All I do is win, win, win no matter what? Pre-game anxiety and experience predict athletic performance in the NBA

In this study, we examine the relationship between anxiety and athletic performance, measuring pre-game anxiety in a corpus of 12,228 tweets of 81 National Basketball Association (NBA) players using an anxiety inference algorithm, and match this data with certified NBA individual player game performance data. We found a positive relationship between pre-game anxiety and athletic performance, which was moderated by both player experience and minutes played on the court. This paper serves to demonstrate the use case for using machine learning to label publicly available micro-blogs of players which can be used to form important discrete emotions, such as pre-game anxiety, which in turn can predict athletic performance in elite sports. Based on the results, we discuss these findings and outline recommendations for athletes, teams, team leaders, coaches, and managers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cause we are living in a Machiavellian world, and I am a Machiavellian major: Machiavellianism and academic major choice

Students from diverse academic majors differ in their personalities. However, the study of the association between Machiavellianism (i.e., desire for power, status, and social dominance) and educational choices (i.e., academic major choices) that lay a path toward occupations that allow for those outcomes has been largely ignored. Using a large multinational sample of 35,025 participants across 50 majors, we found overall support for a significant association between Machiavellianism and academic major choice. We break down the results by sex and provide a cross-country comparison.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How to avoid others and influence people: Attachment orientations predict leader prototypicality in ad hoc teams

The existing literature has explored the role and importance of personality traits in leader prototypicality. However, limited research exists concerning the link between personality traits and leader emergence or prototypicality in ad hoc teams. Based on the relational leadership and attachment literature, we examine whether leader attachment orientations can serve as antecedents of leader prototypicality in ad hoc teams. Utilizing an ad hoc problem-solving task featuring a round-robin design in a sample of 197 participants, we find that individuals with a dominant avoidant attachment orientation were more likely to be perceived as leader-like or leader prototypical. In comparison, individuals with a dominant anxious attachment orientation were much less likely to emerge as leader prototypical. We interpret these findings in alignment with attachment theory and relational leadership and discuss the role of relational personality traits in ad hoc teams with no formally appointed leader

Why We Follow Narcissistic Leaders

A recent study aimed to understand narcissistic leaders and who is most likely to follow them. The results revealed a few patterns. If you are someone who is always looking out for others, empathizes with others, and seeks harmony and consensus in your team (known as agreeable followers), you are more likely to be susceptible to following a narcissistic leader. If you are someone who gets anxious and worried easily or likes to get started on work projects early on to prevent anxiety as a deadline draws closer (known as neurotic followers), you probably prefer engaging with narcissistic leaders

Don’t Let Your Anxiety Stress Out Your Team

Our emotional state — such as feelings of anxiety, nervousness, and apprehension — can rub off on our team negatively impact their work performance and wellbeing. This is called emotional contagion, and it’s not uncommon. Since many workplaces have transitioned to a hybrid model, it’s imperative that, as a new manager, you pay attention to how you communicate with your teams, even in virtual settings. Be mindful of what you post online and how often you post. Your social media activity can impact your team anxiety, even when you aren’t physically present and even when you aren’t talking about work. Posting too much information at once may overwhelm your follows and significantly changing the frequency of when you regularly post may alarm them. On messaging platforms, consider the tone and content of your words. Remember that written communication can be easily misinterpreted, so always aim for clarity and honesty. Pay attention to the tone of your team member’s messages. Looking at their punctuation can be a telling indicator of anxiety. For example, when a colleague uncharacteristically starts finishing all their Slack messages with a period, it could signal that something is not quite right and that they are anxious or stressed. If you sense anxiety, address them calmly, and provide reassurance to the best of your ability. Be vulnerable. As a leader, your responsibility includes providing safe workspaces in which your employees can thrive. Displaying vulnerability is one way to foster greater trust and collaboration within your team. However, share your vulnerability in a thoughtful and measured manner so as not to alarm employees or undermine your leadership

Tweet you right back: Follower anxiety predicts leader anxiety in social media interactions during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

Recent research has shown that organizational leaders’ tweets can influence their employees’ anxiety. In this study, we turn the table and examine whether the same can be said about followers’ tweets. Based on emotional contagion and a dataset of 108 leaders and 178 followers across 50 organizations, we infer and track state- and trait-anxiety scores of participants over 316 days, including pre- and post the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and crisis. We show that although leaders traditionally possess greater authority and power than their followers, followers have the power to influence their leaders’ state anxiety. In addition, this influence is particularly strong in the case of less trait anxious leaders. Overall, this study provides strong evidence of a bidirectional emotional contagion effect between leaders and followers in a social media context

