Your Office? Undeserving Bosses Prefer Incompetent Employees

This research, managed by Rosa Rodríguez Bailón and Miguel Moya Morales, both professors of Social Psychology and Methodology of Behaviour Sciences Department and also by Vincent Yzerbyt (University of Lovaina, in Belgium), has shown that qualified persons prefer to work with competent and sociable partners in jobs that imply responsibility. However, persons who think they are unable to hold a specific job try to work with less competent and sociable partners.

The researchers point out that 'power could be defined as the influence that a person has over other people and over themselves’. They also warn that people who have power do not always exercise it properly. This research included 73 volunteer students from the Faculty of Psychology, the Faculty of Sciences of Education and the University School of Social Work, all three at the University of Granada. The great majority of these students (85.7 percent) were women between 18 and 25 years old.

Work Method

Those who were involved in this study had the opportunity to exercise power. They were notified that they would be representatives at a conference of students, and that they could choose a partner to attend the event and work under their direct supervision. The students were divided arbitrarily, half of them were told they deserved the granted power (legitimate) while the others were told they did not (illegitimate). All of them could choose between a very competent and sociable subordinate and a person with noticeably less competence and sociability.

Regardless of who they chose ('legitimate’ or 'illegitimate’ boss), the students clearly distinguished the privileged position of one candidate from the other.

The illegitimate bosses preferred the less competent and sociable candidates in a higher proportion than did the legitimate bosses. In addition to this they requested more information about the candidate positively described than about the candidate described more negatively.

This investigation by the University of Granada is evidence that “illegitimate bosses” have similar opinions about their subordinates’ qualities and aptitudes, in the same manner that the students that took part in this study formed their own during the experience. However, the authors explain that 'their tendency to work among less competent candidates could be based on the fact that they try to prevent the subordinates from becoming competition for them’.

The professors who directed this investigation underline that the results support other studies which show that the people who need to justify their position tend to work among less qualified persons.