Charisma Is Contagious: The Effect of Leaders’ Charisma on Observers’ Affect¹

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that charismatic leadership, characterized by nonverbal expressiveness and immediacy, would lead via emotional contagion to the imitation of the leader's nonverbal behavior. In Study I, charismatic leaders were college students whose performance of a simulated campaign speech included more smiles, more intense smiles, and longer and more frequent visual attention to the audience. Observers showed higher levels of all 4 relevant behaviors while watching charismatic leaders. In Study 2, college student participants watched more and less charismatic excerpts selected from President Clinton's and ex‐President Bush's responses during their first 1992 televised debate. Comparing the same behaviors, there was a similar pattern to Study I for responses to the Clinton excerpts, and an almost reversed pattern for the Bush excerpts. The overall results support an emotional contagion effect of charismatic leadership when the leader exhibits truly charismatic behavior.