Testosterone–status mismatch lowers collective efficacy in groups: Evidence from a slope-as-predictor multilevel structural equation model

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Abstract

The study of the biological underpinnings of behavior is in its nascent stages in the field of management. We study how the hormone testosterone (T) is related to status and collective efficacy in a group. We assessed salivary testosterone of 579 individuals in 92 teams. We find that T does not predict status within the group. We also tested the effects of a mismatch between T and status in the group on the collective efficacy of the group. Using a novel slope-as-predictor multilevel structural equation model, we find that the greater the mismatch between T and status in the group (i.e., the more negative the within-group correlation among T and status), the lower is the collective efficacy of the group. We discuss the implications of our findings for the study of the biological underpinnings of group behavior in organizations.

Section snippets

Testosterone

Much of people’s lives at home, at work, or at play is spent in groups. A number of important social behaviors such as leadership, interpersonal attraction and aggression, and status attainment are enacted within the context of a social group. Not surprisingly, a large body of management research is devoted to the study of groups. Studies on group behavior point to a number of socially-determined factors such as group composition, function, and structure as important determinants of status

Testosterone and social behavior

Considerable research evidence suggests that T is related to social behavior in humans (Nieschlag et al., 2004). Notably, T levels are associated with social dominance and status attainment in human groups (Archer, 2006, Klinesmith et al., 2006, Mazur and Booth, 1998, Tremblay et al., 1998)—in fact, the first studies linking T to status in animals helped coin the term “pecking order” when observing an increase in status among chickens as T increased (see Allee, Collias, & Lutherman, 1939).

Testosterone and dominance

To provide a foundation for these findings described above, and the hypotheses we propose below, it is important to explore the psychological effects of varying levels of T. Researchers have shown that T is related to implicit and explicit motivations for power and social dominance (Gray et al., 1991, Schindler, 1979, Sellers et al., 2007) as well as attention to status cues and status threats (Schultheiss & Brunstein, 2001). Further, T is associated with reductions in fear responses (e.g.,

The mismatch effect

Importantly, other research shows negative effects of a “mismatch” in T and status, such that individuals high (low) in T and low (high) in status experience elevated heart rate and blood pressure, reductions in positive affect, and decrements in cognitive resources (Josephs et al., 2006). This is to say that when T and status are negatively related, individuals become emotionally disturbed and cognitively distracted, but the same is not true when T and status “match” (i.e., are positively

Summary and contribution of the current study

Through the effects described above, T may be understood as having a status-seeking and status-maintaining function. Theoretically, T drives individuals to attain high status, focuses attention on threats to their status, and may have an antagonizing effect on fear responses to such threats. These three phenomena should increase individuals’ propensities to engage and persist in status contests and, through such contests, attain positions of social dominance—these effects are stable across the

Theory and hypotheses

The most theoretically potent description of how T should influence status in groups is found in Mazur’s (1985) biosocial, face-to-face interaction model of status contests (see also Kemper, 1990, Mazur and Booth, 1998). According to this model, simple and often unconscious signs are used to indicate and attain status. Individuals can sign their social standing through a variety of behaviors, such as posture or gesticulation, a “stare-down” or gaze aversion, or assertive voice behavior. These

Participants

Participants were 579 students, 259 males and 320 females, enrolled in an introductory organizational behavior course. The average age of the sample was 20.97 (SD = 1.68) years.

Procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to 92 groups ranging in size between 4 and 7. These groups met twice weekly for the duration of the semester (12 weeks) and were required to work on a variety of tasks in-class, as well as produce a professional management-training video as a final class project. There were no

Results

The intercorrelations and descriptive statistics associated with all variables are presented in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, T has an extremely small relationship with all status variables, and this is also true of T’s effect on the latent status variable (see Table 2 and Fig. 2), as evidence by the statistically non-significant mean of the random slope variable (i.e., the statistically non-significant average effect of T on status across all groups; α = .001 and p = .74). Another illustration of

Discussion

The study of the biological underpinnings of organizational behavior is important for many reasons. First, it serves to bridge the divide between the “hard” and “soft” sciences. Second, rather than simply adding more complexity to empirical studies, this integration has the potential to greatly aid a basic scientific understanding of organizational phenomena. Third, a biological focus has the potential to add relevancy to management science on the larger academic stage, both through the use of

Acknowledgments

This project was made possible through research funding from the National University of Singapore (R-317-000-067-112/133). We thank the editor and the reviewers for helping us refine the paper. We thank Dan Mcallister for helping us with collecting this data.

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    The first two authors contributed equally to this paper. This paper was conceived and executed when the first author was at the National University of Singapore.

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