Group entitativity experiments manipulate board cohesion through shared social activities

Evidence

Participants in this study were presented with a scenario describing wrongdoing by a food company. In one experimental condition, the board of directors of this company was described as highly entitative, such that the board members communicated well among themselves concerning business matters and liked each other, often playing golf together and going out to a group travel on a regular basis. In the other condition, the entitativity was described as low such that their attraction and communication levels were both low and that the board members were often in conflict and confrontation on various matters. The scenario also described a case of wrongdoing by an employee of this company, such as knowingly mismanaging the sanitary conditions of a factory, which eventually caused a food-poisoning incident, or insider trading of a company’s stocks. After reading one of these cases, participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they found intentionality and responsibility on the side of the executive board for allowing the malpractice to take place. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 159