Idiosyncrasy Credit

Idiosyncrasy credit is a concept in social psychology describing an individual's capacity to acceptably deviate from a group's expectations. Such credits are earned each time a person conforms to the group's expectations and spent each time the person deviates from them; the psychologist Edwin Hollander originally defined idiosyncrasy credit as an accumulation of positively disposed impressions held by relevant others, representing the degree to which an individual may depart from a group's common expectancies. The concept is one of several used to explain why some minority views prove influential while others do not, and it is also relevant to leadership, since leaders who have accumulated many credits are often granted greater latitude to try innovative strategies in pursuit of group goals.