The goal of this article is to develop a new theory-driven scale for measuring salespeople's interpersonal-mentalizing skills—that is, a salesperson's ability to “read the minds” of customers in the sense of first recognizing customer intentionality and processing subtle interpersonal cues and then adjusting volitions accordingly. Drawing from research on autism and neuroscience, the authors develop a model of brain functioning that differentiates better-skilled from less-skilled interpersonal mentalizers. They establish the convergent, discriminant, concurrent, predictive, and nomological validities of measures of the scale using four methods in four separate studies: confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation models, multitrait–multimethod matrix procedures, and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study is one of the first to test the validity of measures of a scale not only in traditional ways but also by adopting procedures from neuroscience.
AmodioDavid M., and FrithChris D. (2006), “Meeting of Minds: The Medial Frontal Cortex and Social Cognition,”Nature Reviews, 7(April), 268–77.
2.
BagozziRichard P., and EdwardsJeffrey R. (1998), “A General Approach for Representing Constructs in Organizational Research,”Organizational Research Methods, 1(1), 45–87.
3.
BagozziRichard P., and HeathertonTodd F. (1994), “A General Approach for Representing Multifaceted Personality Constructs: Application to State Self-Esteem,”Structural Equation Modeling, 1(1), 35–67.
4.
Baron-CohenSimon (1995), Mind Blindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5.
BehrmanDouglas N., and WilliamD. PerreaultJr. (1982), “Measuring the Performance of Industrial Salespersons,”Journal of Business Research, 10(September), 355–69.
6.
BergenMark, DuttaShantanu, and OrvilleC. WalkerJr. (1992), “Agency Relationships in Marketing: A Review of the Implications and Applications of Agency and Related Theories,”Journal of Marketing, 56(July), 1–24.
7.
BonomaThomas, V. (1982), “Major Sales: Who Really Does the Buying?”Harvard Business Review, 60(May-June), 111–19.
8.
CamererColin, LoewensteinGeorge, and PrelecDrazen (2005), “Neuroeconomics: How Neuroscience Can Inform Economics,”Journal of Economic Literature, 43(March), 9–64.
9.
CastelliFulvia, FrithChris D., HappéFrancesca, and FrithUta (2002), “Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and Brain Mechanisms for the Attribution of Mental States to Animated Shapes,”Brain, 125(August), 1839–49.
10.
DavisMark, H. (1983), “Measuring Individual Differences in Empathy: Evidence for a Multidimensional Approach,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(January), 113–16.
11.
DawesPhilip, LeeDon Y., and DowlingGraham R. (1998), “Information Control and Influence in Emergent Buying Centers,”Journal of Marketing, 62(July), 55–68.
12.
EckelCatherine, and WilsonRick K. (2003), “The Human Face of Game Theory: Trust and Reciprocity in Sequential Games,” in Trust and Reciprocity, OstromElinor, and WalkerJames, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 245–74.
13.
FletcherPaul C., HappéFrancesca, FrithUta, BakerSimon C., DolanRay J., FrackowiakRichard S.J., and FrithChris D. (1995), “Other Minds in the Brain: A Functional Imaging Study of 'Theory of Mind' in Story Comprehension,”Cognition, 57(November), 109–128.
14.
FrankeGeorge R., and ParkJeong-Eun (2006), “Salesperson Adaptive Selling Behavior and Customer Orientation: A Meta-Analysis,”Journal of Marketing Research, 43(November), 693–702.
15.
FrithChris D., and FrithUta (2000), “The Physiological Basis of Theory of Mind: Functional Neuroimaging Studies,” in Understanding Other Minds, 2d ed., Baron-CohenSimon, Tager-FlusbergHelen, and CohenDonald J., eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 334–56.
16.
FrithUta (2003), Autism: Explaining the Enigma.Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
17.
FrithUta, and FrithChris D. (2001), “The Biological Basis of Social Interaction,”Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(5), 151–55.
18.
FrithUta, and FrithChris D. (2003), “Development and Neurophysiology of Mentalizing,”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London: Biological Sciences, 358(March), 459–73.
19.
GallagherHelen L., JackAnthony I., RoepstorffAndreas, and FrithChris D. (2002), “Imaging the Intentional Stance in a Competitive Game,”NeuroImage, 16(July), 814–21.
20.
GrèzesJulie, FrithChris, and PassinghamRichard E. (2004a), “Brain Mechanisms for Inferring Deceit in the Actions of Others,”Journal of Neuroscience, 24(June), 5500–5505.
21.
GrèzesJulie, FrithChris, and PassinghamRichard E. (2004b), “Inferring False Beliefs from the Actions of Oneself and Others: An fMRI Study,”Neuroimage, 21(February), 744–50.
22.
PaulGrice H. (1975), “Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3, ColeP., and MorganJ., eds. New York: Academic Press, 41–58.
