Abstract
With sociometric and staff rating data from a sample of 33 female adolescent in-patients on a psychiatric ward, two general hypotheses regarding leadership were tested based on prior results for “normal” populations. The first hypothesis stated that leader roles in the present collectivity would be clearly differentiated in terms of an instrumental versus expressive dimension and also a reputed versus actual dimension. The results did not confirm this, showing instead significant and strong intercorrelations among the several sociometric measures of leadership roles. The second hypothesis stated that leaders in the present sort of collectivity would tend to be higher in age and other traits socially desirable in the society at large. This hypothesis was confirmed, indicating a substantial similarity between the nature of leadership in a psychiatrically deviant collectivity and the nature of leadership in numerous other “normal” collectivities. A major departure from prior results in “normal” collectivities was the fact that ratings of asocial aggression were independent of leadership nominations, interpreted as indicating a high tolerance for “interpersonal deviance” in this psychiatrically deviant collectivity.
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