Thank you for participating in this study, which is my first venture into collecting data on the Internet. I appreciate your willingness to respond to my questions. At this time I would like to take the opportunity to explain my study to you. Since I am still collecting data, I cannot tell you my findings. However, I can tell you about my major variables, and about my expectations regarding how the study will turn out. Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information after the study has been completed.

    This study addressed your perceptions of leadership, and how certain variables might affect your views on a stimulus leader's effectiveness and value as a colleague. My hypotheses centered around several variables:

1. Leader's match to your leadership prototypes: Chances are, you know how leaders should act, and you may have agreed or you may have disagreed with this manager's behavior on the job. Research suggests that everyone has their own ideas of what constitutes good leadership (we call these leadership prototypes). Before you viewed the resume and performance evaluation, I measured your leadership prototype with a questionnaire. This means that I can compare your leadership prototype with the behavior of the manager about whom you read. I expect that the closer the leader matches respondents' leadership prototypes, the more positively he or she will be rated.

2. Performance information: In the performance evaluation you read, I varied information about the leader's performance in several ways. Some respondents read a highly positive performance evaluation of the leader, some read a highly negative evaluation, and some got very little information about the leader's evaluation (a control condition). Do you think that the supervisor's comments on the performance evaluation would affect your own evaluation of the leader? I expect that they would, and predict that leaders who perform well will be rated more positively than leaders who perform poorly, with the control leaders falling between. Now, you are probably thinking that this prediction is so obvious it is almost silly. It is very apparent that the performance information will sway respondents who have little else to go on. See my next prediction.

3. Combination of the first two variables: What is of particular interest to me in this study is how leadership prototypes and performance information interact. What happens when a leader who matches your prototype is given a poor evaluation? You may be inclined to defend the leader, perhaps ignoring the performance information. What happens when a leader who does not match your prototype is given an excellent evaluation? Will you trust your own instincts or follow the performance information in rating the manager? The effects of performance information probably will not be as obvious when it goes against respondents' already-existing beliefs about leadership.

4. Sex of leader: There were actually two stimulus leaders in this study: Alice Baily and Robert Bailey. Do you think you would have reacted differently to Alice than you would to Robert? Some past research suggests that you might. Often, people respond more positively to male leaders than they do to female leaders. I am interested in seeing if that will happen here.

5. Sex of respondent: Do you think that your own gender would affect your perceptions of the stimulus leaders? Past research suggests that it might. In fact, female participants are often more positive in their evaluations of leaders than male participants are. Therefore, I predict that female respondents will rate managers more positively than will male respondents.

Again, thank you for participating in the study! Regards,

Judith L. Nye, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Monmouth University
West Long Branch, NJ 07764

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