Pat on the Back Versus Kick in the Pants

Abstract

This laboratory study developed a leader categorization model to provide an application of cognitive inference to understanding the impact of leader reward and punishment behaviors. In addition to traditional leader contingent and noncontingent reward and punishment behaviors, the study divided noncontingent rewards and punishment behav iors into discretionary and required. It was found that whereas both contingent and noncontingent rewards aroused feelings of positive affect toward the leader, it took contingent punishment to result in a significantly higher improvement in production between the first and second production periods. Practitioner implications of these findings are discussed.