New research from Columbia Business School suggests that people’s personal worldviews shape how they judge antagonistic leaders. Across seven studies, researchers found that individuals who view the world as a competitive jungle are more likely to see antagonistic behavior as effective, even praiseworthy, in leaders. In contrast, those who believe the world is cooperative tend to view such leaders more negatively.
The authors behind the new study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, sought to better understand why people react so differently to leaders who behave in harsh, abrasive, or critical ways. The authors point to a viral incident involving a restaurant manager at an Olive Garden who issued a strict ultimatum to employees calling off work. Some saw the message as a sign of poor leadership, while others praised the manager’s tough stance as necessary.
“We were struck by how differently people react to the same leadership behavior—especially when it’s particularly mean or forceful or disagreeable,” explained the researchers, Christine Nguyen, a PhD student, and Daniel Ames, a social psychologist and professor of management.
“There have been signs from some corners in recent years of sympathy for more antagonistic bosses in the workplace. We’ve seen commentary that ‘assholery’ and ‘bossism’ is essential for getting things done and for overall success. And there has been some debate that we observed between a perspective that supports empathy and a perspective that supports ‘getting tough’ and ‘being a dick.’”
“We wondered why people might have such different views of how leaders should act. When people see a leader behaving aggressively, some people see the harshness as a sign of incompetence, while others see it as a case of savvy leadership. We suspected that divergence might be not only about the leaders, but also about the people evaluating them, and the lenses through which those people view the social world. That’s what led us to focus on worldview as a lens that might be driving these different evaluations. Past literature had largely considered the main effects of aggressive or affiliative behavior, but hadn’t considered how people’s worldviews might shape how they interpret the same behavior.”
To examine this idea, Nguyen and Ames conducted seven studies involving over 2,000 participants in total.
In the first study, the researchers examined whether individual differences in worldview influenced how people perceive the effectiveness of antagonistic behaviors. They recruited 350 adults living in the United States through an online survey platform. Participants were presented with a series of behaviors that are commonly observed in workplace settings. These behaviors ranged from confrontational or harsh actions, such as blaming others or issuing ultimatums, to more cooperative and friendly behaviors, like expressing care and support. For each behavior, participants rated the extent to which they believed it would help or hinder a person’s ability to achieve goals when working with others.
In addition to these evaluations, participants completed a questionnaire designed to assess their general beliefs about the nature of social life. This measure focused on whether they viewed the world as competitive and cutthroat, or more cooperative and harmonious. The researchers also included a wide range of additional psychological scales measuring political ideology, trust, cynicism, and beliefs about power in order to test whether the effect of worldview was distinct from related constructs.
The researchers found that individuals who saw the world as highly competitive were more likely to view antagonistic behavior as effective. They also tended to be less impressed by affiliative behavior. Those who believed the world was cooperative, on the other hand, generally judged friendly behavior as effective and rated antagonistic tactics more negatively. This pattern remained statistically significant even when the researchers controlled for a variety of other psychological factors.
The second study aimed to test whether these patterns could be influenced by temporarily shifting participants’ mindsets. To do this, the researchers conducted a short writing exercise with 268 adults living in the United States. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In one group, they were asked to recall a recent event in which they acted competitively—trying to get ahead, asserting dominance, or feeling the need to win. In the other group, participants described a time when they worked collaboratively, sharing credit, building trust, or cooperating with others toward a common goal.
Following this writing prompt, participants were asked to evaluate the same set of behaviors used in the first study, rating how frequently each one should be used to be effective in interpersonal situations. They also completed the same questionnaire measuring their view of the social world.
As expected, the writing task shaped how participants viewed social behavior. Those who had been prompted to reflect on a competitive episode were more likely to say that antagonistic behavior should be used often. They also rated cooperative behavior as less effective than those in the other condition. These results provided experimental evidence that competitive worldviews can be influenced—at least temporarily—and that these views affect how people assess the value of certain behaviors in achieving social goals.
In the third study, the researchers turned their attention to how people judge leaders specifically. They recruited over two hundred business school students, many of whom were pursuing graduate-level degrees in management or executive leadership. These participants read two short descriptions of managers interacting with others in the workplace. Each story was carefully constructed to vary along several dimensions. The researchers manipulated whether the manager acted in a harsh, confrontational way or in a warm, affiliative manner. They also varied the gender of the manager and whether the interaction involved colleagues of equal status or subordinates.
After reading each scenario, participants evaluated the manager’s competence and effectiveness as a leader. They were then asked to complete the same questionnaire assessing their worldview.
