven.

The Relation Between Supervisors' Big Five Personality Traits and Employees' Experiences of Abusive Supervision.

The present study investigates the relation between supervisors’ personality traits and employees’ experiences of supervisory abuse, an area that – to date – remained largely unexplored in previous research. Field data collected from 103 supervisor-subordinate dyads showed that contrary to our expectations supervisors’ agreeableness and neuroticism were not significantly related to abusive supervision, nor were supervisors’ extraversion or openness to experience. Interestingly, however, our findings revealed a positive relation between supervisors’ conscientiousness and abusive supervision. That is, supervisors high in conscientiousness were more likely to be perceived as an abusive supervisor by their employees. Overall, our findings do suggest that supervisors’ Big Five personality traits explain only a limited amount of the variability in employees’ experiences of abusive supervision.

Behavioral (In)tolerance of Equality Violation in Social Dilemmas: When Trust Affects Contribution Decisions after Violations of Equality

In public good dilemmas, people often coordinate their decisions by applying the equality rule. Prior research has shown that if one member violates equality, negative emotions emerge among the other group members. In two experimental studies we investigated whether the presence of a violator also affects contribution decisions. A first experiment demonstrated that a violation of equality does not always influence peoples contributions. Even after an equality violation, group members continued to base their decisions on the equality rule if they faced a social dilemma with the same group members. But when group members faced a social dilemma with only the violator of equality, contributions were lowered. Experiment 2 showed that this is especially true for low trusters.

Servant Leadership, Organisational Citizenship Behavior and Creativity: The Mediating Role of Team-Member Exchange

Using a multi-source field study design with 184 unique triads of employees-supervisor dyads, this paper examines whether servant leaders install a serving attitude among employees. That is, servant leaders aim to encourage employees to take responsibility, to cooperate and to create high quality interactions with each other (team-member exchange; TMX). We hypothesise that servant leadership will have an influence on Organisational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and creativity through team-member exchange. Two facets of OCB are distinguished: organisational citizenship behaviour towards individuals (OCBI), on the one hand, and taking up extra tasks that benefit the organisation (OCBO), on the other hand. The results show that servant leadership is positively related to team-member exchange, and that team-member exchange is positively related to OCBI, OCBO and creativity. The bootstrapping estimates indicated significant indirect effects of servant leadership on the three target variables through team-member exchange. The study’s findings add to the body of literature on servant leadership, OCB and creativity at the workplace, and underline the importance of creating favourable working conditions that foster positive and high quality team-member exchange. This study also broadens our understanding on the importance of co-workers on the relation between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and creativity.

The cognitive-behavioral system of leadership: cognitive antecedents of active and passive leadership behaviors

In the present paper, we propose a cognitive-behavioral understanding of active and passive leadership. Building on core evaluations theory, we offer a model that explains the emergence of leaders’ active and passive behaviors, thereby predicting stable, inter-individual, as well as variable, intra-individual differences in both types of leadership behavior. We explain leaders’ stable behavioral tendencies by their fundamental beliefs about themselves, others, and the world (core evaluations), while their variable, momentary behaviors are explained by the leaders’ momentary appraisals of themselves, others, and the world (specific evaluations). By introducing interactions between the situation the leader enters, the leader’s beliefs, appraisals, and behavior, we propose a comprehensive system of cognitive mechanisms that underlie active and passive leadership behavior.