Abstract

Leadership emergences and several related questions in leaderless group problem solving situation were examined applying Kenny's Social Relations Model(1994) through mutual evaluation among members after a brief group activity in the improvised group for problem-solving. Participants were randomly organized into Fifty six 4-person groups and evaluated oneself and others in each group by round robin method. Self and other evaluations based on Big Five personality, physical appearance, and two types of leadership were measured. Generally self-abasement bias rather than self-enhancing bias were dominant, but such self-enhancing bias was not shown in two types of leadership evaluations. Secondly, variances of the perceiver effect, the target effect, and the relationship effect was 27%, 10%, and 29%, respectively. That the target effect was the lowest in several aspects of evaluations including leadership rating suggests that there are low consensus among members in leadership evaluations. Thirdly, the older participants got higher credits in task leadership while no gender effects of target were evidenced. Finally, members' evaluations on target were substantially accurate in most of the evaluation dimensions. Especially evaluation was more accurate on task leadership rating than that on relationship leadership rating.