The authors report a field experiment with skateboarders that demonstrates that physical risk taking by young men increases in the presence of an attractive female. This increased risk taking leads to more successes but also more crash landings in front of a 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 performance 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.

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Five studies examined the relationship between talent and team performance. Two survey studies found that people believe there is a linear and nearly monotonic relationship between talent and performance: Participants expected that more talent improves performance and that this relationship never turns negative. However, building off research on status conflicts, we predicted that talent facilitates performance-but only up to a point, after which the benefits of more talent decrease and eventually become detrimental as intrateam coordination suffers. We also predicted that the level of task interdependence is a key determinant of when more talent is detrimental rather than beneficial. Three archival studies revealed that the too-much-talent effect emerged when team members were interdependent (football and basketball) but not independent (baseball). Our basketball analysis also established the mediating role of team coordination. When teams need to come together, more talent can tear them apart.

The present study (a) examined the question of whether gender differences in hypothetical risk decisions might be socially facilitated by the presence of gender-homogenous groups and (b) investigated the conscious and non-conscious motivators of risk-taking through the application of both explicit and implicit measures of risk attitude. Using hypothetical choice dilemma items, no gender difference was found at an individual level; however, when placed in-groups, males expressed a stronger pro-risk position than females. While males self-reported a stronger pro-risk position than did females on two explicit measures of risk-attitude, no gender differences were found on two parallel implicit measures. However, a newly developed implicit measure of risk-attitude showed its utility in the form of convergent, predictive and incremental validity with respect to a behavioural outcome.

Evolutionary leadership theory (ELT) argues that humans possess specialized psychological mechanisms for solving coordination problems through leadership and followership. We discuss the evolutionary functions and psychological processes underlying leadership, and how to study leadership and followership from an integrated evolutionary perspective. An evolutionary perspective offers novel insights into major barriers to leadership effectiveness in organizations. These obstacles include (a) mismatches between modern and ancestral environments, (b) evolved cognitive biases affecting leader selection and decision-making and (c) innate psychological mechanisms designed to dominate and exploit other individuals. Understanding the evolved psychological mechanisms underlying leadership, in terms of adaptive functions, mismatches, and psychological processes, is critical for the development and integration of leadership theory, research, and practice.

Power has been found to increase risk-taking (Anderson & Galinsky, 2006) but this effect appears to be moderated by individual differences in power motivation (Maner, Gailliot, Butz, & Peruche, 2007). Among individuals high in power motivation, the experience of power leads to more conservative decisions. As testosterone is associated with the pursuit of power and status (Dabbs & Dabbs, 2000), we reasoned that hightestosterone individuals primed with power might be similarly risk-avoidant. Conversely, we hypothesized that high-testosterone individuals primed with low power, would see risk-taking as a vehicle for pursuing potential gains to their status and resources. We report findings from two experiments that are consistent 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.

Two experiments examined the psychological and biological antecedents of hierarchical differentiation and the resulting consequences for productivity and conflict within small groups. In Experiment 1, which used a priming manipulation, hierarchically differentiated groups (i.e., groups comprising 1 high-power-primed, 1 low-power-primed, and 1 baseline individual) performed better on a procedurally interdependent task than did groups comprising exclusively either all high-power-primed or all low-power-primed individuals. There were no effects of hierarchical differentiation on performance on a procedurally independent task. Experiment 2 used a biological marker of dominance motivation (prenatal testosterone exposure as measured by a digit-length ratio) to manipulate hierarchical differentiation. The pattern of results from Experiment 1 was replicated; mixed-testosterone groups achieved greater productivity than did groups comprising all high-testosterone or all low-testosterone individuals. Furthermore, intragroup conflict mediated the productivity decrements for the high-testosterone but not the low-testosterone groups. This research suggests possible directions for future research and the need to further delineate the conditions and types of hierarchy under which hierarchical differentiation enhances rather than undermines group effectiveness.

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