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Studying body language reveals really interesting things during group tasks. It reminds me of a study on how perceived authority makes people jerks, even when l
by alabut 18y ago
Studying body language reveals really interesting things during group tasks. It reminds me of a study on how perceived authority makes people jerks, even when leaders are picked out of thin air. Researchers did something similar to the study in the link - break people into small groups; give the subjects a fake task that they thought they were working on together but were unknowingly being tested on how subtle teamwork and leadership issues; randomly assigned somebody to be a leader; etc.
Then they gave them cookies to eat while they did their work.
And they found - without fail! - that it was always the leader that ate an extra cookie (they'd serve 4 cookies for 3 people), ate and spoke with their mouths open, spilled crumbs everywhere, did the least work, and just were general slobs. Regardless of gender, education, yadda yadda.
Scary that we all have jerk potential, no?
- nazgulnarsil 18y agoI thought this was the entire appeal of being a leader in the first place. what would be the point of being a leader if you didn't get the extra cookie?
- jfarmer 18y agoInteresting. Do you have a link to that study? I can't find it on Google.
- alabut 18y agoSorry, google's giving me no love either and I tried digging through my delicious bookmarks too.
- teej 18y agoDacher Keltner (or his lab at UC-Berkeley) did the original research. I can't find this one specifically, but their website is http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/ http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/ I managed to track it down with the search term 'leadership research "four cookies"' which led me to something with a reference to the study - http://www.yourofficecoach.com/YOCOfficeInsights/OI_bosses.htm http://www.yourofficecoach.com/YOCOfficeInsights/OI_bosses.h...