Object relations and regression in groups.

This article uses a psychoanalytic ego-psychological framework to examine the regression experienced by an individual group member and the defenses mobilized to counter it, focusing in particular on the defensive functions of constituting leadership somewhere in the group. The leader, regarded as an internal object in the member's object world, is hypothesized to be a combination of projected and personified part-objects and at the same time an integrating whole object. Various phenomena of group life are discussed from this viewpoint, notably the lability of the relationship with the leader, the externalization of various endopsychic regulations, and the conditions supporting the defensive utility of the leader for the group member. The foundation for the emergence of social roles and consensual perception of the group and its leadership becomes apparent. A strictly intrapsychic view is maintained throughout.     

Mental Health and the Prevention of Neurosis by Joachim Flescher

The authors argue that instead of adopting the traditional view that defenses are the “enemy” that impedes therapeutic work, it is generally valuable to conceptualize defense mechanisms as “solutions” to specific intrapsychic or interpersonal conflicts. As such, the defenses offer significant clues to understanding the problems that they presumably alleviate. In the therapy group, the goal of uncovering and interpreting defenses is complicated by the complexity of the source of the defensive operations, either emanating from within the individual patient, the group-as-a-whole, or the group therapist's own countertransference. The group leader must be aware of the three dimensions of defense in order to assist the patients in understanding the effects of their defensive style in both gaining and losing what is sought, promoting insight into the historical incidents that led to the particular defenses, and, finally, facilitating the development of more effective defensive structures.     

公共资源困境中领导对群体成员合作行为的影响

过去社会困境的领导研究大多都以被试作为领导, 发现贴上领导标签后, 被试倾向于拿取更多的公共资源, 从而有碍公共利益的实现。本研究指出, 如果领导的背叛行为能够使群体成员表现出自我节制行为的话, 那么设置领导则有可能促进公共利益的实现。研究通过三个实验, 考察领导与普通群体成员不同的行为方式以及领导的产生方式对群体成员行为的影响, 并检验公平理论和社会认同理论的解释力。研究结果表明, 领导表现出背叛行为时, 被试表现出更多的自我节制行为; 指派领导及外群体选举领导背叛时, 被试表现出更多的自我节制行为, 验证了社会认同理论的正确性。     

Watching over your own: How surveillance moderates the impact of shared identity on perceptions of leaders and follower behaviour

In two studies we investigate how level of surveillance moderates followers' responses to leaders with whom they either do or do not share identity. Study 1 (N = 80) demonstrated that imposing high surveillance where identity is shared with a leader undermined perceptions of the leader as a team member, reducing levels to that of leaders without a shared identity. Study 2 (N = 84) replicated this finding, also demonstrating that willingness to work for the group declined when leaders with shared identity used high surveillance (compared to a low surveillance condition). This process was partially explained by perceptions that surveillance was an invasion of privacy. Together, these studies illustrate that the benefits of shared identity are easily undermined when a leader uses surveillance in a context where it is unnecessary. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Antecedents of Leader Utilization of Staff Input in Decision-Making Teams

The purpose of this experiment was to explore the possibility that the inconsistent findings of Brehmer and Hagafors (1986,Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 38, 181–195), Sniezek and Buckley (1995,Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62, 159–174), and leader–member exchange research regarding leaders' propensity todifferentiallyandaccuratelyweight staff input can be explained as a result of experience, the availability to the leader of staff member judgment confidence, and the cumulative past accuracy of each staff member. The availability to the team leader of staff member past judgment accuracy and staff member judgment confidence was provided in an environment in which differential staff weighting was the appropriate staff utilization strategy. Eighty-four leaders of four-person decision-making teams performed 63 decisions on a computerized decision-making task. Both experience and providing leaders with cumulative staff past accuracy information were related to greater staff weighting variability and greater staff weighting accuracy. Although positively related to staff weighting, staff confidence information did not improve leader weighting variability nor actual staff weighting accuracy.     

Schools of Psychoanalytic Thought by Ruth L. Munroe

This paper assesses the impact of large-group processes and dynamics upon the patient-staff community meeting in hospital treatment. It focuses upon the therapeutic values and limitations of the large-group format by examining, from an integrated general systems and object relations perspective, how size, structure, patient population, staff training, and leadership variables reciprocally affect the process and content of the community meeting. The special problems associated with selecting an appropriate format for the meeting and the intense pull of regressive group forces upon the large-group leader are discussed.     

