The relationship between leadership emergence, sex-role adaptability and interpersonal behavior
Description
This experiment was designed to explore the relationship between sex-role adaptability as measured by Bem's (1974) Sex-Role Inventory and leader emergence in small discussion groups. Individuals classified as androgynous were expected to be more likely than those classified as sex-typed to emerge as leaders in situations calling for sex-incongruent leadership styles. Specifically, it was predicted that androgynous males would show a greater tendency than masculine males to attain leadership status in groups calling for socioemotional leadership and androgynous females would be more likely than feminine females to attain leadership status in groups calling for task-oriented leadership Subject's interpersonal behaviors were analyzed using Bales (1970) revised interaction category analyses for the following reasons: (a) to further examine hypotheses regarding sex-role orientation of emergent leader and to aid in interpretation of findings; (b) to determine the extent to which androgynous and sex-typed individuals differ in interpersonal style; and (c) to assess the influence of group situational variables and group sex composition on subjects' interaction patterns The hypotheses regarding the relationship between sex-role orientation of leader and group situation were confirmed. Androgynous males showed a significantly greater tendency than sex-typed males to emerge as leaders in group situations calling for socioemotional leadership. A similar pattern was found with respect to female subjects, that is, androgynous females showed a significantly greater tendency than sex-typed females to emerge as leaders in groups calling for task-oriented leadership. The results of this study also indicated that sex-typed subjects engaged in higher levels of sex-congruent interactions and lower levels of sex-incongruent interactions than androgynous subjects. This finding explains in part why androgynous subjects were more likely than sex-typed subjects to emerge as leaders in group situations favoring emergence of sex-incongruent leadership. However, there was no evidence suggesting than androgynous subjects were generally more adaptable to group situations than sex-typed subjects. Although androgynous subjects were found to engage in higher levels of situation appropriate behaviors when faced with a sex-incongruent role demand as compared with a sex-congruent role demand, they did not appear to 'adapt' in a similar manner to sex-congruent demands. Conversely, sex-typed subjects heightened situation appropriate behavior in response to the sex-congruent role demand as contrasted with the sex-incongruent role demand but failed to show an increase in appropriate behaviors in sex-incongruent situations. Thus, androgynous subjects were found to be more adaptable than sex-typed subjects only with respect to sex-incongruent conditions