Better to Bend Than to Break? Effects of Rule Behavior on Dominance, Prestige, and Leadership Granting

How people handle rules can influence their social standing in the eyes of others, including their appeal as leaders. It stands to reason that people prefer to grant leadership to individuals who follow rather than break the rules. However, preferences for rule abiders are less evident than one might expect. To enhance understanding of people's responses to (counter)normative behavior, we (a) introduce the concept of rule bending-behavior that infringes a rule without technically breaking it-and (b) draw on the dominance/prestige framework of social rank to illuminate the underlying processes that drive responses to such behavior. In two experiments (Study 1: N = 149; Study 2: N = 480, preregistered), we show that rule breaking (compared to rule abiding) signals relatively high dominance and low prestige, which undermine leadership granting to rule breakers. We further found that rule benders are seen as relatively high on both prestige and dominance, which renders them more attractive as leaders than rule breakers. Finally, we show that the attractiveness of nonabiders as leaders increases under competition when their apparent dominance becomes an asset. We discuss how rule bending relates to rule abiding and rule breaking and consider implications for understanding and managing rule-bending behavior.