Toward a Social-Psychological Theory of Charismatic Social Influence Processes

The concept "charisma" is generally applied in an unsystematic fashion, to noncomparable events, using post hoc analysis. An effort is made to construct a testable model of certain social influence processes included under the "charismatic" influence rubric. Charismatic social influence is viewed as an attribution process influenced by a number of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social system factors which limit and direct audience members' construction of perspectives. Various social system-environmental factors, message and message delivery characteristics, speaker features, and intra-audience processes are discussed as determinants of certain kinds of social influence and attributions of a speaker's relative greatness. Among Weber's three types of authority (Gerth and Mills, 1946; Weber, 1922) charismatic influence is a residual phenomenon quite distinct from the other two types. Both traditional and rational-legal authority rest on a status, or position-centered, base of legitimation. Social influence not having status legitimation is lumped under the category of charismatic influence and viewed as a result of others' acceptance of someone's claim to exceptional characteristics (Weber, 1922). This bifurcation of social influence into position-centered, normatively controlled authority versus that which is emergent and often in violation of extant norms, has had a substantial impact on sociological theory. Much of the sociological enterprise has followed Weber's lead in dichotomizing behaviors into recurring action patterns supporting system equilibrium and transcendental, unusual action patterns resulting in widespread social change. This mode of analysis has promoted the equilibrium theory-conflict theory polemic and necessitated the creation of special topic categories to handle "nonfitting" behaviors, e.g., deviant and collective behavior. Furthermore, such an approach sustains the voluntarismdeterminism debate which has generated so * Special gratitude to Carl Couch for stimulating my thinking on this topic and criticizing earlier drafts of this paper. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.17 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 06:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 486 / SOCIAL FORCES / vol. 53:3, march 1975 much ideological heat but so little scientific fire. Abstraction of this type clearly violates the ideal of theoretical parsimony. The inadequacies of this theoretical approach are dramatically illustrated in the charisma literature itself. Generally, the concept is applied in an obtuse and completely post hoc fashion with little emphasis on hypothesis construction. In addition, -there is little agreement as to the range of phenomena embraced by the concept. Shils (1965) argues that people and positions of great power automatically generate attributions of charisma. Runciman (1963) equates charismatic influence with outstanding personal leadership in diverse settings. Friedland (1964) views charismatic leadership as a predictable outcome of certain types of social situations. Finally, Dow (1969) returns to the hallowed tradition of exceptional men whose supramundane qualities remain largely inexplicable. The subject of this paper is speaker-audience relationships which result in the attribution of unique qualities to the speaker and create the opportunity for speaker directed action. This dual concern includes things like effective story telling and stirring play acting but considers additional factors necessary to generate social action. METATHEORETICAL FOCUS One method of accounting for systematic, repetitive behaviors in any social system, in any system state, at any given time, is to assume their genesis in shared communication processes (Buckley, 1967; Newcomb, 1953). Shared communications result in the dissemination and reinforcement of one or more perspectives circumscribing expected behaviors, system boundaries, and opportunity structures. Behavioral uniformity or diversity is viewed as a product of the relative availability of, and support for, alternative perspectives. This approach treats norms as only one way, albeit an important way, of circumscribing alternatives. Applying this mode of analysis entails the assumption that the person is capable of selfregulatory, flexible, symbol-mediated behaviors (Luria, 1961; Mead, 1934). Defining behavior as symbol-mediated does not, however, imply a nondeterministic theoretical stance. Clearly, self-regulatory, flexible behavior depends on an available repertoire of alternative perspectives that one can invoke in the decisionmaking process. The sheer availability of, and support for, perspectives depends on various environmental circumstances. This is essentially what is being demonstrated in studies relating social class to intelligence levels, academic performance, and different cognitive structures. Furthermore, sharedness of perspectives determines the type and manner of sanction applied to any given behavior. Sanctions influence the probability of occurrence of that particular behavior (Scott, 1972). These are precisely the underlying assumptions of social role theories, ideas concerning the impact of reference others, and socialization theories. Writers from Freud (1922) to LeBon (1917) have characterized the behavioral expression of certain speaker-audience relationships as "primitive," or analogues to early parent-child relationships. Explanations have included such things as the operation of primeval instincts and the somewhat mysterious work of "contagion" (Turner, 1964). Various speakeraudience relationships suggesting "charismatic influence" do indeed exhibit parallels to early child-parent relationships. This paper argues, however, that the parallels between child-parent and crowd member-speaker relationships result from similarities in availability and processing of information that characterize both children and crowd members under certain circumstances. Charismatic influence can be viewed as the end product of a complex attribution process. Various social-structural and social-psychological factors delimit people's perspectives in ways fostering receptivity to certain types of social influence. Oftentimes, under conditions to be subsequently delineated, heightened receptivity to social influence is accompanied by overt, somewhat intense, reactions directed toward a speaker. When relatively large numbers of people exhibit intense parallel reactions directed toward a speaker they, and those observing their behavior, select the speaker as the influence source and attribute unusual characteristics to that person. Furthermore, those identified as charismatic leaders vary tremendously in their ability to direct audience members' activity. Such variation stems from different combinations of social and psychological factors which shape audience members' perspectives in ways affecting a speaker's ability to direct their activity. Variation in perspective determinants is examined for the audiences of effective story tellers and play actors, religious evangelists, and those instrumental in promoting social upheavals. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.17 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 06:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Charismatic Social Influence / 487 This comparison process illustrates and highlights the argument. In discussing factors which channel perspective construction and availability social-structural, social-psychological, and psychological processes are included. At the social-system level norms and certain crisis, or stress producing, agents are discussed. At the interpersonal level various message and message delivery characteristics, definitions of the speaker's social characteristics, and aspects of audience involvement are included. Finally, at the intrapersonal level both perceived audience involvement and emotional arousal are analyzed. SOCIAL CONSTRAINTS ON PERSPECTIVE CONSTRUCTION AND SUPPORT IN CHARISMATIC SITUATIONS