title: Examining Individual Differences in Interpersonal Influence: On the Psychometric Properties of the Generalized Opinion Leadership Scale (GOLS).
abstract: Opinion leadership describes an individual's tendency to informally influence others' attitudes and overt behaviors. In contrast to contemporary views of opinion leadership as a highly domain-specific trait, this paper introduces a multi-faceted personality trait, generalized opinion leadership (GOL) that characterizes exceptionally influential individuals independent of a specific subject area. Two studies report on the psychometric properties of a scale to assess GOL. Study 1 is based on three independent samples (N = 1,575, N = 1,275, and N = 231) and demonstrates the factorial structure of the instrument and its measurement invariance across sex, age, and educational levels. Study 2 (N = 310) analyzes multitrait-multiinformant data to highlight the scale's discriminant validity with regard to innovativeness and trendsetting.
authors.affiliation: a University of Linz.
authors.forename: Bernad
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Batinic
authors.affiliation: b University of Koblenz-Landau.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Appel
authors.affiliation: c Osnabrück University.
authors.forename: Timo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gnambs
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007857:Leadership; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010551:Personality; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: measurement invariance; multitrait-multimethod analysis; personality; social influence