Abstract
Individuals often influence others' relationships, for better or worse. We conceptualize social influence processes that impact others' social networks as brokering, and advance a multifaceted model that explains how brokering behaviors can create, terminate, reinforce, and modify others' network ties. To empirically study brokering, we introduce and validate the Brokering Orientations Scale (BOS), a multidimensional measure that captures individuals' behavioral tendencies to act as intermediaries, conciliators, and dividers. Six studies (N 1,723) explored the psychometric properties of the BOS (Studies 1a-c) and investigated the effects of distinct forms of brokering on brokers' social capital (Studies 2-4). The intermediary, conciliatory and divisive brokering orientations related differently to extraversion, agreeableness, perspective-taking, moral identity, and Machiavellianism, among other individual differences. The effects of brokering on social capital varied as a function of the brokering orientation and the aspect of social capital. Intermediary behavior garnered status; conciliatory behavior promoted trust and prestige; and divisive behavior fueled brokers' perceived dominance. Overall, the current article elucidates the concept of brokering orientations, introduces a novel measure of brokering orientations, and explains how brokering behavior shapes brokers' social capital.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 293-316 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |
| Volume | 119 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Monica Nelson for her assistance with data collection. We thank Alessandro Iorio and the participants in research seminars at Stanford University, University of Michigan, University of Maryland, and Harvard University for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this work. Eliran Halali gratefully acknowledges support from the Israel Science Foundation (grant 1699/17).
Funding Information:
This article was published Online First August 19, 2019. Nir Halevy, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University; Eliran Halali, Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University; Taya R. Cohen, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. We thank Monica Nelson for her assistance with data collection. We thank Alessandro Iorio and the participants in research seminars at Stanford University, University of Michigan, University of Maryland, and Harvard University for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this work. Eliran Halali gratefully acknowledges support from the Israel Science Foundation (grant 1699/17).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Psychological Association.
Keywords
- Brokering orientation scale
- Group processes
- Scale development
- Social influence
- Social networks