Exploring the Dynamics of Charismatic Attribution: How and Why Do People Think of Other Individuals as Charismatic?

Charisma is a popular and enthralling concept both in its academic and lay usage; with some alluding to the role of charisma as important to various historical events including the 2016 Philippine presidential elections (Curato, 2016; Francisco, 2017; Pedrosa, 2015). However, the dynamics of charismatic attribution – how and why people think of, label, perceive or categorize other individuals as charismatic – has had a disproportionately fewer share of discussion in the literature. This is despite the fact that charismatic attribution has played a central, if implicit, role in the development of the construct of charisma. This study sought to explore the dynamics of charismatic attribution, and pagtatanong-tanong (indigenous participatory interview; Pe-Pua, 2006) was done with N=17 participants (523 minutes of audio recorded data) of diverse occupations, ages, and SES. The participants' conceptualization of charisma varies, but the role of effects is primary. These effects include 1.) capturing attention, 2.) behavioral influence, 3.) making people believe the figure's message, 4.) effects on emotion and 5.) having devoted followers. Results indicate that charismatic attribution is mainly an effects-based appraisal - an evaluation of whether figures are able to achieve the participants’ notion of what a charismatic effect is. Various attributes and various behaviors are used to describe charismatic figures in so far as these help produce the previously stated effects but are not in themselves primary considerations for charismatic attribution. Only for a proportion of the participants do moral judgements factor in whether they would think of another individual as charismatic. It is argued that the process of charismatic attribution facilitates attending to internal characteristics of figures to describe and explain why effects occur. Charismatic attribution allows to make sense and simplify complex social phenomenon. Other theoretical considerations are then discussed, including a comparison with the signaling framework of charisma (Antonakis et al., 2016; Antonakis, 2017) and an alternative model of charisma is developed: The Constructed Charisma Framework.