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AbstractOften leaders who attempt to enact large‐scale changes face resistance from group members who perceive the change as a drastic alteration of the core identity features of their group. Core changes to a group's identity can create a sense of collective identity discontinuity, indicating the group's sense of "who we are" is fundamentally altered. Leaders can circumvent this by emphasizing how the proposed change is consistent with the group's identity, although this may be influenced by whether group members are uncertain and perceive the leader as group prototypical. Two preregistered studies measured the degree to which participants felt self‐uncertain and perceived their in‐group political party leaders (Study 1) and newly reelected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Study 2) as group prototypical and as promoting collective identity continuity before (N= 408) and after (N= 209) the 2019 Canadian General Election. Study 1 results supported the preregistered hypotheses, and Study 2 extended these findings by exploring the hypothesized interaction from Study 1 in the postelection context. We discuss these results in the social identity framework, implicating the importance of a leader's promotion of collective identity continuity in promoting change during uncertain times.

In their theory of intergroup leadership, Hogg, van Knippenberg, and Rast proposed the novel concept of intergroup relational identity. An intergroup relational identity (IRI) refers to a form of social identity that is defined in terms of the cooperative and mutually promotive relationship between subgroups. This article outlines the development of a five-item scale to measure IRI. We conducted five studies with over 1,700 participants from different countries. The unidimensional factor structure of the five-item scale replicated across studies, and the latter three studies provided evidence of construct (convergent and discriminant) and criterion-related validity. Intergroup relations are often overlooked in organizational behavior and management research. However, our results support the idea that IRI affects intergroup or inter-team cooperation and collaboration, as well as leadership effectiveness—enhanced perceptions of an IRI is a promising way to reduce conflict between subgroups within a larger collective. To date, no measure of IRI has been published. These studies present the first empirical test of and support for the newly developed IRI measure, and provide evidence demonstrating the benefit of promoting an IRI for both leadership and intergroup relations more broadly.

AbstractCanada's 2022 Freedom Convoy protests and blockades caused significant disruption, and many Canadians advocated for strong, forceful, and even autocratic responses from their government. In democratic nations, autocratic leadership is typically seen as undesirable and receives less support than democratic leadership. However, when group members experience significant identity‐related self‐uncertainty, they may have an accentuated desire for strong, directive leadership to help manage the uncertainty. Canadian participants (N = 406) reported their level of self‐uncertainty, rated how autocratic they perceived Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be, reported their level of support for Justin Trudeau, and reported their support for strong responses to the Freedom Convoy. Self‐uncertainty moderated the relationship between leadership style and leader support. Perceived autocratic leadership style predicted significantly less leader support, but this relationship was weakened among participants high in self‐uncertainty, who reported increased support for an autocratic leader. Further, self‐uncertainty predicted a greater desire for a strong leader, willingness to restrict civil liberties, and support for expanded government powers. These results suggest that the typical preference for democratic leadership weakens when self‐uncertainty is elevated.Public significance statementUncertainty about one's identity lays the groundwork for autocratic leadership to emerge. Elevated self‐uncertainty was associated with a greater desire for a strong leader who is willing to challenge democratic values and practices, a greater willingness to restrict civil liberties, greater support for expanded government powers in response to a national crisis, and greater support for a national leader perceived as autocratic.

Drawing on the social identity theory of leadership and optimal distinctiveness theory, this research examined differences in perceived attitude similarity to in- and outgroup leaders among Liberals and Conservatives before and after the 2008 U.S. presidential election. We predicted Liberals and Conservatives alike would perceive their ingroup leaders (Obama or McCain) to be attitudinally similar to themselves before the election. After the election, however, Conservatives were expected to distance themselves from McCain and to accentuate similarity to Obama. Using a longitudinal design, analysis of American National Election Survey ( N = 742) data showed that Liberals and Conservatives viewed themselves to be similar to their respective ingroup leader and dissimilar to the outgroup leader. Consistent with expectations, Conservatives significantly accentuated perceived similarity with Obama following his electoral victory, and significantly distanced themselves from McCain following his loss. Liberals' similarity with either candidate did not change from pre- to postelection. Implications for social identity in inter- and intragroup leadership contexts are discussed.

AbstractSocial psychological models of group identity and collective action should be particularly adept at providing psychological explanations for growing rates of populism in the Western World. Because populism tends to arise in times of societal shifts that reflect both economic and cultural changes, populist attitudes are likely grounded in perceptions of intergroup relations and collective attitudes. We surveyed 95 demonstrators at the 2016 Republican National Convention and 108 demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention. Results support the idea that relative anger prototypicality, in this case, the extent to which people believe that their own anger toward politicians is representative of most Americans' anger, predicts feelings of group‐based relative deprivation. Importantly, these feelings of deprivation mediate the relationship between prototypical anger and populist attitudes. These findings provide a unique picture of current political engagement, motivated by feelings of shared anger and collective feelings of lacking representation and voice.

Two studies ( N = 676) highlight the nuanced relationship between conservatism and adherence to COVID-19 policy and recommendations intended to slow the spread of the pandemic in the United States. Study 1 provided evidence that conservative Americans who felt uncertain about themselves and the future experienced elevated levels of symbolic threat (attacks to sociopolitical identity; e.g., the pandemic threatening American democracy) and realistic threat (concrete attacks to material resources or well-being; e.g., the pandemic threatening physical health) in comparison to their more certain counterparts. In Study 2, the association between this form of uncertainty and frequency of risky social behaviors (behaviors that increase the risk of virus transmission) was partially mediated by threat perception for Americans both low and high in conservatism. We discuss findings as an integration of the motivated social cognition framework and uncertainty-identity theory. While self-uncertainty was more associated with greater overall COVID-19 threat perception for Americans high (vs. low) in conservatism, threat perception and frequency of risky social behaviors were associated with self-uncertainty in a manner that is consistent with prevailing liberal and conservative norms.