Page 115 - The extraordinary leader

92 • The Extraordinary Leader

A. Honest 1. Serious
B. Intelligent 2. Wasteful
C. Irresponsible 3. Modest
D. Stern 4. Critical

Table 4-2 List of Personal Attributes

The Asch and Kelly research reinforce a powerful conclusion. Some
attributes, such as “warm” or “cold,” are central traits. When a person is per-
ceived to possess that characteristic, others immediately impute tag-along
characteristics. These are glued to the central trait.
We invite the reader to participate in a quick experiment that illustrates
this point. In Table 4-2, draw lines between the traits that go together. Match
one from the left-hand column with one from the right-hand column. This
example comes from research conducted by three psychologists, Rosenberg,
Nelson, and Vivekananthan, who conducted a study in which people were
asked to indicate the relationships among 64 different traits. The researchers
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found that various traits cluster together in groups. That is, if I have quality
A, then people are very likely to believe I have quality B.
From their research, they found that the following traits tended to be clus-
tered together:

(A) Honest and (3) Modest
(B) Intelligent and (1) Serious
(C) Irresponsible and (2) Wasteful
(D) Stern and (4) Critical

Their research showed a regular and consistent pairing of traits. The powerful
finding of this research was the consistency with which people linked one trait
with another.
In their research, Rosenberg and his colleagues also measured issues that
clustered on four dimensions :
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● Bad social (e.g., unpopular, unsociable, boring, cold, moody, dishonest)
● Good social (e.g., honest, happy, popular, reliable, modest, warm)
● Bad intellectual (e.g., foolish, unintelligent, clumsy, wasteful,
irresponsible)