SAT閱讀文章（社科類）第2篇

This passage is adapted from Niklas K Steffens and S. Alexander Haslam, 「Power Through 『Us.』」 ? 2013 Steffens, Haslam.

The oratory of great political leaders has been subjected to meticulous analysis by psychologists, linguists, political scientists, and historians. This research observes that these leaders tend to use distinct rhetorical strategies. For example, research suggests that successful leaders act as entrepreneurs of identity such that their speeches serve to cultivate a sense of 『us』 that is shared with potential followers. However, prior research has not established whether political leaders use of such strategies is actually related to their ability to secure follower endorsement. Here we examine whether successful candidates in national general elections make greater use of we-referencing language than their losing counterparts.

In line with common media portrayals, classical leadership research generally focuses on the (extraordinary) traits and capabilities of individual leaders as 「great men.」 In these terms, leaders are understood to be superior beings who succeed because they are different to, and better than, other more ordinary mortals. However, more recent research has shifted focus away from the leader as a great 『I』 by stressing the importance of followers and the group as a whole to the leadership process. This places greater emphasis on the 『we』 of leadership, and is exemplified by work examining the role that a sense of shared group membership plays in allowing leaders and followers to influence each other.

In this regard, social identity theory asserts that individuals are able to think and act not just as 『I』 and 『me』 (in terms of personal identity) but also as 『we』 and 『us』 (in terms of social identity). Moreover, it asserts that when people perceive themselves and others in terms of shared social identity, this provides the basis for a range of important group and organizational behaviors. One of these is leadership. In line with this claim, a large body of research has shown that it is leaders capacity to be perceived to advance the interests of a social identity that is shared with followers that enables them to secure support for their vision and motivate others to help turn it into reality. Such analysis suggests that leaders are successful not because they demonstrate their individual superiority or because they think and act in terms of 『I』, but rather because, and to the extent that, they are perceived to think and be acting in terms of the collective 『we』.

Speaking to these claims, empirical evidence indicates that leaders』 increased social identification with a collective (i.e., the degree to which they have internalized the collective as part of their sense of self) is positively related to followers favorable reactions to them. Along similar lines, experimental studies have shown that when leaders use more we-referencing language followers are more likely to see them as charismatic. Consistent with the idea that we-referencing language proves helpful to leaders outside the laboratory, there is also evidence that in the United States over the last two centuries references to the collective entities 『we』, 『people』 and 『America』 have increased substantially in both State of the Union and Presidential inaugural addresses.

However, prior research that has explored these ideas has tended to hone in selectively on exceptional addresses or on the oratory of particularly successful leaders (e.g., those in high political office). As a result, it is unclear whether we-referencing language is something that is broadly associated with, and predictive of, leaders future success. More generally, it is unclear exactly how widespread such strategies are and there are questions about whether effects produced in laboratory studies of undergraduate students are applicable to the cut-and-thrust of leadership in the world at large.

In order to address these lacunae*, we sought to discover whether there is any more compelling evidence that political leaders use of collective pronouns has a concrete bearing on their success. One resource that we identified as having the potential to prove useful for this purpose is recently released digitized transcripts of all the official campaign speeches made by leaders of the two major political parties for all general elections held in Australia since the creation of the Federal Parliament in 1901. This provided us with an opportunity to examine whether leaders use of we-referencing (vs. I-referencing) language was a predictor of subsequent election victory. Whereas classical leadership models might lead one to expect that leaders who communicate a strong sense of their personal identity (through references to 『I』 and 『me』) would be more successful, the social identity approach leads us to predict that success would be more likely to follow from leaders invocation of shared group identity in their speeches (through their use of 『we』 and 『us』).

Beginning of reading passage footnotes.

*lacunae: unfilled spaces or gaps