Objections to evolutionary psychology: Reflections, implications and the leadership exemplar

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Objections to evolutionary psychology:Reflections, implications and theleadership exemplarNigel Nicholson

A B S T R AC T A recent exchange of articles in Human Relations debated the

validity, philosophical coherence and applicability of the ideas of

evolutionary psychology (EP), with specific reference, inter alia, to

previous writings where the author has sought to apply EP to the

field of organizational behaviour. This article aims to analyse key

areas of controversy about the logic and assumptions on both sides

of the debate and to explore the possibilities for common ground

to be found between them. It is argued that this entails an inter-

actionist approach to the analysis of individual agency and action, and

a co-evolutionary perspective on the social context. Leadership is

taken as an exemplar of how this would be applied.

K E Y WO R D S evolution � leadership � theory

Introduction

Evolutionary psychology as controversy

In 1996 I took upon myself the mission to introduce the ideas contained inthe new discipline of evolutionary psychology (EP) to the field of organiz-ation and management, first in a major conference and shortly after in a bookchapter and an article for Human Relations (Nicholson, 1997a, 1997b). Thiswas followed by a piece for Harvard Business Review (Nicholson, 1998),

3 9 3

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DOI: 10.1177/0018726705053428

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and subsequently in a book for a non-academic readership (Nicholson,2000). From the start I expected to encounter a chorus of objections – forthe ideas are radical and challenging to conventional assumptions intraditional social science. The Harvard Business Review article did arouse afair amount of ire from consultants – they perceived the message to be onethat disempowered them; telling them that they could not be secure in thebelief that intelligent and skilful intervention can create ideal organizationsand leaders from any human material. This reaction was unsurprising, butthe silence from my academic colleagues – even in open forums where Iinvited feedback – was unexpected.

This has not been the case outside the organizational sphere, wheredebate has raged. Conducting a PhD seminar on EP earlier this year mystudents remarked with amazement how they had never seen such vitupera-tive debate as one encounters in the exchanges between protagonists for andagainst this topic. My psychologist’s instincts tell me that such heat suggeststhat deep interests are being threatened on either side, which again shouldgive us pause for thought. The debate may not always be dealing solely withtechnical or even philosophical issues, but also tapping into more deeplyrooted matters of faith and belief. This tends to steer us away from the pathof inquiry after truth towards more tribal contest. It is refreshing to havevigorous debate, but it can be depressing when it descends to vulgar abuseor cartoon caricature.

Now the debate seems belatedly to have arrived in organizationalbehaviour (OB), as represented in the exchange between Sewell (2004) andMarkóczy and Goldberg (2004) in this journal. The Sewell article, provoca-tively entitled ‘Yabba-dabba-do’ borrows the unfortunate appellation of‘Flintstone psychology’ from one of EP’s most vehement opponents, and theMarkóczy and Goldberg reply is an equally impassioned rejection of thismisrepresentation of the EP agenda. I do not wish to amplify or repeat thesearguments.

So, without stirring up the mire even more by picking on all the pointsat issue, I would rather try to take a step back and evaluate what I see as thecurrent status of the debate. When I wrote my first pieces on EP inevitablymy ideas were still nascent in some areas, and I welcome this as an oppor-tunity to take stock more maturely. Sewell’s comments seem to treat as ofequal critical standing academic articles, practitioner pieces and televisionprogrammes for a lay audience. What I wish to do here is to get behindsemantic issues to what kinds of truths about human behaviour in organiz-ations a neo-Darwinian inquiry might lead us, taking leadership, a topichighlighted by Sewell, as a test case or exemplar.

Human Relations 58(3)3 9 4

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What are opponents of EP opposing and what are theyproposing?

Sewell’s assault on EP is diffuse in its range, though quite specific in somepoints of objection. It is a scattergun to stop what is perceived to be a danger-ous juggernaut. What is unclear, however, in these objections is (i) how faralong the road of the EP argument are opponents such as Sewell preparedto travel and at what point do they wish get off, and (ii) what is the alterna-tive proposition that they would advance?

Here are some of the questions that might be raised along the EP chainof logic, to discern at which stage there might be critical points of departure:

1. Do they object to the proposition that Homo sapiens is an animalspecies, and more particular propositions about human phylogeny asprimates? This is where creationists jump off the juggernaut – at thebeginning of the journey. Few social scientists do, in my experience.

