Scapegoating and Leader Behavior

This article examines how the alternatives of scapegoating or social-emotional leadership are determined in small discussion groups. The hypothesis asserts that the alternative “selected” by the group depends on whether the task leader supports the low-status member. An experiment designed to test this hypothesis indicated that scapegoating of the low-status member occurs when the task leader is somewhat hostile toward him. However, social-emotional leadership was not more in evidence when the task leader supported the low-status member. Instead, such support had the unanticipated consequence of increasing the task leader's legitimacy in performing task activity, thus decreasing both scapegoating and social-emotional leadership

Economics · Legitimacy · Management · Political science · Politics · Scapegoat · Scapegoating · Task (project management) · Test (biology) · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology