Do we want a fighter? The influence of group status and the stability of intergroup relations on leader prototypicality and endorsement

Based on the idea that leadership is a group process, we propose that followers' endorsement of a leader depends on particular leadership strategies being perceived to be best suited for maintaining or advancing group identity in the context of prevailing intergroup relations. Three experimental studies with different samples aimed to examine how socio-structural variables that define intergroup relations impact on leader–follower relations and on the support that followers give to leaders who adopt different approaches to manage intergroup relations. We demonstrate that after manipulating the status and the stability of intergroup relations followers endorse leaders who strategically engage in group-oriented behaviour that maps onto optimal identity-management strategies. These patterns mirrored differences across contexts in the perceived prototypicality. We conclude that intergroup relations influence leaders' strategic behaviour and followers' reaction to them. Findings highlight the importance of understanding leadership as both a within- and between-group process

Us and the virus: understanding the COVID-19 pandemic through a social psychological lens

From a social psychological perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated protective measures affected individuals’ social relations and their basic psychological needs. We aim to identify sources of need frustration (stressors) and possibilities to bolster need satisfaction (buffers). Particularly, we highlight emerging empirical research in areas in which social psychological theorizing can contribute to our understanding of the pandemic’s social consequences: Loneliness, social networks, role conflicts, social identity, compliance, trust, reactance, and conspiracy beliefs. We highlight directions for future social psychological research as the pandemic continues

Innovation Across Cultures: Connecting Leadership, Identification, and Creative Behavior in Organizations

Innovation is considered essential for today's organizations to survive and thrive. Researchers have also stressed the importance of leadership as a driver of followers' innovative work behavior (FIB). Yet, despite a large amount of research, three areas remain understudied: (a) The relative importance of different forms of leadership for FIB; (b) the mechanisms through which leadership impacts FIB; and (c) the degree to which relationships between leadership and FIB are generalizable across cultures. To address these lacunae, we propose an integrated model connecting four types of positive leadership behaviors, two types of identification (as mediating variables), and FIB. We tested our model in a global data set comprising responses of N = 7,225 participants from 23 countries, grouped into nine cultural clusters. Our results indicate that perceived LMX quality was the strongest relative predictor of FIB. Furthermore, the relationships between both perceived LMX quality and identity leadership with FIB were mediated by social identification. The indirect effect of LMX on FIB via social identification was stable across clusters, whereas the indirect effects of the other forms of leadership on FIB via social identification were stronger in countries high versus low on collectivism. Power distance did not influence the relations

Are all ‘research fields’ equal? Rethinking practice for the use of data from crowd-sourcing market places

New technologies like large-scale social media sides (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and crowdsourcing services (e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk, Crowdflower, Clickworker) impact social science research and provide many new and interesting avenues for research. The use of these new technologies for research has not been without challenges and a recently published psychological study on Facebook led to a widespread discussion on the ethics of conducting large-scale experiments online. Surprisingly little has been said about the ethics of conducting research using commercial crowdsourcing market places. In this paper, I want to focus on the question of which ethical questions are raised by data collection with crowdsourcing tools. I briefly draw on implications of internet research more generally and then focus on the specific challenges that research with crowdsourcing tools faces. I identify fair-pay and related issues of respect for autonomy as well as problems with power dynamics between researcher and participant, which has implications for ‘withdrawal-withoutprejudice’, as the major ethical challenges with crowdsourced data. Further, I will to draw attention on how we can develop a ‘best practice’ for researchers using crowdsourcing tools

Identity Leadership, Employee Burnout and the Mediating Role of Team Identification: Evidence from the Global Identity Leadership Development Project