2. Is the problem the idea of ‘the adapted mind’? Is there objection to the‘selfish gene’ mechanism – the idea that whatever DNA is favourableto survival and reproduction will be replicated – being extended tohuman behaviour as well as physical morphology? Are mental dispo-sitions, motives and biases exempt from evolution? If so, this exemp-tion would be a singular gift of humans, or whatever wider group ofprimates or mammals were granted such a dispensation. Affirming thiswould create a philosophically awkward position; or rather it wouldbe another way of using metaphysics to end the debate.

3. Is it just that we are using the wrong model of mind? Sewell takesexception to the concept of the modular mind. There is a legitimatedebate to be conducted on this point. But the debate is about howhuman psychological predispositions are neurologically constitutedrather than whether they are. If the objection is the latter, then we areback in metaphysical territory. Sewell and others are right to challengecrude mechanistic metaphors for the functioning of the mind. My ownuse of ‘hardwiring’ is one such – a deliberate choice for a businessaudience to overturn ‘blank slate’ assumptions (Nicholson, 1998) – butlet us not confuse metaphors with the essence of the argument.

4. Is the problem the idea of reproductive fitness as the criterion for evol-utionary ‘design’? This is where many misapprehensions arise. Becausethese processes have morphological outcomes it does not follow thatall aspects of a phenotype are retained because they confer a fitnessadvantage. Features that once had a purpose, like toenails or ostrichwings, for example, do not disappear because they cease to have their

Nicholson Objections to evolutionary psychology 3 9 5




original purpose. This point is widely misunderstood by anti-Darwini-ans who wish to caricature the EP view as finding an adaptive logic forevery aspect of a phenotype (‘panadaptationism’). Evolution proceedsmainly by extinction – eliminating the bearers of genes that impairfunctioning. This means that redundant features may be retained, orjust whither away gradually through genetic drift. Many may beretained because they confer a fresh fitness advantage, one for whichthey did not owe their origin. The latter applies to a great many humancapabilities (Buss et al., 1998).

5. Do the objectors to EP believe that cultural evolution has supersedednatural selection and sexual selection as explanations of humanrelations and institutions? Although health care and other social insti-tutions have changed the contingencies around survival and reproduc-tion they have not altered the underlying process. Pathogens remainthe chief source of natural selection, and sexual selection – mate choicebased upon fitness indicators – continues to guide reproductiveoutcomes (Ridley, 1999). Cultural evolution provides contextualmoderators of these processes, biasing and shaping the probability ofreproductive outcomes, but without suspending either principles orprocesses.

6. Is rejection of EP based upon its alleged imaginative or romanticattempts to reconstruct Stone Age conditions? This is the ‘Flintstone’charge, the idea that one requires 20–20 Pleistocene hindsight to verifyEP’s propositions. Much of Sewell’s and others’ arguments rest on thismisrepresentation of the nature of the EP project. More on the natureof the project shortly, but it does not rely upon any kind of recon-struction. Understanding the selective pressures that shape humanontogeny is certainly an important part of the chain of inference, butthe most important of the contextual factors that have governedhuman evolution continue to operate today – principally the need tosurvive and reproduce within complex social networks of otherhumans, acting alongside kin and non-kin in mixed cooperative andcompetitive relationships (Richerson et al., 2003).

7. Does the reflexive capability of language and self-consciousness makeus uniquely masters of our own fate, stretching the gap between distaland proximal influences, such that the former are obviated by thepower of social construction? This is a variant on question 5, but rele-gating our biological ontogeny to a distant background role rather thandismissing it. This is probably the most critical point that EPproponents need to deal with. However, the error lies in its formulation– a recurrent problem in Sewell’s article – dichotomizing the argument





into a simplistic debate that either we are biologically determined orwe are social constructed. It is essential to avoid the trap of such simpli-fication if any kind of common cause can be achieved between thosewho propose and those who currently reject the neo-Darwinianprecepts. As I shall argue, this requires a deeper understanding of theco-evolution of human identity and its social context.