Nguyen and Ames found that people who viewed the social world as competitive tended to give higher ratings to antagonistic managers. They saw these managers as more capable and effective than did those who viewed the world as cooperative. Conversely, those who held a cooperative worldview evaluated affiliative managers more positively. While the average participant still tended to prefer friendly leaders over antagonistic ones, the penalty for antagonism was noticeably smaller among those who believed the world requires aggressive tactics to succeed.
The fourth study was designed to better understand why people with different worldviews respond differently to the same behaviors. This time, the researchers focused on one scenario: a manager speaking to subordinates after a decline in performance. Participants, drawn from a large online pool of adults in the United States, were randomly assigned to read a version of the story in which the manager was either harsh and confrontational or supportive and understanding.
Participants then rated the manager on a number of dimensions. In addition to evaluating competence and leadership effectiveness, they were also asked how much they believed the manager’s behavior would help improve team motivation or performance. They rated their overall impression of the manager as well. Finally, they completed the same worldview measure used in previous studies.
Once again, participants with a more competitive view of the world were more likely to see the antagonistic manager as effective. Importantly, this relationship appeared to be driven by two distinct factors. First, high-competition individuals believed that antagonistic behavior was more likely to produce the desired outcome. Second, they formed a generally more favorable impression of the manager overall. The researchers tested both pathways statistically and found that each helped explain the link between worldview and evaluations of antagonistic leaders.
The fifth study moved outside of hypothetical scenarios to test how people respond to real-world antagonistic leadership. Participants were shown a widely circulated message from a manager at an Olive Garden restaurant chain who scolded employees for calling off work. The message included language that many readers interpreted as harsh or threatening. The sample included nearly two hundred individuals with direct experience working in the restaurant industry.
After reading the message, participants evaluated the manager’s competence, leadership effectiveness, and overall impact. As in previous studies, they also completed the measure of worldview.
The findings echoed those from earlier studies. People who believed the social world is highly competitive were more likely to view the manager’s behavior as effective. They also rated the manager as more competent and reported a more positive overall impression. Statistical analyses confirmed that both beliefs about behavioral impact and general impressions helped explain why competitive individuals reacted more favorably to the antagonistic message.
In the sixth study, Nguyen and Ames flipped the direction of the question. Instead of presenting antagonistic behavior and asking whether it indicated competence, they asked participants to consider successful leaders and speculate about how they behaved during their rise to the top. Nearly three hundred participants living in the United States were asked to choose one of ten well-known corporate executives, such as the heads of major technology, finance, and healthcare companies.
Participants rated how often they thought the chosen executive had used confrontational or cooperative behaviors earlier in their career. They also evaluated whether these behaviors likely contributed to the executive’s success. Once again, the worldview measure was administered.
The results showed that people who held a more competitive worldview were more likely to assume that successful leaders had acted antagonistically—and that those behaviors helped them succeed. In contrast, those with a cooperative worldview were less likely to make this inference. This finding supported the idea that worldviews do not just shape how people respond to visible behavior; they also guide how people interpret the backstories of powerful individuals.
The final study examined people’s direct experiences with managers they had worked for in the past. Over three hundred adults living in the United States participated. Each person was asked to reflect on two different former supervisors: one who was notably antagonistic, and another who was especially warm and cooperative. For each manager, participants rated how often they had behaved in certain ways and evaluated their competence, leadership, and impact on the workplace. They also reported whether they felt motivated, satisfied in their role, or inclined to stay in the job under that manager. The researchers measured participants’ worldview at the end of the survey.
The results showed that people generally preferred cooperative managers, but again, the pattern was moderated by worldview. Individuals with a more competitive outlook were more likely to report positive experiences with antagonistic managers. They were more inclined to say that such managers were effective, competent, and respectable. They also reported being more willing to stay in the job, less likely to leave, and more likely to recommend others work for the same manager. These findings suggested that worldview does not only shape abstract judgments—it also relates to real-world job decisions and experiences.
“We expected worldview to play a role, but we were surprised by just how consistent, strong, and far-reaching its effects were,” Nguyen and Ames told PsyPost. “People’s worldviews shaped how they judged not just fictional managers, but also public figures like CEOs, and even their own bosses. And sometimes people high in competitive worldview not only judged toughness more positively, but also judged warmth and kindness more negatively.”
“One especially eye-opening pattern emerged when we looked at how employees felt about their own managers. Employees higher in competitive worldview said that they would be more likely to choose and stay with, and less likely to leave, tough managers, than those lower in competitive worldview; they reported the reverse for friendly managers. This pattern led us to wonder: Did employees who see the world as a competitive jungle actually end up working for harsher managers?”
