Self-categorization and leadership: Effects of Group prototypicality and leader stereotypicality

(From the chapter)This reprinted chapter originally appeared in (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1997[Oct], Vol 23[10], 1087-10990. 9The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1997-41229-009.) Introduced a self-categorization model of leadership (leaders have the prototypical characteristics of a psychologically salient in-group) and contrasted it with leadership categorization theory (leaders have the appropriate stereotypical properties of a leader schema) in a 2x2x2 experiment. Under condition of high or low group salience, and in anticipation of a group activity, 184 Ss evaluated the leadership effectiveness of a randomly nominated leader who was group prototypical or nonprototypical and whose behaviour was stereotypical or nonstereotypical of a leader schema. As predicted f4rom the authors' self-categorization analysis, group prototypicality was a significant basis for leadership for Ss who identified with the group but not for thos4e who did not. There was a general effect, considt4nd with leade4r categorization theory, whereby stereotypical leaders were perceived to be more effective than nonstereotypical leaders. However, as predicted, this effect was weaker under high group identification. (psycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all right reserved