Leadership and group membership: Effects of group prototypicality on influences of a leader

Abstract

This study examined the effects of group prototypicality on the "strength" and "range" of the influence of the leader. Our hypotheses were as follows: 1) A high prototypical leader (HP-L) would be more strongly endorsed than a low prototypical leader (LP-L) by members who identified strongly with the group. 2) When the influence of an HP-L is derived from depersonalized social attraction acquired through comparison with a conflicting outgroup, the HP-L would be more influential than an LP-L only when the group was engaged in a task relevant to the outgroup, although the influence of the HP-L would be so strong that followers would comply with his/her order even if the order were not in accord with followers' intentions.One hundred and twenty four participants answered questions after they read scenarios describing conflict between the ingroup and outgroup. The results generally supported the hypotheses on an indirect compliance index, but not on a direct compliance index. In addition, some of our findings are not necessarily consistent with expectations from the perspective of SIT/SCT. Finally, potential reasons for these findings, limitation of the study, and directions for future research were discussed.View full abstract