The EP project

The label EP can mislead, since it less a branch of psychology than an inter-disciplinary venture, an ongoing project to understand the contents, processesand social consequences of human identity as an evolved design. Thedistal–proximal distinction is important and helpful in appreciating the natureof what ‘design’ means here – it embraces capabilities that emerge spon-taneously (various appetites and capabilities), those that require a minimallysupportive environment (such as the emergence of spoken language), andthose that arise through more complex environmental interactions (mostsocial motives) (Wilson, 1994). I shall illustrate these three meanings inrelation to leadership in the next section, a topic highlighted in Sewell’s article.

First, let us briefly enumerate the sources contributing to the EPproject.

Darwinian logic

The starting point for Darwinian analysis is the question, what follows fromapplying the ideas of natural selection to humans? Darwin himself realizedand was fearful of the backlash he anticipated from the heresy of doing this(Wright, 1994), though he demonstrated the viability of such application inhis discourse of the expression of emotions in man and other animals(Ekman, 1998). Sewell attempts to tar EP with the brush of Herbert Spencer’scrude distortions of Darwinian theory (Hawkins, 1997). The approach of EPowes nothing to so-called social Darwinism, but rather extensions ofDarwin’s own biological analysis, to be found in the work of scholars suchas Hamilton (1964) and Trivers (1985).

Genetics

Darwin developed the principles but knew nothing of the mechanism – aclassic instance of empirical discovery validating an untested theory. Moderngenetics, having revealed the mechanism, is beginning to document the range





of its consequences including key elements of human psychology, includingthe biological bases of temperament (Farde et al., 1997). This can beexpected to be one of the fastest growing contributory bodies of knowledgeto the EP project.

Behaviour genetics

The study of individual differences and similarity under conditions of varyinggenetic relatedness – identical twins, non-identical twins, siblings andadoptive kin – enables the heritability of measurable features to be modelled.Critics often overlook the significance of non-additive genetic determination(the effects of gene combinations), which means that, paradoxically, manyinherited characteristics do not run in families (Lykken et al., 1992).

Neuroscience

New imaging technologies and other techniques are able to locate psycho-logical processes and functionalities not just of clearly autonomic processessuch as emotional arousal, but also for areas such as judgement and decision-making, with which rational self-control is traditionally associated (Adolphs,2003). The so-called modularity of the brain is not a collage of compart-mentalized functions, but a mix of layered and localized circuitries (see, forexample, Buck, 1999).

Ethnopsychology

This is the name given to the study of ‘primitive’ or basic human functions.It includes comparative developmental psychologists testing for cross-cultural parallels in cognition that may indicate the existence of inborn biasestowards concepts of self, theories of mind and sociality (Lillard, 1998).

Reconstructive palaeontology

This is the aspect that most troubles EP’s critics. It is the range of inferencesone can make about the life of any species from artefacts and remains, andabout what can be assumed about the habitat and conditions of life thatgoverned its survival and reproduction (Megarry, 1995; Mithen, 1996).There seems to be no reason why one should take exception to the appli-cation of this reasoning to humans more than any other species.





Primatology

Sewell seems greatly exercised by the idea that other primates are used as‘models’ for our understanding of human nature. Far from it. Comparisonsare instructive – especially for species with whom we share a high degree ofgenetic identity – as much for the differences that they highlight as the paral-lels (Chadwick-Jones, 2000; McGrew, 1992; Runciman et al., 1996).

Comparative anthropology

Although the variety is diminishing, human societies exhibit a wide range offorms. Some can be inferred to be closer to the conditions pertaining for thebulk of human evolutionary time, though it is the presence of universalsacross heterogeneous cultures that is most indicative (Barrett et al., 2002;Brown, 1991).

New syntheses

There is an explosion of knowledge from these sources, traversing disci-plinary boundaries. Contrary to the claim that ‘it has always been economicsinforming biology and not vice versa’ (Sewell, 2004: 945), one of the mostfertile areas of emerging knowledge is neuroeconomics, where functionalimaging of neural activity is related to experimentally controlled processesof exchange, competition, reflection and recall (Camerer et al., forthcoming).The 2003 Nobel Prize for Economics was jointly awarded to DanielKahneman and Vernon Smith for their demonstrating the revisionist impli-cations for economics of the infusion of psychological rationality and theapplication of Darwinian principles.

Distinguishing heat from light: What is the debate reallyabout?

