The role of social categorization and social dominance orientation in behavioral adaptability.

Abstract

Behavioral adaptability is the ability to adapt one's interpersonal behavior to the expectations of the social interaction partners. In this paper, we investigated two factors that impact the extent to which people express behavioral adaptability. First, we investigated whether behavioral adaptability depends on the interaction partners' social categories (in-group vs. out-group). Second, we tested whether social dominance orientation (SDO) is related to behavioral adaptability and whether this relationship depends on the interaction partners' belonging to the in-or out-group. To do so, we conducted 2 studies in which we manipulated whether the interaction partners belong to the in-or to the out-group and in which we assessed participants SDO. In both studies, participants were in the role of a leader who had to give separate pep talks to 2 subordinates who differed in terms of preferred leadership style and we operationalized behavioral adaptability by coding to what extent participants adapted (Study 1) or reported that they would adapt (Study 2) their leadership style according to their subordinates' individual preferences. Study 1 used immersive virtual reality and included White/Caucasian male participants (N ϭ 173). Study 2 was a vignette study including men and women who were either White/Caucasian or Black/African American (N ϭ 741). Results showed that the subordinates' social category did not impact the extent to which participants express behavioral adaptability. However, SDO was differently related to behavioral adaptability depending both on participants social categories (e.g., ethnicity and sex) and subordinates' belonging to the in-or out-group.

Study protocol for the ETMED-L project: longitudinal study of mental health and interpersonal competence of medical students in a Swiss university using a comprehensive framework of empathy

“…This has been done in a past study conducted by one of the present project’s coinvestigators in which participants performed a task with two interactional partners having different needs and preferences. 68 …”

“…The goal will be to measure actual displays of behavioural adaptability by coding the extent to which participants adapt their interaction styles to different interactional partners or situations. This has been done in a past study conducted by one of the present project’s coinvestigators in which participants performed a task with two interactional partners having different needs and preferences 68…”

The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Leadership Development: A Study of Leaders in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

“…Virtual leadership is responsible to ensure that relations-oriented behaviors are achieved even without face-to-face meetings (Rohwer et al, 2020). Virtual leaders should think of different ways of keeping interpersonal relations without physical meetings (Palese & Schmid Mast, 2020).…”

The Impact of Interpersonal Accuracy on Behavioral Outcomes

“…To test a person’s level of behavioral adaptability, one needs to observe whether this person changes his or her behavior when interacting with people who have different preferences. In a recent study (Palese & Schmid Mast, 2017), participants gave a pep talk to two of their subordinates (virtual humans in an immersive virtual environment), one of whom was described as performing best under a directive leadership style (e.g., receiving orders, not being involved in decision making), and the other was described as performing best under a participative leadership style (e.g., discussing tasks, being included in decision making). To obtain a behavior-based measure of adaptability, the researchers filmed participants’ talks and then coded how much participative and directive leadership behavior participants showed toward the two subordinates.…”

“…High behavioral adaptability was operationalized as showing more participative leadership toward the subordinate who prefers a participative leadership style while showing more directive leadership toward the subordinate who prefers a directive leadership style. Female participants with higher interpersonal accuracy showed greater behavioral adaptability (Palese & Schmid Mast, 2017).…”