Page 114 - The extraordinary leader

The Competency Quest • 91

List A List B
Intelligent Intelligent
Skillful Skillful
Industrious Industrious
Warm Cold
Determined Determined
Practical Practical
Cautious Cautious
Table 4-1 List of Personal Attributes

Groups given List A would choose additional qualities such as happy,
imaginative, good-natured, generous, humorous, wise, humane, popular, altru-
istic, and sociable. Groups given List B did not select those same attributes.
There were, however, some attributes, such as serious, strong, reliable,
persistent, honest, and important, that were equally likely to be chosen on
either list.
From a brief list of a few attributes, people generalize to a broader set of attrib-
utes. Once again, this reinforces the belief that people form an impression of a
person as a whole, and therefore they attribute additional characteristics even
though they have been given no specific information about the person.
It is intuitive to most people, just based on their experience working with
others, that certain traits and behaviors go together. The Asch experiments
confirm that, and we suspect that the reader will easily think of many exam-
ples of this. People’s dress, facial characteristics, country of origin, or manner
of speech all trigger stereotypes that we have in our minds. Stereotypes per-
sist because there is just enough truth in them to make them continue to live.
Another researcher tested Asch’s basic theory only this time had subjects
actually come in contact with a person. H. H. Kelly, in a follow-up experiment,
had students evaluate teachers. Before attending a brief lecture, the students
6
were provided a brief biographical sketch of each teacher. The descriptions
were exactly the same except that for some students, a teacher was described
as warm, whereas for other students, the same teacher was described as cold.
The instructor then gave a 20-minute lecture. After the presentation, students
rated the instructor. The students who had “warm” as part of the instructor’s
biography evaluated the instructor more positively than did those for whom
“cold” had been listed. This showed that the students’ perceptions were
strongly influenced by the written biographical sketch and that these percep-
tions were not altered by subsequent interactions with the person.