Leadership and the Group-Shift Phenomenon

Abstract

Leadership was shown to be a very important variable in predicting group decisions. This may partially account for the group-shift phenomenon. Leaders (confederates) were instructed to adopt a (1) risk, (2) conservative, or (3) no-position on caution-oriented items. Comparison of Ss responses to caution items on the Life's Dilemma Questionnaire showed: (1) a significant shift in the risk direction for the risk-leader groups; (2) a significant shift in the conservative direction for the caution-leader groups; (3) a significant shift in the conservative direction for the control group; (4) a significantly greater conservative shift for the caution-leader groups than the control groups; (5) a more stable shift for the caution-leader and control groups, and (6) a transitory shift for risk-leader groups. These results were discussed in terms of their relevance for the group-shift phenomenon.