The recent economic crisis as well as other disasters such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the nuclear disaster in Japan has fanned calls for leaders who do not deny responsibility, hide information, and deceive others, but rather lead with authenticity and integrity. In this article, we empirically investigate the concept of authentic leadership. Specifically, we examine the antecedents and individual as well as group-level outcomes of authentic leadership in business (Study 1; n = 306) as well as research organizations (Study 2; n = 105). Findings reveal leader self-knowledge and self-consistency as antecedents of authentic leadership and followers' satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and extraeffort as well as perceived team effectiveness as outcomes. The relations between authentic leadership and followers' work-related attitudes as well as perceived team effectiveness are mediated by perceived predictability of the leader, a particular facet of trust. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice and provide suggestions for advancing theory and research on authentic leadership in the future.

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Research has shown that framing decisions as gains or losses distorts human judgment. Human judgment is also assumed to be influenced by the actual level of construal. Whether decisions are construed in a more detailed manner (low level construal) or in a more abstract manner (high level construal) can depend on perceived psychological distance. In the present studies, we examined the influence of framing and psychological distance on risk taking. In three studies with students (n = 65), physicians (n = 60), and hotel managers (n = 39), we found evidence that construal level influences risk seeking in gain situations, but not in loss situations. Furthermore, the framing effect could be replicated in psychologically close situations, and was eliminated (Studies 1 and 2) or reversed (Study 3) in psychologically distant situations. Our findings illuminate the interplay of framing and construal level, and points out their applicability in organizational decision making.

In a series of studies, we examined the influence of people's mind-set (construal level (CL): abstract versus concrete) on their risktaking behavior. We measured differences in CL (study 1, CL as trait) and manipulated CL (studies 1-5, CL as state) with different priming methods, which were unrelated to the dependent variable of risk-taking behavior (studies 1, 3, 4, and 5: Balloon Analog Risk Task; study 2: Angling Risk Task). In all studies, abstract CL resulted in greater risk-taking compared with concrete CL, which led to lower risk-taking. Risky and safe game strategies mediated the CL effect on risk-taking. A concrete mind-set increased the safe game strategy, whereas an abstract mind-set increased the risky game strategy. Furthermore, different potential mediators were explored (i.e., focus on payoffs and probabilities, prevention versus promotion focus, attention to pros versus cons, and mood). A concrete mind-set increased prevention strategies and a negative mood when compared with an abstract mind-set. In turn, an abstract mind-set increased attention to pros (of an action). Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Can differences in mind-set influence risk-taking behavior? Traditionally, risk-taking was assumed to be a stable personality trait in that people can be grouped as either risk-seeking versus avoiding (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1977;Hanoch, Johnson, & Wilke, 2006;Zuckerman & Kuhlman, 2000). This was then expanded to include other considerations (Johnson, Wilke, & Weber, 2004). Risk behavior is now more broadly described with foci on its multidimensional nature (e.g., Figner & Weber, 2011). Many research on prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) shows that gain versus loss frames change the way people represent events, which in turn influences their preferences. Today, commonly observed influences on risk behavior include subtraits such as sensation seeking (e.g., Zuckerman, 2007), self-monitoring (e.g., positive relationship between self-monitoring in the form of public performing and risk-taking behavior; Bell, Schoenrock, & O'Neal, 2000), constructs such as mood (e.g., De Vries, Holland, & Witteman, 2008;Yuen & Lee, 2003), or visceral influences (e.g., visceral cues that indicate proximity to desired objects can lead to decisions that are less sensitive to risk information; Ditto, Pizarro, Epstein, Jacobson, & MacDonald, 2006). These factors contribute to the common observation that one sometimes chooses to play it safe when faced with risky situations and other times not (Freeman & Muraven, 2010). Freeman and Muraven (2010) raised the question as to what generates people's inconsistency in risk-taking behavior.This question is addressed here using a novel approach, that is, construal level (CL) (Trope & Liberman, 2010). On the basis of CL theory (CLT), we assume that risk-taking may be broadly influenced not only by personality traits, such as sensation seeking; gain versus loss frames; and situational factors, such as affect, but also by people's cognitive mind-set (CL). CONSTRUAL LE...

Recent findings on construal level theory (CLT) suggest that abstract thinking leads to a lower estimated probability of an event occurring compared to concrete thinking. We applied this idea to the risk context and explored the influence of construal level (CL) on the overestimation of small and underestimation of large probabilities for risk estimates concerning a vague target person (Study 1 and Study 3) and personal risk estimates (Study 2). We were specifically interested in whether the often-found overestimation of small probabilities could be reduced with abstract thinking, and the often-found underestimation of large probabilities was reduced with concrete thinking. The results showed that CL influenced risk estimates. In particular, a concrete mindset led to higher risk estimates compared to an abstract mindset for several adverse events, including events with small and large probabilities. This suggests that CL manipulation can indeed be used for improving the accuracy of lay people's estimates of small and large probabilities. Moreover, the results suggest that professional risk managers' risk estimates of common events (thus with a relatively high probability) could be improved by adopting a concrete mindset. However, the abstract manipulation did not lead managers to estimate extremely unlikely events more accurately. Potential reasons for different CL manipulation effects on risk estimates' accuracy between lay people and risk managers are discussed.