An inferential approach to the study of group members' judgments and evaluations of leadership proposes that members'implicit theories of leadership serve as the basis for such ratings. Members of zero-history and standing groups made judgments of the prototypic good, average, and poor leader on a list of leadership-relevant traits and behaviors, and one month later judged other group members on the same list. Judgments of the three prototypic leaders were similar in covariational structure. Judgments and evaluations of the group members were generally similar to the prototypes as expected, but differences between judgments made by zero-history and standing group participants reveal the effect of group history and experience in small group discussion classes.
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