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Dr. Richard D. Arvey is head of theDepartment of Management and Organization and has been active as an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist for over 30 years.

He has published more than 100 articles, chapters, or technical reports including his book Fairness in Selecting Employees published in 1979, and revised in 1988. He was recognized as one of the top10 most published authors in Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology during the 1980's and 1990's.

He serves/has served on the Editorial Board of several national professional journals, is a Fellow of the Division of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, American Psychological Association, and has held a variety of professional offices and positions.

His research interests include Selection and placement of employees, the employment interview, employment testing, discrimination and bias in selection and employment, job analysis, performance appraisal, motivation and job satisfaction, work redesign, and training and development, and more recently leadership.

Prof Arvey received his PhD from the
University of Minnesota. He can be
contacted here

 

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Does genetics influence personality? More specifically, what roles do genetics and personality play in deciding whether an individual becomes a leader? Professor Richard Arvey from the NUS Business School investigates the “born” side of the leadership equation, together with Wendy Johnson, Zhen Zhang, and Matt McGue from the University of Minnesota, and Maria Rotundo from the University of Toronto.

Three personality traits most relevant to leadership – social closeness, social potency, and achievement – are studied. Social Closeness refers to the degree to which an individual is sociable, warm and affectionate, values close interpersonal ties, and turns to others for comfort and help. Social Potency is the extent to which an individual is forceful and decisive, likes to influence others, enjoys taking on leadership roles, and likes to take charge of and be noticed at social events. Achievement concerns how much an individual enjoys long hours of work, thrives on demanding projects, persists where others give up, and strives for perfection.

The study is based on a survey among 238 male identical twins who share 100% of their genetic backgrounds, and 188 male fraternal twins who are expected to share an average of only 50% of their genetic backgrounds. By studying identical vs. fraternal twins, Prof Arvey was able to statistically extract the effects of genetics.

The Findings

  Personality is associated with leadership-role occupation.
(a) All three personality traits studied were related to whether an individual occupies a leadership position.

(b)  Social Potency registered the highest association, followed by Achievement, and lastly, Social Closeness. The more an individual likes to take charge, the more likely is he to assume a leadership role; the more an individual thrives on challenges, the more likely is he to end up as a leader.

  Genetics influences leadership-role occupation. Some 30% of the variation among individuals is accounted for by genetics. The remaining 70% is due to environmental influences that are not common between the twins.

 Genetics also influences the three personality traits studied. The data indicate that genetics could account for 24% of the differences among individuals with regard to Social Potency and 42% of the differences with regard to their Achievement trait.

 Genetics has a direct, as well as indirect, influence on leadership via personality.

 Interestingly, shared environment among twins, such as socio-economic status and education (e.g. attending the same school), did not influence leadership emergence.