Where does all the heat come from the yabba-dabba-do-type caricatures ofEP? It seems mainly born of a panic that the cherished territory of the anti-empiricist social theory – critical theory, social constructionism and post-structuralism – is being eroded by the march of positivist science. As Toobyand Cosmides (1992) pointed out, EP does take a radical position in relationto the tabula rasa assumptions of what they called the Standard SocialScience Model (SSSM; Pinker, 2002; Tooby & Cosmides, 1992), which hasdominated for nearly a century and separates the social sciences from the





rest of science. The attraction and endurance of the SSSM is a force for liber-ation; freeing social scientists from any fear of inferiority in relation to thenatural sciences, by asserting the decoupling of the realm of culture andidentity from biology or any other scientific materiality. This perhaps alsoheightens the fervour of EP supporters, who having made an intellectualcommitment to cast themselves adrift from the social science mainstream,may be also apt to (i) proselytize to shift the centre of gravity in their direc-tion, and (ii) to defend against those who would increase their alienationfrom the traditional mainstream.

Without wishing to perpetuate any reciprocal misrepresentation, itmay be useful to examine more specifically the major themes of oppositionto EP and what deeper motives may underlie them. Three seem to predom-inate.

Reductionist imperialism

Running through Sewell’s article is a persistent fear that the biologists aretaking over and EP is their Trojan horse. A chief focus of anxiety is the ideathat explanations at one level might be claimed to be superior to explanationsat another level. This fear is misplaced because it leads inexorably towardsthe reductio ad absurdum of molecular explanations of molar phenomena.It would be plainly futile, even if neuroscience were sufficiently advanced forthe task, to explain, say, the effects of kinship systems on intergroup relationsby reference to brain events, though it would be contrary to reason to assertthere was no connection between them. The EP view commits to what Toobyand Cosmides (1992) call an Integrated Causal Model that requires us toavoid incongruence between the accounts offered at different levels ofanalysis, and to seek causal linkages between them, but not to have to maketranslations from the language of one discipline to another.

Mechanistic determinism

This is the attribution of simplistic billiard ball causal reasoning to humanbehaviour, such as the attribution that our genes make us do x or y. Geneticresearch is typically uncovering interaction effects, such as the recentlydiscovered connection between a specific genetic susceptibility and experi-ence of negative life events as a cause of depressive illness (Caspi et al., 2003).Contrary to the assertions of critics, there is no assumption that biologicalsubstrates have a supervening causal relationship to behavioural outcomes(Radcliffe Richards, 2000). The relationship between distal and proximalcausation is always an interaction effect. In many instances proximal stimuli





draw their motivational potential from distal roots that can be reliablyinferred but which do not intrude into consciousness (e.g. the proximalnature of risk incentives drawing energy from the distal underlying asym-metries of the subjective utility of loss and gain) (Kahneman & Tversky,1979). There are also several varieties of contextual dependence; some wherethere only needs to be a bandwidth of supportive conditions for a behaviourto emerge (e.g. speech); others where normal development can be disturbedby neglect (e.g. bonding); and others where specific learning is required fora faculty to be awakened (e.g. some kinds of communal living). More on thisshortly, but there is no purpose in trying to overthrow EP with accusationsof simplistic thinking about causal effects.

Normative naturalism

This is identification of ‘is’ with ‘ought’ – the idea that EP would tell us howto live, by arguing for social forms and practice that shorten the distancebetween our current circumstances and our evolutionary origins. There is ananxiety among EP’s critics that its proponents have a social agenda – oftenassumed to be conservative – that is hijacking Darwinian principles forpolitical ends. The history of social Darwinism shows this to have been arecurrent hazard – with writers of both the left and the right claiming the‘scientific’ support of cod Darwinian reasoning for their preferred forms ofsocial engineering (Hawkins, 1997). There is also a present danger for EPwriters to be too assertive about ‘fit’ and ‘misfit’ between human nature andcontemporary life, and some of my own writing has probably oversteppedthis line (Markóczy, 2003). The only philosophically and empirically tenablepoint of view is that all human life is a ‘social construction’ and rather thanasserting that one state is more fitting than another, we would do better totalk impartially about the consequences of any particular social arrange-ments for their capacity to evoke human responses and let our value judge-ments follow from a more open acknowledgement of what consequences wewant or do not want (Radcliffe Richards, 2000). This makes sense. But itdoes not make sense to assert – appealing though it might be to our desireto preserve freedom of spirit – that our preferences for social constructionsof one kind or another have become decoupled from our psychological dispo-sitions and biases.

