Banding together to avoid exploitation:Dominant (but not prestige-based) leaders motivate collective moral opposition from followers

Although dominance is a common strategy for attaining high social rank, it often entails exploitative behavior, bringing leaders into conflict with followers. Anthropological work suggests that a long evolutionary history of such conflict has set the stage for moral systems designed to reduce exploitation from powerful people. Here we establish links between dominance (and prestige) and moral leadership, reporting three studies (total n = 1246) demonstrating that, in response to dominant leaders, followers band together in collective opposition aimed at resisting, and even toppling, incumbent leaders. These studies also identify specific social psychological pathways through which dominant leaders elicit moral opposition-low levels of trust and gossip both mediated effects of leader dominance on collective opposition by followers. While dominance may allow people to rise through the ranks of a social hierarchy, the long-term durability of dominance as a leadership strategy may be undermined by collective moral opposition from followers

No Evidence for a Relationship Between Hair Testosterone Concentrations and 2D:4D Ratio or Risk Taking

Using a recently developed alternative assay procedure to measure hormone levels from hair samples, we examined the relationships between testosterone, cortisol, 2D:4D ratio, overconfidence and risk taking. A total of 162 (53 male) participants provided a 3 cm sample of hair, a scanned image of their right and left hands from which we determined 2D:4D ratios, and completed measures of overconfidence and behavioral risk taking. While our sample size for males was less than ideal, our results revealed no evidence for a relationship between hair testosterone concentrations, 2D:4D ratios and risk taking. No relationships with overconfidence emerged. Partially consistent with the Dual Hormone Hypothesis, we did find evidence for the interacting effect of testosterone and cortisol on risk taking but only in men. Hair testosterone concentrations were positively related to risk taking when levels of hair cortisol concentrations were low, in men. Our results lend support to the suggestion that endogenous testosterone and 2D:4D ratio are unrelated and might then exert diverging activating vs. organizing effects on behavior. Comparing our results to those reported in the existing literature we speculate that behavioral correlates of testosterone such as direct effects on risk taking may be more sensitive to state-based fluctuations than baseline levels of testosterone

A functional polymorphism of the MAOA gene is associated with neural responses to induced anger control

Aggressiveness is highly heritable. Recent experimental work has linked individual differences in a functional polymorphism of the monoamine oxidase-A gene (MAOA) to anger-driven aggression. Other work has implicated the dorsal ACC (dACC) in cognitive-emotional control and the amygdala in emotional arousal. The present imaging genetics study investigated dACC and amygdala reactivity to induced anger control as a function of MAOA genotype. A research assistant asked 38 healthy male undergraduates to control their anger in response to an insult by a rude experimenter. Men with the low-expression allele showed increased dACC and amygdala activation after the insult, but men with the high-expression allele did not. Both dACC and amygdala activation independently mediated the relationship between MAOA genotype and self-reported anger control. Moreover, following the insult, men with the high-functioning allele showed functional decoupling between the amygdala and dACC, but men with the low-functioning allele did not. These results suggest that heightened dACC and amygdala activation and their connectivity are neuroaffective mechanisms underlying anger control in participants with the low-functioning allele of the MAOA gene

Playing the trump card:Why we select overconfident leaders and why it matters

Five studies test the relationship between overconfidence and perceived leadership suitability. Study 1, a field study wherein HR consultants assessed candidates for an advertised leadership position, finds that overconfidence positively predicts hiring recommendations. Study 2, in which participants delivered a five-minute job talk to an expert panel, finds that overconfidence buffers social stress, thereby improving participants' job pitches. Study 3, which tested the effect of confidence on leadership selection at different levels of manipulated competence, finds that regardless of competence, confidence increases perceived leadership potential. Study 4, finds that within the context of the 2016 US Primaries, voters were swayed by candidates' confidence, regardless of candidate competence. Study 5, an agent-based simulation, demonstrates that if candidates adjust to voter preferences for confidence, competent candidates become less likely to be elected. These findings suggest that overconfidence manifests behavioral displays that activate people's implicit leadership theories, thereby increasing perceptions of leadership potential

The too-much-talent effect: Team interdependence determines when more talent is too much or not enough

The materials for Studies 1a and 1b have also been made publicly available via Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/y4c82</p

Power poses – where do we stand?

<p>Dynamic results for Scenario 2.</p

Male Risk Taking as a Sexual Display Strategy: Proximal and Distal Explanations for Young Men's Risk Taking

This research explores whether male risk taking emerges as a sexual display strategy in the presence of attractive women. Experiments 1 to 3 explored whether young males reported and engaged in more risk taking after viewing pictures of highly attractive females. Possible self-control mechanisms were investigated via working memory, reversal learning, and Stroop tasks. In addition, second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) was measured as a proxy for individual differences in testosterone. Viewing pictures of highly attractive females led to greater self-reported risk-taking. 2D:4D was found to moderate the effect on risk-taking behaviours, with increases for high, but decreases for low testosterone males. Digit ratio also moderated the effects observed on the Stroop and reversal learning tasks. Experiments 4 and 5 extended these findings to examine how power interacts with testosterone to influence risk taking and inhibitory control. As testosterone is as-sociated with the pursuit of power and status (Dabbs & Dabbs, 2000), high testoster-one individuals primed with power were expected to have little reason to disrupt the status quo and thus should be risk-avoidant. Conversely, high-testosterone individuals primed with low power were expected to use risk taking as a vehicle for pursuing po-tential gains to their status and resources. The findings from two experiments are con-sistent with these predictions. In Experiment 1, higher testosterone males (as indicated by second–fourth digit ratio) showed greater risk-taking when primed with low power. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and also showed that when primed with high power, higher testosterone males took fewer risks. The influence of power on Stroop performance was also moderated by individual differences in testosterone. Par-ticipants primed with high power showed better Stroop performance if they were lower in testosterone, whereas participants primed with low power showed better Stroop performance if they were higher in testosterone. These results suggest that greater executive control accompanies but does not underlie enhanced risk taking, caused by testosterone and power. Finally, results from a field experiment (Experiment 6) with skateboarders demon-strate that physical risk taking by young male skateboarders increases in the presence of an attractive female. This increased risk taking led to more successes but also more crash landings in front of the female observer. Mediational analyses suggest that this increase in risk taking is caused in part by elevated testosterone levels of men who performed in front of the attractive female. In addition, skateboarders’ risk taking was predicted by their performance on a reversal-learning task, reversal-learning perform-ance was disrupted by the presence of the attractive female, and the female’s presence moderated the observed relationship between risk taking and reversal learning. These results suggest that men use physical risk taking as a sexual display strategy, and they provide suggestive evidence regarding possible hormonal and neural mechanisms

Gender differences in risk taking:A socially facilitated phenomenon

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