Dreams of Glory: Narcissism and Politics

The arena of politics provides a natural environment for individuals with significant narcissistic personality traits, individuals who are consumed by dreams of glory. This article first reviews developmental pathways to the wounded self, using the example of Saddam Hussein, whose traumatic background led to the defensive adaptation of a fixated grandiose self. It also considers individuals who were raised to be special, such as President Woodrow Wilson and General Douglas MacArthur, and who were the vehicles of their parents’ success. The article then addresses the psychology of charismatic leader–follower relationships, where there is a natural fit between the mirror-hungry leader, seeking adulation, and his ideal-hungry followers, who feel incomplete unless they are attached to a great other. The chapter emphasizes the impaired interpersonal relationships of narcissistic characters, and how this can contribute to an imperfect evaluation of political reality, as the leadership circle tells the leader what he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear.     

Changing the guard: new leadership for an established group

When the leader of an established therapy group decides to leave, the group may wish to continue with a new leader. This decision deserves careful exploration. The transfer of leadership to a new leader is a powerful event in a group. New leaders often experience strong countertransference reactions. Specific recommendations for new leaders include meeting individually with each continuing member, helping the group stabilize and process the meaning of the change, and developing ownership of the leader role. When managed successfully, a leadership transition can strengthen the group cohesion and offer important therapeutic opportunity.     

Developing the social identity theory of leadership: Leader agency in leader group prototypicality

The social identity theory of leadership is a unique perspective in leadership research in capturing how responses to leadership are informed by how the leader is perceived through the lens of the group identity shared by leaders and followers. I review the theory in broad strokes to make the case that a particularly valuable future development of the theory is to complement the theory's emphasis on group member (follower) perceptions of leader group prototypicality, the extent to which the leader is perceived to embody the group identity, with theory and evidence speaking to leader agency in influencing such perceptions.     

When group doesn't work: An examination of the types and causes of individual,group, and leader failures

Learning to recognize the types and causes of failures in group psychotherapy leads to ways of preventing or minimizing failures. Three types of failures are discussed. Causes of failure of an individual member of a group include early dropout and conflict with intimacy. Failure of the leader includes internal issues, such as countertransference, incongruent goals or desire for unrealistic treatment results, boundary issues, and setting of group structure through group rules. The leader's external issues relate to training and knowledge, while the leader's situational issues consist of those areas over which the therapist has little or no control, such as agency assignments. Failure of the group-as-a-whole may be due to therapeutic impasse or lack of cohesion. Cognizance of these factors is seen as primary in minimizing or preventing failures.     

Challenging the Leader or the Follower: Influence of Need for Emotion and Equality Violations on Emotional and Retributive Reactions in Social Dilemmas1

Research has shown that if equality is violated in public‐good dilemmas, group members react with more anger if another group member (a follower), rather than if the leader violates equality. The present research argued that people's personality—particularly, need for emotion—moderates group members’ reactions if equality is violated by either the leader or a follower. Results revealed that group members low in need for emotion reacted with more anger and were more inclined to exclude the violator if this person was a follower, rather than the leader of the group. Group members high in need for emotion, however, reacted with more anger and wished to exclude the violator more if this person was the leader, rather than a follower.     

Rough and Tumble Play in the Adult Group

Rough and tumble play’s function and purpose in the relational group are explored. This mode of communication involves mild roughhousing in its childhood form and verbal sparring and mild teasing in adults. Multiple uses in group therapy for this type of play exist. Although group leaders have used this mode of communication for the past 50 years, it has yet to be fully recognized and conceptualized as such. The developmental benefits of rough and tumble play come to life through case examples as they occur in different levels of group: member to leader, leader to member, and member to member.     

THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL TRAINING LABORATORIES UPON THE EFFECTIVENESS AND INTERACTION OF ONGOING WORK GROUPS

The impact upon four work groups (N= 31) which participated in organizational training laboratory sessions is evaluated in comparison with eight similar groups (N= 60) which did not participate. Criteria were six-factored dimensions, each composed of items gathered from earlier interviews which group members perceived as problems. Significant changes occurred in training groups in the following three dimensions: group effectiveness, mutual influence, and personal involvement. No significant changes occurred in leader approachability, intragroup trust, or in the evaluation of group meetings. The relevance of a work unit participating in training as a total group, rather than each member participating in a separate session, is discussed.     