On the latter point, Sewell invokes the interesting idea of ‘looping’(Hacking, 1995), whereby changing social definitions have the power torecondition behaviour. This is an important idea with a long lineage, andrecognizes the mutual interdependence and adaptation of social definitionsand contextualized action. In other words, our reflexive capability means we





can create environments with the deliberate intent of reshaping identity. Butour capacity to do this is not without limitations from the pull of distal forcesthat resist reconditioning. Human endeavours to socially engineer withoutregard for human nature have been spectacularly unsuccessful, as in variousattempts to sustain ideologically inspired social systems. A decoupling of thedistal from the proximal is neither implied nor entailed by reflexivity. To doso takes us back into the metaphysics of dualism. This can be avoided, foran appreciation of the significance of reflexivity is vital to a coherent andviable account of EP, and may be the way to find common ground betweenits proponents and all but its most ideological critics.

Is there a common ground?

If there are any grounds for reconciliation it will be at two levels: a trulyinteractionist (bi-directional) account of individual agency and socialcontext, and at the societal/species level an analysis of the co-evolution ofhuman nature and culture.

At the individual level we need to avoid dualisms that set the biologicalagainst the social, man against nature, or mind against body. The EP goal,as might be wished for all scientific inquiry, is a unity of knowledge thatassists the translation between disciplines and across levels of analysis. Thisis an essential part of the EP project – to restore the link between the socialsciences and other bodies of knowledge (Wilson, 1998). Metaphors can helpand hinder in this endeavour. Perhaps one that may be more helpful thanothers is to think about human dispositions as akin to a gravitational force.The ‘instincts’ (another distracting word) of higher mammals pull themtowards distal goals that do not need to be represented in consciousness toeffect their force. Understanding the nature of this subliminal force enhanceschoice, but not without limit, rather in the manner that understanding ofaerodynamics does not suspend the laws of gravity, but it does prevent usfrom trying to get off the ground by mimicking birds. Reflexive awareness,mediated by consciousness and language, does endow us with what feels likelimitless choice (often more than we can comfortably handle). Indeed it isour attachment to this feeling that underpins infatuation with the philo-sophically problematic idea of free will and resistance to determinism (Pinker,2002).

Interactionism at the societal level is one of the major areas of debatewithin EP (Janicki & Krebs, 1998). Again, the idea of a complete decouplingof human nature from cultural ‘evolution’ is unsupportable for philosophicalreasons, though this is a hare that Dawkins himself – one of the leading





proponents of the biological perspective – has set running through the ideaof the ‘meme’ (Blackmore, 1999; Dawkins, 1989). However, memes – ideasthat compete in ideational space for the opportunity to survive and repro-duce – if they exist would nonetheless remain dependent upon other biologi-cally based elements of the psychological environment. For example,religious concepts – prime candidates for memetic status – are highly depen-dent upon their ability to resonate with human interests and reconcileconflicting impulses (Kirkpatrick, 1999; Wilson, 2002). A second radicalview of social evolution is the more normative idea that wherever we are ablewe strive to create social systems that reflect our evolved psychology, andwhere we fail to do so we suffer negative consequences. A third view is theco-evolutionary idea that there is reciprocation between psychology andsocial forms, such that the latter are constituted to reinforce or support theformer (Richerson & Boyd, 1999), with genetic variation constrained bycultural forms (e.g. via sexual selection). A fourth variant is the ‘workaround’ view that social forms can arise that do not reflect more than theinterests of their instigators (e.g. certain totalitarian regimes) or economicimperatives (e.g. Fordist technology) yet people adapt them to their owngenetic purposes, i.e. they find ways of continuing to express their preferredmodes of interaction and exchange.

Take the case of hierarchy. The first view says that forms of hierarchymight change memetically as a matter of changing fashion, without anycompelling raison d’être. The second view would take the normative viewthat people respond more favourably to the kinds of status relationships thatpredominated throughout our evolution (Erdal & Whiten, 1996), namelyflexible and fluid hierarchy rather than either rigidly stratified or totally egali-tarian regimes. The third view would note that we institute forms of hier-archy even where we do not need them, in order to satisfy our desire forhierarchical differentiation. The fourth view would maintain that where rigidhierarchies are initiated people transgress them and where egalitarian socialorders are imposed people create status distinctions in order to satisfy theirpreference for status differentiation.