Don’t You Tweet me Badly: Anxiety Contagion between Leaders and Followers in Computer-Mediated Communication during COVID-19

Do organizational leaders’ tweets influence their employees’ anxiety? And if so, have employees become more susceptible to their leader’s social media communications during the COVID-19 pandemic? Based on emotional contagion and using machine learning algorithms to track anxiety and personality traits of 197 leaders and 958 followers across 79 organizations over 316 days, we find that during the pandemic leaders’ tweets do influence follower state anxiety. In addition, followers of trait anxious leaders seem somewhat protected by sudden spikes in leader state anxiety, while followers of less trait anxious leaders are most affected by increased leader state anxiety. Multi-day lagged regressions showcase that this effect is stronger post-onset of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic crisis context

I feel so attached: Influence of attachment orientations on leader perception, transfer and prototypicality

This dissertation discusses the mutual influence between leaders and followers on perception, emotion and behavior, using an attachment theory perspective. Some individuals are more likely to be seen as leaders than others. On the one hand this is determined by the characteristics or attributes as well as skills of the person in question. However, on the other hand, followers’ perception and expectations play a big role as well, in particular which expectations of an ideal leader can be fulfilled by followers’ current leader. Although attachment theory and – styles have only recently entered the organizational psychology literature, this dissertation advances that literature by looking at the role of attachment orientations between leaders and followers. In doing so, this dissertation answers several recent research calls on this topic. The three main subsequent chapters discuss the predictive role of attachment orientations with regard to leader preferences, the transference of behavioural expectations from one leader to another, and the perception of leader prototypicality in groups. The first chapter discusses the connection between implicit leader preferences and attachment orientations as predictors. Results show that avoidant attached individuals prefer a more autonomous and independent leadership style, whereas anxious attached individuals prefer a supportive and team-oriented leadership style. In the second chapter I study the transference of behavioural expectations from one leader to another. Results show that avoidant attached individuals are more likely to engage in this transference process. In addition, I discuss and empirically test the influence of culture with regard to leader transference. In the final chapter, I examine the behavioural influence of attachment orientations on how likely someone is perceived to be a leader in groups. Based on 57 project groups, I find that team members actually perceive avoidant attached individuals to be the most leader-like. Put differently, given certain environmental conditions, insecure attachment orientations can be perceived as leaders. These results show that it is even more important that leaders somewhat adapt to their followers’ preferences and not commit to merely one particular leadership style

Why We Follow Narcissistic Leaders

A recent study aimed to understand narcissistic leaders and who is most likely to follow them. The results revealed a few patterns. If you are someone who is always looking out for others, empathizes with others, and seeks harmony and consensus in your team (known as agreeable followers), you are more likely to be susceptible to following a narcissistic leader. If you are someone who gets anxious and worried easily or likes to get started on work projects early on to prevent anxiety as a deadline draws closer (known as neurotic followers), you probably prefer engaging with narcissistic leaders

From Ideal to Real: Attachment Orientations Guide Preference for an Autonomous Leadership Style

Autonomy is a key characteristic of attachment relations that varies as a function of attachment orientations and is also a key personality characteristic of leadership perceptions. In the presented research, we reasoned that the relationship between attachment and autonomy-related preference for specific leaders and leadership behavior would be a function of individuals’ insecure attachment strategies. We tested our hypotheses in two studies. Study 1 used Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) modeling to test expectations based on a cross-sectional design, while Study 2 utilized a vignette-based experimental design. We find that anxious individuals attributed less positive evaluations to an autonomous leadership style (Study 1), while avoidant persons attributed higher leader competence to an autonomous leader description (Study 2). Compared to less anxious participants, highly anxious participants attributed lower competence to the autonomous leader description. By examining how individual differences in attachment orientations can indirectly influence the ideal leader categorization process, the present set of studies lends support to the importance of attachment orientations and related working models in leader perception and contribute to the literature on leader-follower fit. Using a survey and experimental approach, we examine how followers’ attachment schemas can shape the leader influence process, specifically concerning a preference for an autonomous leadership style