Do leaders who build a sense of shared social identity in their teams thereby protect them from the adverse effects of workplace stress? This is a question that the present paper explores by testing the hypothesis that identity leadership contributes to stronger team identification among employees and, through this, is associated with reduced burnout. We tested this model with unique datasets from the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project with participants from all inhabited continents. We compared two datasets from 2016/2017 (n = 5290; 20 countries) and 2020/2021 (n = 7294; 28 countries) and found very similar levels of identity leadership, team identification and burnout across the five years. An inspection of the 2020/2021 data at the onset of and later in the COVID-19 pandemic showed stable identity leadership levels and slightly higher levels of both burnout and team identification. Supporting our hypotheses, we found almost identical indirect effects (2016/2017, b = −0.132; 2020/2021, b = −0.133) across the five-year span in both datasets. Using a subset of n = 111 German participants surveyed over two waves, we found the indirect effect confirmed over time with identity leadership (at T1) predicting team identification and, in turn, burnout, three months later. Finally, we explored whether there could be a “too-much-of-a-good-thing” effect for identity leadership. Speaking against this, we found a u-shaped quadratic effect whereby ratings of identity leadership at the upper end of the distribution were related to even stronger team identification and a stronger indirect effect on reduced burnout

Political leaders' identity leadership and civic citizenship behavior:The mediating role of trust in fellow citizens and the moderating role of economic inequality

Identity leadership captures leaders efforts to create and promote a sense of shared group membership (i.e., a sense of “we” and of “us”) among followers. The present research report tests this claim by drawing on data from 26 countries that are part of the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project to examine the relationship between political leaders' identity leadership and civic citizenship behavior (N = 6787). It also examines the contributions of trust and economic inequality to this relationship. Political leaders' identity leadership (PLIL) was positively associated with respondents' people-oriented civic citizenship behaviors (CCB-P) in 20 of 26 countries and civic citizenship behaviors aimed at one's country (CCB-C) in 23 of 26 countries. Mediational analyses also confirmed the indirect effects of PLIL via trust in fellow citizens on both CCB-P (in 25 out of 26 countries) and CCB-C (in all 26 countries). Economic inequality moderated these effects such that the main and indirect effects of trust in one's fellow citizens on CCB-C were stronger in countries with higher economic inequality. This interaction effect was not observed for CCB-P. The study highlights the importance of identity leadership and trust in fellow citizens in promoting civic citizenship behavior, especially in the context of economic inequality.</p

No country for old men?: the role of a ‘Gentlemen's Club’ in promoting social engagement and psychological well-being in residential care

Objective: Social isolation is a common problem in older people who move into care that has negative consequences for well-being. This is of particular concern for men, who are marginalised in long-term care settings as a result of their reduced numbers and greater difficulty in accessing effective social support, relative to women. However, researchers in the social identity tradition argue that developing social group memberships can counteract the effects of isolation. We test this account in this study by examining whether increased socialisation with others of the same gender enhances social identification, well-being (e.g. life satisfaction, mood), and cognitive ability. Method: Care home residents were invited to join gender-based groups (i.e. Ladies and Gentlemen's Clubs). Nine groups were examined (five male groups, four female groups) comprising 26 participants (12 male, 14 female), who took part in fortnightly social activities. Social identification, personal identity strength, cognitive ability and well-being were measured at the commencement of the intervention and 12 weeks later. Results: A clear gender effect was found. For women, there was evidence of maintained well-being and identification over time. For men, there was a significant reduction in depression and anxiety, and an increased sense of social identification with others. Conclusion: While decreasing well-being tends to be the norm in long-term residential care, building new social group memberships in the form of gender clubs can counteract this decline, particularly among men

When what we get is not what we want - The role of implemented versus desired merger patterns in support for mergers and perceived fairness

By integrating an intergroup perspective on mergers with discrepancy theories, we argue that merger partners aim for merger patterns that best benefit their group’s standing. Importantly, we hypothesize and show that the discrepancy between what merger partners want and what they actually get affects outcomes essential to merger success. Specifically, we demonstrate that perceived fit between the implemented and the desired merger pattern predicts support for the merger. We further show that this effect is mediated by perceived fairness (Study 1) and emotional reactions to the merger (Study 2). Our findings are generalized across a field study that investigate a real merger between two institutions of higher education (Study 1) and an experiment (Study 2). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved