CHARISMA: RELIGIOUS MEASUREMENT

Charisma and Moral Reasoning

Charisma is morally problematic insofar as it replaces followers’ capacity to engage in genuine moral reasoning. When followers defer to charismatic leaders and act in ways that are morally wrong they are not only blameworthy for wrongdoing but for failing in their deliberative obligations. Even when followers defer to charismatic leaders and do the right thing, their action is less praiseworth...

Who Sees Charisma? Power and the Conferral of Charisma

Previous research on charismatic leadership has sought to answer the question “Who has charisma?” In the present research, we ask, “Who sees charisma?” In Study 1, we find that lowpower individuals are more willing than those with high power to confer charisma on others. In Study 2, we replicate this effect and demonstrate an interaction between the power of the perceiver and the power of the t...

Hunted predators: Charisma confounds.

IN THEIR PERSPECTIVE “When the hunter becomes the hunted” (19 June, p. 1312), R. Woodroffe and S. M. Redpath rightly pointed out that a social consensus, in addition to scientific evidence, is critical to effectively control species deemed overabundant, such as some predators, because social conflicts over the need for control undermine management decisions. We stress here that social acceptabi...

Augustine on Manichaeism and Charisma

Augustine was suspicious of charismatics‘ claims to superior righteousness, which supposedly authorized them to relay truths about creation and redemption. What follows finds the origins of that suspicion in his disenchantment with celebrities on whom Manichees relied, specialists whose impeccable behavior and intellectual virtuosity were taken as signs that they possessed insight into the mean...

Competence or Charisma? The effects of measurement on why some leaders’ traits matter more than others