Leaders often are faced with making difficult decisions for their group, such as when a course of action preferred by group members conflicts with one that is likely to optimize group success. Across 5 experiments ( = 1110), we provide evidence that a psychological orientation toward prestige (but not dominance) causes leaders to adhere publicly to group members' desires at the expense of group task outcomes-to prioritize popularity over performance. Experiments 1-3 demonstrated that, in private, prestige-oriented leaders chose what they saw as best for group performance but that, in public, they chose whichever option was preferred by members of their group. In private, prestige-oriented leaders' tendency to choose the performance-enhancing option was mediated by group performance motives; in public, their adherence to group preferences was mediated by social approval motives. Experiments 4 and 5 advanced the investigation by using experimental manipulations to prime an orientation toward prestige. Findings replicated those from the earlier studies: participants primed with a prestige orientation prioritized popularity over performance. Results illuminate the conditions under which "good" leaders might make poor decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record

The current laboratory-based study examined individual differences in sadness coherence (i.e., coherence between objectively coded sad facial expressions and heart rate in response to a sad film clip) and associations with dispositional affect (i.e., positive and negative affect, extraversion, neuroticism) and age in a sample of younger and older adults. Results showed that (a) greater sadness coherence was associated with lower dispositional negative affect (i.e., greater positive to negative affect ratio; lower neuroticism) and (b) older adults had greater sadness coherence than younger adults. Findings remained stable when controlling for covariates. Results were specific to coherence characterized by an inverse association between heart rate and facial expressions of sadness (i.e., did not emerge for absolute changes in heart rate or skin conductance), specific to sad facial expressions (i.e., did not emerge for happy facial expressions), specific to stimulus (i.e., did not emerge for sadness coherence in response to a happy film clip), generalized across overall levels of emotional responding (i.e., sad facial expressions; heart rate reactivity), and remained stable when controlling for expressive suppression. These findings demonstrate that individuals who exhibit greater sadness coherence experience more favorable dispositional affect, consistent with evolutionary-functionalist models of emotion, and that sadness coherence is higher in late life, consistent with developmental accounts of heightened reactivity to loss in late life.

Some group leaders exhibit hypervigilance to signs of social disapproval and that vigilance manifests at basic levels of social information processing such as visual attention and face perception. The current research tests hypotheses about when, why, and in whom such vigilance occurs. Across 2 pilot studies and 5 experiments (N = 1,667) we find that, when their social relationships are at stake, prestige-oriented leaders (but not dominance-oriented leaders) overperceive signs of social discontent and disapproval. When delivering public (but not private) critical feedback to subordinates, prestige-oriented leaders attended vigilantly to social cues, especially negative emotional expressions indicating social discontent (Experiment 1). When delivering public (but not private) critical feedback, prestige-oriented leaders were also biased toward perceiving smiles as disingenuous (Experiment 2). Experimental manipulations of prestige produced similar results, suggesting that an orientation toward prestige causes leaders to perceive smiles as disingenuous (Experiment 3), interpret neutral facial expressions as concealing negative, rather than positive, emotions (Experiment 4), and fixate their attention on social cues (Experiment 5). Consistent with error management theory, hypervigilance to signs of social discontent and disapproval may prompt prestige-oriented leaders to strengthen their social relationships and help them avoid losing the support of their group. These findings are among the first to illuminate basic cognitive processes underlying the psychology of prestige.

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