These are not mutually exclusive, but none permits a complete de-coupling of the social context from a defined human nature.

Leadership as an exemplar

A good deal of the Sewell article is taken up with reflections on leadership,attributing to EP in general and my own work in particular a reification ofleadership as a trait-like entity in the human psyche and the use of circular





arguments to talk about its essence and effects. These are positions that itwould be quite right to challenge, and they bear no relationship to anythingI have written or read on the topic by EP proponents.

However, let us take the topic of leadership for closer examination, forit does provide an ideal exemplar of EP’s contribution to OB. Here I shall beboth paraphrasing and extending an earlier argument I advanced in a mana-gerial article on the topic (Nicholson, 2001).

A starting point is to agree that it would be a category error, questionbegging, and potentially a circular argument to identify leadership as a trait.Leadership is probably best conceived as an exchange between threeelements, each of which is embodied in different kinds of usage of theconcept. First leadership denote roles and statuses, i.e. leadership as situ-ation. All social systems contain roles that can be called leadership situationsbecause of their requirement for any incumbent to be responsible for peopleor resources. However, because these demands vary a great deal in theircontent (powers, accountability, responsibility, social relationships), itfollows that there is a multitude of leadership situations. Second, leadershipcan be identified as a set of processes or skills whereby one person is able tolead other people, i.e. leadership as behaviour. This too is a varied menu,including actions that induce the cooperation, compliance or submission inothers. Third, leadership can be identified with individual motives to lead,and capabilities to enact the processes identified with influence, i.e. leader-ship as personal qualities. A variety of other individual attributes – manyforms of technical expertise, for example – may also be identified as ‘leader-ship’ qualities. To determine whether they have the potential to fulfil this rolerequires one to specify a bandwidth of congruence between the threeelements: situations, processes and qualities. This dynamic between the threeelements is subject to arousal by environmental selection. Organizationalstructures define the configuration of leadership situations, provide selectiveopportunity for the exercise of certain behaviours, and admit or debar thequalities exhibited by individuals seeking access to leadership opportunities.

An EP co-evolutionary argument would proceed as follows. First, awide range of individual differences have a high degree of heritability(Loehlin et al., 1998; Plomin, 1994) many of which cannot be uniquelyidentified with leadership, but are subject to selection by the criteria implicit(or explicit) in the role demands of leadership situations. The major excep-tion to this particularism is the motive to lead (Chan & Drasgow, 2001).Dominance, a quality associated with personality traits and with biochem-istry (Dabbs, 2000; Mazur & Booth, 1998), will encourage individuals toseek a very wide range of leadership positions, and to desire to enact leader-ship behaviours. This says nothing about the effectiveness of such would-be





leaders, which is a matter of their other dispositions and abilities and theirfit with situational demands.

Second, people will differ in their willingness or ability to enact leader-ship behaviours, often because of quite short-term goals or pressures. Indi-vidual propensity to do so will be a function of the role demands of theleadership situations, and the stable preferences and dispositions of the indi-vidual – i.e. how their personal qualities fit any given leadership position.Moreover, leadership behaviours ‘work’ by virtue of their capacity to exploitthe dispositions and needs of followers; hence the ability of would-be leadersto attract followers by theatricality and displays of ‘charisma’ (Gardner &Avolio, 1998).

Third, leadership positions are constructions based upon situationaldemands (e.g. technology, group size) and the intent of human agents, includ-ing their incumbents. This is partly a matter of preference, which results inthe common danger of leaders shaping their roles to suit themselves ratherthan the needs of the moment. The latter include contingencies of potentialrisk or gain, and they do have a shaping influence that evolutionary theoristshave recognized, such as the observation that in highly competitive environ-ments with linear value chains one can expect more ‘agonic’ (competitive)models to prevail (Pierce & White, 1999). However, the most important situ-ational contingency for leadership is the led. Leadership is a universal featureof human social systems (Brown, 1991) – whether formal or informal – viathe reciprocation of people’s desire to lead and be led. Followers createleaders through their demands for and their responsiveness to types of auth-ority and display. The situational contingency is that leaders will be selectedaccording to the current needs of followers, e.g. for nurturance or combat-iveness. Certain qualities, such as confidence, expressed motivation to lead,and even physical characteristics such as height (Judge & Cable, 2004) willevoke a positive response among potential followers.

