What is charisma? How do we measure it? What makes someone charismatic?

Given the immense attention the concept of charisma has enjoyed over the last few decades, you probably expect scientists to have already answered these questions.

Surprise! We actually know less about charisma than you might expect; particularly the charisma that is most relevant and important to you.

On the one hand, charisma has a prominent position in leadership research. The confluence of charisma research focuses on its application to leaders within the context of large organizations or institutions. This focus is exemplified by mentioning the term “charisma” and having images elicited of rousing leaders inspiring hordes of people toward a common goal (e.g., Oprah Winfrey, Barrack Obama, Adolf Hitler, or Mahatma Gandhi).

On the other hand, charisma as it applies to non-leaders in daily life is less well understood and researched. This concept of charisma is more appealing and applicable; after all, most of us are not leaders in large organizations with +100–1000s of people relying on us to lead and inspire. Instead, intuitively we know that people vary in their charisma, and that people use this disposition daily to influence and endear themselves to others. This view of charisma can show itself to impact how effectively we deal with work colleagues, friends, romantic interests, and strangers. This is the view of charisma where we — as people who want to influence and persuade others more effectively — should focus our attention.

In a previous post, I describe how mental speed allows us to be charismatic.

In this post, I overview a paper by Tskhay, Zhu, Zou, and Rule (2017) who have created a new measure to assess charisma that manifests in people’s daily lives. First, I provide a summary of the key findings from their six studies. I then provide tentative recommendations from these findings.

***

Key Findings

Studies 1–3 construct and validate a new measure of everyday charisma. They find that people tend to agree on the concept of charisma, that charisma can be measured, and that its distinct from other related psychological constructs (e.g., interpersonal competence and warmth, non-verbal intelligence, personality).

Their measure of charisma is composed of two factors:

Affability: the ability to make other people feel comfortable and at ease. Interpersonal influence: the ability to guide others.

These two factors of charisma emerge from the researchers’ newly developed 6-item charisma scale (the Generalized Charisma Inventory; GCI).

The GCI

Can get along with anyone (GET ALONG) Makes people feel comfortable (COMFORT) Smiles at people often (SMILE) Has the ability to influence people (INFLUENCE) Has a presence in a room (PRESENCE) Knows how to lead a group (LEADER)

Note: Affability = items 1–3; Influence = items 4–6.

Study 4 establishes that charisma is conveyed by individuals, and that people can correctly perceive these signals as charisma. Study 4a finds that charisma can be perceived by previously unacquainted people (i.e., strangers) after only a 5-minute interaction. Study 4b replicates this effect with known individuals with whom participants had previous experiences (e.g., friends). Treating charisma as a dispositional trait, they show that it can be expressed and that it is can also be perceived by others.

Studies 5–6 establish the importance of charisma for predicting important real-world outcomes; namely, our ability to be persuasive and build interpersonal liking with others.

Study 5 finds that greater charisma predicted greater speaker persuasiveness when delivering a weak argument. Participants’ voices were recorded while they read either a weak or strong argument in favour of wind power energy. An independent group of participants rated the persuasiveness of the speakers and the messages. Females higher on Affability arguing for weak arguments were perceived as more persuasive than females lower on Affability. This effect didn’t emerge for men (as expected).

Study 6 finds that charisma — Affability — predicted greater interpersonal liking following brief interactions with previously unacquainted people above-and-beyond the effects of agreeableness and extraversion, which are personality traits previously found to influence liking.

Overall, this paper defines and creates a 6-item measure for everyday charisma; finds that it comprises two dimensions (Influence and Affability); validates the measure and establishes its distinctness from related concepts; finds it is behaviourally expressed and perceptible by others; and that its related to persuasiveness and interpersonal liking.

***

Tentative Recommendations

First, we should acknowledge the novelty of this test. Therefore, we should exercise due caution in the paper’s conclusions and await further empirical research to validate the measure and examine its effect on real-world outcomes above and beyond the influence of other variables (e.g., personality, intelligence).

Nevertheless, this paper and the GCI can be informative to begin to grasp what charisma is when expressed in daily life. The most interest form of charisma!

As the authors note, and rightly so, the novelty and brevity of this 6-item measure should prompt us to examine the 36 items that were not included. The nature of the descriptors and characteristics addressed in these 36 items can provide clues to refine, modify, and fully describe what constitutes charisma.

Acknowledging we are taking the liberties in applying this preliminary evidence, here is how you may evaluate your dispositional charisma. (NOTE: these are rough calculations and are by no means comprehensive and diagnostic.)

Evaluate yourself on the GCI’s 6 items using the measure’s 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

Create average scores for the Affability (items 1–3) and Influence (items 4–6) factors, then calculate the average of these two factor’s scores. Now you have an overall score for Charisma, and scores for Affability and Influence. More information can be extracted having your scores compared to a population. In this case, you can get an idea if you are in the 99th percentile, 54th percentile, etc, relative to other people. Nonetheless, the scores you calculate offer a suggestive hint of your everyday charisma.

The GCI

Can get along with anyone (GET ALONG) Makes people feel comfortable (COMFORT) Smiles at people often (SMILE) Has the ability to influence people (INFLUENCE) Has a presence in a room (PRESENCE) Knows how to lead a group (LEADER)

To verify your self-ratings, administer this measure to people who know you, and have them rate you. As we’re looking for hints to our charisma, we can avoid the complicated statistics and calculate the average Charisma, Affability, and Influence scores across all of your friends’ ratings. Honesty is key, so you may want to enforce some anonymity safeguards for your friends.

Compiling these scores offers a tentative indication of your everyday charisma — not perfect, but appropriate for our purposes.

As with my previous post, the process through which charisma is expressed and perceived wasn’t addressed by this paper. What clues can we extract from this measure to improve our charisma? Well, we seem to have two key dimensions of charisma, and 3 items containing descriptors for each. We can start there.

To increase charisma, focus on its constituents.

More charismatic people score higher on these items:

Can get along with anyone

Makes people feel comfortable

Smiles at people often

Has the ability to influence people

Has a presence in a room

Knows how to lead a group

Improving Charisma

Ultimately, even though we vary in dispositional charisma, there is potential to increase our charisma (to some degree). I suspect that large, gross behaviors are the most promisiing targets of first courses of action to work towards this goal. For example, something that we are all capable of is “smiling at people [more] often”. Exactly how this particular series of smiling behaviors is executed to increase charisma — and its perceptions — will add nuance to this simplistic recommendation. That is, the execution and nuance of the delivery of “smiling at people often” requires due consideration and future research to examine and verify how it should be done.

Nevertheless, do and become what defines charisma, and you will, by definition, become [more] charismatic.

I’ll leave it for future posts to delve into the myriad behaviors that can facilitate the descriptors addressed in the 6 items — for example, how to “have a presence in a room”.

Until then, test yourself with this measure, have others do so for yourself, and see where you stand to you and your friends.

***

Paper reviewed

Tskhay, K. O., Zhu, R., Zou, C., & Rule, N. O. (2017, July 24). Charisma in Everyday Life: Conceptualization and Validation of the General Charisma Inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000159

***

Author: Isaac Baker, PhD Scholar, The University of Queensland.

Tweet me: @Social_Intell15

Email me: e.baker1@uq.edu.au

© COPYRIGHT 2018 All Rights Reserved.