Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Most of the theoretical and empirical work on newcomers views them as targets, rather than sources, of influence. However, under certain conditions newcomers can produce innovation in the groups they enter. The present experiment investigated the impact of fit between group members' regulatory focus (promotion vs. prevention) and the strategic orientation of a newcomer's suggested change (eager vs. vigilant) on the group's receptivity to the newcomer's suggestion. Three-person groups (composed of a leader and two subordinates) completed two work shifts on a computer-based air-surveillance task. After the first shift, all groups received feedback indicating that they had failed to reach a predetermined success criterion. Prior to the second shift, group members' regulatory focus was manipulated by describing their future performance incentives in either promotion or prevention terms. In addition, one of the subordinates was replaced by a (confederate) newcomer, who suggested a new task strategy for the second shift using either an eager or a vigilant framing, thereby creating regulatory fit or non-fit for group members. As predicted, the newcomer's strategy was accepted more frequently by groups in fit conditions (promotion/eager and prevention/vigilant) than in non-fit conditions (promotion/vigilant and prevention/eager). Also as predicted, groups in fit conditions spent less time discussing the strategy before deciding whether to accept or reject it than did groups in the non-fit conditions.
Author: Thomas Hansen
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W129142472