About This Project

The proposed research explores how leaders can more effectively communicate purpose by monitoring neural activity during leader-follow communication, assessing follower trust in the leader, and measuring commitment to the leader’s message. In particular, we believe that leader communications oriented toward shared purpose will be positively and significantly associated with affective commitment to the leader as compared to other communication.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Our understanding of communication efficacy has improved tremendously in the past decade, driven in part by the application of neuroscience to the investigation of how alternative communication styles affect message receivers. Claremont Graduate University's Center for Neuroeconomics Studies has developed a set of non-invasive tools and analytical techniques to assess and predict the impact of persuasive narratives. The proposed research will apply these techniques to assess the differential psychological and physiological impacts on listeners of purpose versus non-purpose narratives, issues that have received little empirical investigation. Because the research proposed here uses measures of neural activity, it reduces the reliance on self-reported data.

What is the significance of this project?

Major shifts in the very structure of organizations over the last century have changed what it means to be a leader. They have gone from being primarily manufacturing and production-based to being service and knowledge-based. Once hierarchical structures with command-and-control decision-making have, with the help of the information technology revolution, become flatter and distributed decision-making. Where once it was sufficient to provide work and set goals, today’s leaders are increasingly called upon to provide meaning and purpose, not merely provide jobs. As a result, today’s leaders often include the communication of purpose as an important part of their role. However, leaders have relatively little empirical guidance on cultivating meaning and purpose in their organizations.

What are the goals of the project?

Participants (CGU graduate students) view one of two video messages from a prominent Dean. One will be a purpose-driven message emphasizing CGU’s mission, vision and values; the other will be non-purpose-driven, discussing traditional education goals, the need to develop skills for the future, and the like. Participants’ peripheral neural signals will be continuously monitored while they watch the video. Following each video clip, participants will be asked to evaluate leader trustworthiness and the extent to which they feel committed to the message. The analysis will use neural signals to predict perceptions of leader attributes and to look for differential message impact between purpose-driven messages and those that are not.