Preemptive strike: An experimental study of fear-based aggression

The mere presence of a potential threat of attack was found to be sufficient to lead a significant proportion of participants to engage in preemptive attacks toward potential threats; this response occurred even without an incentive for either party to attack the other. We developed a new experimental game—the preemptive strike game (PSG)—to demonstrate this tendency for defensive aggression. We also found that the rate at which participants attacked an individual representing a potential threat was not influenced by their minimal group membership; participants were no less likely to preemptively attack a member of their own minimal group and no more likely to use aggression against members of another minimal group. These findings indicate a need to further examine the role that fear-based defensive aggression, rather than anger-based spiteful aggression, plays in inter-individual and inter-group conflict.     

Power use and differential competence as determinants of subordinates' evaluative and behavioural responses in simulated organizations

Insights from leader–member exchange theory and social justice theory were combined to derive predictions about the effects of relative competence and power use by a more powerful other on evaluative and behavioural responses of subordinates. These predictions were tested in two experiments, using a simulated organizational structure. The main results of the first experiment (N=73) indicate that frequency of power use is an important determinant of subordinates' evaluations of the status quo, supporting predictions from leader–member exchange theory. However, in line with a procedural justice explanation, perceived legitimacy of the superior's behaviour and participants' cooperative intentions were determined jointly by power use and relative competence. A second experiment (N=152) more closely investigated behavioural responses. The findings obtained in Experiment 1 were replicated, and as predicted, interaction effects of the superior's power use and competence were found for subordinates' collaborative behaviour and employee turnover. Both these effects were mediated by participants' sense of commitment to their superior. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consistency of Response to Personality Inventory Items as a Function of Length of Interval Between Test and Retest

Summary

Four member discussion groups (N = 80 male and female college students) were set up in which two members favored each side of the issue. In half the groups, the involvement of the members in the issue under discussion was relatively high; in the other half it was relatively low. While the potential for intragroup tension was greater in the high involvement group, this threat was successfully dealt with by a significantly larger number of tension reducing statements and statements deflecting hostility towards objects outside the group. These defensive maneuvers were particularly marked for one of the two discussion topics which appeared to be intrinsically more involving.     

Extra‐Role Behavior among Mexican Employees: The Impact of LMX,Group Acceptance,and Job Attitudes

The current field study took place within a Mexican work setting, consisting of 100 white‐collar employees representing a variety of professional job categories. The study investigated the direct effect of the supervisor–employee relationship (leader–member exchange) quality and group acceptance on employees' propensity to engage in activities beyond their formal work roles (extra‐role behavior). The mediating influences of the employees' job satisfaction level and organizational commitment were also taken into consideration when accounting for extra‐role behavior. Results suggest that relationships Mexican employees share with their supervisor have a direct impact on their extra‐role behavior. Social exchange, key to both extra‐role behavior and leader–member exchange, is proposed as the operating mechanism associating the two constructs. Results also indicate that organizational commitment plays a partial mediating role between leader–member exchange and extra‐role behavior.     

TRAIT AND BEHAVIORAL THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP: AN INTEGRATION AND META‐ANALYTIC TEST OF THEIR RELATIVE VALIDITY

The leadership literature suffers from a lack of theoretical integration ( Avolio, 2007 , American Psychologist, 62, 25–33). This article addresses that lack of integration by developing an integrative trait‐behavioral model of leadership effectiveness and then examining the relative validity of leader traits (gender, intelligence, personality) and behaviors (transformational‐transactional, initiating structure‐consideration) across 4 leadership effectiveness criteria (leader effectiveness, group performance, follower job satisfaction, satisfaction with leader). Combined, leader traits and behaviors explain a minimum of 31% of the variance in leadership effectiveness criteria. Leader behaviors tend to explain more variance in leadership effectiveness than leader traits, but results indicate that an integrative model where leader behaviors mediate the relationship between leader traits and effectiveness is warranted.     

Group Psychotherapy—The Psychoanalytic Approach by S. H. Foulkes and E. J. Anthony

Group therapists often lead consultation groups. For effective leadership it is important to distinguish between consultation groups and psychotherapy groups. A consultation group is one in which a leader serves as consultant to the members. Group process variables of task, contract, role of the leader, and effect of the larger system should be understood by the consultant. The process of defining, testing, and maintaining these variables encourages exploration of resistance and parallel process, and is an important aspect of the ongoing learning. Consultation group leaders should understand the importance of serving as group leader but not group therapist.