What You See is How You Act: Perceived and Actual Centrality in Motivation and Performance

Social network centrality plays a key role in individuals’ work performance. While actual network centrality has long been theorized to impact individuals, we propose that actors’ perceived centrality also plays a key role in individual outcomes. To the extent that actors see themselves as central in their work groups, they will increase effort to meet the demands of their position. Drawing from social network theory, we theorize that actual network centrality can simultaneously benefit and inhibit actors’ performance. Drawing from cognitive social structure and social loafing theories, we argue that perceived network centrality independently becomes a basis for actors’ motivation for high performance. In a first study we examine direct effects of actual and perceived centrality in a sample of undergraduate student team members, and in a second study of undergraduate student team members we examine the mechanisms through which actual and perceived team process network positions influence individual performance. We find that individuals’ effort mediates the effects of perceived centrality on individual performance, and that this effect occurs independent of actual network centrality. We further find that actual centrality can overload a central individual and inhibit optimal performance.