The potential circularity of this model will be apparent to readers,although the recursion is not tautological but causal. People who desirepower shape situations so as to enable them to enact the processes that allowthem to retain power, often encouraged by the reciprocal needs of followers.Environmental contingencies intervene to reinforce the bias for or againstany particular model. One can see the three different kinds ofdistal–proximal relationships described earlier in this analysis. There areindividuals whose drive for leadership impels them to find or constructaround them situations that will submit to their desires, and an equal andopposite resistance to and rejection of all opportunities for leadership rolesfor people with contrary impulses. Others choose and are chosen because of the fit between their attributes and the specific manifest demands of





opportunities. And there are others who when placed in leadership situationsadapt their goals and motives to whatever degree they are able. This is thesense in which some people are ‘born to lead’ and others not – their intentto take command is deeply rooted in their character, of which a substantialelement is attributable to heritable individual differences (Johnson et al.,2004). The reciprocal of this is the ‘instinctive’ responsiveness of followersto leaders and leader displays. This analysis suggests that leaders of differentkinds will emerge as situations change, but that there will be common traitsand attributes across these types, as indeed the literature shows (Hogan etal., 1994; Judge et al., 2002).

The general absence from women in leadership positions in publiclyquoted corporations and their greater frequency in public service organiz-ations is explained by this analysis. On the abundant evidence that men’sdesire for dominance is greater than women’s (Feingold, 1994) and that theirpreferred leadership behaviours are those that require single-mindedness,competitive striving and political game playing (Browne, in press), then onemight expect organizational designs to look pretty much as they do in thecorporate world – pyramidal with linearly divided labour and periodic tour-naments for advancement. These will discriminate both directly and indi-rectly against the accession of women to leadership positions, not leastbecause of the self-selection of women away from them, on the grounds thatsuch positions are unattractive and their demands are felt to be a poor fitwith their style (Eagly & Johnson, 1990).

Some leadership positions can be expected to be less discriminatory,where lower power distance and more cooperative relationships pertain,and where the economic contingencies do not accord supremacy to thevalues of competitive advantage. One important question that this analysisraises is whether in the 21st century we will see the co-evolutionaryprocess move towards more female-friendly organizational designs andleadership situations. There are grounds for optimism that the neweconomic realities of decentralization, liberation from monolithic supplychains, more networked structures, and reduced reliance on fixed tech-nologies, could all reduce the competitive advantage of traditionalcommand-and-control hierarchy. However, the sharpening of competitionin a globalizing economy continues to reinforce features of organizationaldesign that have an implicit gender-bias. Moreover, there is little reason tobe optimistic that men will stop creating systems that are favourable to theirmotivational orientations. Even in a more female-friendly business environ-ment, should such a world come to pass more generally, there is still to bereckoned the fact that men are more predisposed than women in anycircumstances to strive for status and leadership, and to do so with a greater





appetite for competitive striving, risk-taking and domination (Byrnes et al.,1999; Geary, 1998).

Conclusion

Leadership research has tended historically to move back and forth betweenindividualist and situational positions. This discussion has been intended toshow how an EP analysis enables them to be integrated, as it can do likewisein other sub-fields of OB (Nicholson & White, forthcoming). It is essentialthat the pursuit of knowledge avoids misrepresentations, rises above carica-ture and puts reason before passion in seeking synthesis between levels ofanalysis and disciplinary perspectives. Tribalism might be instinctive, but wedon’t have to succumb to it.

References

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Nigel Nicholson is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at LondonBusiness School. His wide-ranging research interests have encompassedmotivation and performance, the psychology of labour relations, inno-vation, role transitions, executive career development, personality andleadership, risk and decision-making in finance, and most recently, familybusiness. His executive teaching centres on leadership skills, in which areahe directs two major programmes at London Business School: HighPerformance People Skills and Proteus.[E-mail: [email protected]]




Objections to evolutionary psychology: Reflections, implications and the leadership exemplar

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