Effects of the intensity of unstable status structures on the powerholders' power maintaining tendency.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate effects of the intensity of unstable status structures on the powerholders' power maintaining tendency. In advance aptitude test was administered to the subjects (24 male undergraduates). Each subjects was led to believe that he was screened and supervised four performing groups as a powerholder (Top-leader). Each subjects was also assigned to either the status change condition (12 males) or the non status change condition (12 males). The following results were obtained. Compared to the powerholders under the non status change condition, the powerholders under the status change condition (1) evaluated less subleaders' contributions to the high performance group, (2) gave more difficult tasks to the high performance group. These results were compared with the study by this author (1987) and discussed in terms of the relation between the power maintaining tendency and intensity of unstable status structures.