23.
HaririA., and ForbesE. (2007), “Genetics of Emotion Regulation,” in Handbook of Emotion Regulation, GrossJames J., ed. New York: The Guilford Press, 110–34.
24.
Kabat-ZinnJ. (2002), “Mediation Is About Paying Attention,”Reflections, 3(3), 68–71.
25.
MorganRobert M., and HuntShelby D. (1994), “The Commitment–Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing,”Journal of Marketing, 58(July), 20–38.
26.
Nieminen-Von WendtTaina, MetsâhonkalaLiisa, KulomâkiTuula, AaltoSargo, AuttiTaina, VanhalaRaija, and Von WendtLennart (2003), “Changes in Cerebral Blood Flow in Asperger Syndrome During Theory of Mind Task Presented by the Auditory Route,”European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 12(August), 178–89.
27.
PinkerSteve (1997), How the Mind Works.New York: W.W. Norton.
28.
RamachandranVilayanur (2004), A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness.New York: PI Press.
29.
RamachandranVilayanur, and ObermanLindsay (2006), “Broken Mirrors: A Theory of Autism,”Scientific American, 295(5), 38–45.
30.
RichardsenAstrid M., and PiperWilliam (1986), “Leader Style, Leader Consistency, and Participant Effects on Learning in Small Groups,”Human Relations, 39(September), 817–36.
31.
SaxeRebecca, and WexlerAnna (2005), “Making Sense of Another Mind: The Role of the Right Temporo-Parietal Junction,”Neuropsychologia, 43(10), 1391–99.
32.
ShivBaba, BecharaAntoine, LevinIrwin, AlbaJoseph W., BettmanJames R., DubeLaurette (2005), “Decision Neuroscience,”Marketing Letters, 16(3-4), 375–86.
33.
SimonHerbert (1956), “A Comparison of Game Theory and Learning Theory,”Psychometrika, 21 (September), 267–72.
34.
SingerTania, and FehrErnst (2005), “The Neuroeconomics of Mind Reading and Empathy,”Neuroscientific Foundations of Economic Decision-Making, 95(2), 340–45.
35.
SoldowGary F., and ThomasGloria P. (1984), “Relational Communication: Form Versus Content in the Sales Interaction,”Journal of Marketing, 48(October), 84–93.
36.
SpiroRosan, and WeitzBarton A. (1990), “Adaptive Selling: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Nomological Validity,”Journal of Marketing Research, 27(February), 61–69.
37.
SujanHarish (1999), “Optimism and Street-Smarts: Identifying and Improving Salesperson Intelligence,”Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 19(3), 17–33.
38.
SujanHarish, SujanMita, and BettmanJames R. (1988), “Knowledge Structure Differences Between More Effective and Less Effective Salespeople,”Journal of Marketing Research, 25(February), 81–86.
39.
SujanHarish, WeitzBarton A., and KumarNirmalya (1994), “Learning Orientation, Working Smart, and Effective Selling,”Journal of Marketing, 58(July), 39–52.
40.
SzymanskiDavid, M. (1988), “Determinants of Selling Effectiveness: The Importance of Declarative Knowledge to the Personal Selling Concept,”Journal of Marketing, 52(January), 64–77.
41.
VerbekeWillem, and BagozziRichard P. (2000), “Sales Call Anxiety: Exploring What It Means When Fear Rules a Sales Encounter,”Journal of Marketing, 64(3), 88–101.
42.
WalterBertram, BleckerCarlo, KirschPeter, SammerGebhard, SchienleAnne, StarkRudolf, and VaitlDieter (2003), “MARINA: An Easy to Use Tool for the Creation of Masks for Region of Interest Analyses”NeuroImage (CD-ROM), 19 (2).
43.
WatsonDavid, and FriendRonald (1969), “Measurement of Social-Evaluative Anxiety,”Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 3(August), 448–57.
44.
WeickKarl E., and PutnamTed (2006), “Organizing for Mindfulness: Eastern and Western Knowledge,”Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(3), 275–87.
45.
WeickKarl E., and SutcliffeKathleen M. (2006), “Mindfulness and the Quality of Organizational Attention,”Organization Science, 17(4), 514–24.
46.
WorsleyK.J., MarrettS., NeelinP., VandalA.C., FristonK.J., and EvansA.C. (1996), “A Unified Statistical Approach for Determining Significant Signals in Images of Cerebral Activation,”Human Brain Mapping, 4(1), 58–73.
47.
YoonCarolyn, GutchessAngele H., FeinbergFred, and PolkThad A. (2006), “A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Neural Dissociations Between Brand and Person Judgments,”Journal of Consumer Research, 33(June), 31–40.
48.
ZaltmanGerald (1997), “Rethinking Market Research: Putting People Back In,”Journal of Marketing Research, 34(November), 424–37.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
