ABSTRACT
As a complex social event begins, individuals exchange greetings and quickly express their preferences for the kinds of behavior that they expect from other people. Just as energetically, they also try to insure that their preferences shape the allocation of each person’s task and role responsibilities. In other words, the social influence process is at the heart of people’s earliest efforts to coordinate their activities. Although these events are often referred to as having been done by “leaders” and “followers,” with the implication that the first role is active and the second passive, from the individual’s point of view, both roles produce highly desirable outcomes. More important, the behavior that is required to bring about both outcomes is highly active and goal oriented.
