Leadership Selection and Cooperative Behavior in Social Dilemmas: An Empirical Exploration of Assigned versus Group-Chosen Leadership

This research explores the leadership selection process as an antecedent to group cooperation. We compare group-chosen and assigned leaders and explore their resulting influence upon the group process and outcome in a social dilemma context. In three empirical studies, we predict and provide support for the idea that group-chosen leaders will attend more to the social aspects of the group's interaction as opposed to the economic (bottom-line) ones than will assigned leaders. Additionally, we found that those groups with group-chosen leaders had more overall group cooperation (i.e., less economic self-interest), greater trust in one another and in the leader, and had leaders who displayed more socially oriented leadership behaviors.