Emerging Leadership and the General Factor of Personality (GFP): A Quasi-Experimental Test of an Evolutionary Prediction

Peiqian Wu*, Dimitri Van der Linden, Curtis S. Dunkel, Mark van Vugt, Qin Han

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Evolutionary accounts of the general factor of personality (GFP) state that high-GFP individuals tend to be selected as leaders more often. We directly tested this assumptionusing a simulated two-step (quasi-experimental) election campaign to decide whowould become a general student leader in a Chinese college. The results showed thatGFP scores, as assessed before the experiment, indeed could predict who becameleaders of their subgroups (in Step 1) and also who received the most votes to becomethe general leader (in Step 2). Additional analyses revealed that the lion share ofthe variance in election outcomes accounted for by personality (i.e., the Big Five) couldbe attributable to individual differences in the GFP. To our knowledge, this is the firstcontrolled social (quasi) experiment with a high ecological validity showing that theGFP is related to being able to successfully lobby for being elected as a leader. Thesefindings are in line with the evolutionary perspective on the GFP

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)81-93
Number of pages13
JournalEvolutionary Behavioral Sciences
Volume16
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Chinese National Scholarship

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020. American Psychological Association

Keywords

  • General factor of personality
  • Leadership
  • Social effectiveness

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