“Indeed, when we asked employees about their current managers, we found exactly that,” the researchers said. “Employees higher in competitive worldview currently had more antagonistic managers compared to those lower in competitive worldview, while those lower in competitive worldview were likely to be working for warmer managers. This suggested to us that, over time, through sorting processes like selective attraction (choosing jobs and bosses) and attrition (leaving jobs and bosses), antagonistic leaders may find themselves surrounded by the subset of high-CWV employees with stronger competitive worldviews, who are more tolerant, and even approving, of their antagonism.”
The results from all seven studies support what the authors describe as a ‘sociofunctional’ view of person perception. In this view, people rely on internal beliefs about how the world operates—such as whether competition is necessary or cooperation is possible—to interpret others’ behaviors. If someone believes the social world rewards toughness, they are more likely to view antagonistic actions as strategic and intelligent. Conversely, someone who sees the world as fundamentally collaborative might interpret the same behaviors as incompetent or inappropriate.
“Reactions to a leader’s coercive behavior aren’t universal, but vary from observer to observer, depending on the observer’s worldview,” Nguyen and Ames explained. “In other words, every individual has an idiosyncratic understanding of how the world ‘works,’ and these beliefs serve as lenses that shape how they perceive and evaluate antagonistic leaders. In particular, people who believe the world is a competitive, cutthroat jungle evaluate leaders who behave antagonistically as more competent and effective, compared to people who believe the world is cooperative.”
The researchers suggest that these interpretations influence both how people judge others and how they behave themselves in professional settings. Over time, competitive worldview may help explain why certain types of leaders are more likely to be promoted, supported, or retained—even when their behavior is widely seen as abrasive or aggressive.
“Past research has shown that impression formation is partly ‘in the eye of the beholder,’” the researchers said. “For instance, people have different stereotypes of various social groups or categories that lead them to judge individuals and behavior differently.”
“Our work is the first to apply this to judgments of leaders through the lens of competitive worldviews. It changes what we know about how leaders are judged (namely, that their assertiveness may be seen based on what people think the broader social world is like). It also changes what we know about the impact of competitive worldviews (which had previously been studied largely in the context of political attitudes; we are the first to connect those views to leadership judgments).”
“Previous research has also shown that people may prefer tough, forceful leaders in times of crisis or conflict. Our work adds to that by showing that some people are more disposed to see those conditions as pervasive or permanent, such that the world is filled with endless conflict. For these people, most situations are ones that would benefit from an antagonistic leader.
Stepping back, our work highlights that perceivers’ judgments of a target person are not just a detached appraisal of how that person has acted, but an interpretation of those actions through what the perceiver believes about the world.”
While the findings provide consistent evidence for the role of competitive worldview in leadership evaluations, there are still some limitations. Most of the data came from online surveys using participants based in the United States, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other cultures or real-world workplace dynamics. In addition, the studies relied on participants’ self-reported attitudes and hypothetical scenarios rather than direct behavioral observations in professional environments.
“One question our paper raises is: If antagonistic leaders are seen so negatively in general, why do some leaders persist in that style?” Nguyen and Ames said. “Some of our ongoing work tackles this question, suggesting that part of the answer may be that dominant leaders, who use threats and coercion, are often clueless about the relationship damage their behaviors cause. Antagonistic leaders may mistakenly think they’re doing fine, that their subordinates appreciate their style, leading them to persist in their behavior without realizing the wake of relationship damage they are leaving behind.”
“We also want to explore how leader behavior and employee worldview interact over time. Our work suggests that tough managers attract and retain more employees with more competitive worldviews. How does that influence the types of employees and leaders who persist in an organizational community? How does that shape the culture that organizations develop? It’s even possible that such managers may go on to instill or reinforce competitive mindsets in their employees and even encourage them to behave antagonistically themselves, which could feed back into and reinforce the competitive beliefs that caused such behavior.”
“Our findings don’t mean that being harsh is an effective leadership strategy,” the researchers added. “Instead, they highlight why some people perceive it as more effective than others, and shed light on how antagonistic leaders may stick around despite the harm they can cause. Leadership isn’t evaluated in a vacuum, but filtered through each person’s lens on how the world works.
“We hope this research helps people understand that when we disagree about what makes someone competent or admirable, it might be that we’re seeing the world differently. More specifically, we hope our work might get people to ask themselves a few questions, such as ‘For the leaders around me, why do I see them as I do? And do others see them differently?’ and ‘How do the people I lead see me? And do they see me differently than I see myself?’”
The study, “Savvy or Savage? How Worldviews Shape Appraisals of Antagonistic Leaders,” was published July 14, 2025.
