Amber M. Gaffney

Further to the right: Uncertainty, political polarization and the American “Tea Party” movement

The Tea Party entered U.S. politics in a time of economic uncertainty, positioning itself far to the right of the conservative movement. Its highly conservative position has allowed it to provide a clear self-definition that contrasts with more moderate and liberal political views. To examine the Tea Partys influence on American political prototypes, we manipulated the comparative context in which participants received an extreme pro-normative message from a Tea Party group. Conservatives (N = 47), primed with self-uncertainty, supported the extreme position, indicating more conservative views for both themselves and similar others when primed with an intergroup versus an intragroup context. Results are discussed in terms of the ability for extreme ingroup factions to polarize prototypes under self-conceptual uncertainty.

The tyranny of normative distance: A social identity account of the exercise of power by remote leaders

Bligh, Riggio, Introduction to Exploring Distance in Leader-Follower Relationships: When Near is Far and Far is Near. Part I: Foundations and Definitions of Distance. Lisk, Lewandowski, Foundation of Distance. Shamir, Notes on Distance and Leadership. Part 2: The Impact of Distance on Leader-Follower Relations. Kahai, Leading in a Digital Age: Whats Different, Issues Raised, And What We Know. Reichard, Serrano, Wefald, Engaging Followers At a Distance: Leadership Approaches That Work. Schyns, The Role of Distance in Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). Antonakis, Jacquart, The Far Side of Leadership: Rather Difficult to Face. Part 3: Moving Forward Emerging Concepts and Extensions of Leader-Follower Distance. Eagly, Women as Leaders: Paths Through the Labyrinth.Rast, Gaffney, Hogg, The Tyranny of Normative Distance: A Social Identity Account of the Exercise of Power by Remote Leaders. Razin, Kark, The Apple Does Not Fall Far From the Tree: Steve Jobss Leadership as Simultaneously Distant and Close. Hollander, American Presidential Leadership: Leader Credit, Follower Inclusion, and Obamas Turn.

Witness to hypocrisy: Reacting to ingroup hypocrites in the presence of others

How is ones reaction to a fellow ingroup members normative hypocrisy affected by the presence of a third party observer who is an ingroup member or an outgroup member? To investigate this question we experimentally manipulated the group membership and reaction of a third party to ingroup hypocrisy in a 2 × 2 design (N = 78) and measured participants’ personal endorsement of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors that were normative of the ingroup. As predicted from a social identity analysis of the function of norms and prototypes in social influence processes, personal endorsement of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors was strongest when an outgroup member remarked negatively on the hypocrisy, and weakest when an outgroup member did not appear to notice the hypocrisy. We would like to extend our gratitude to Christopher Aberson and the psychology department at Humboldt State University where these data were collected. In addition we thank our actors, Jacob Crummey, Kimberly Altic, and Katrin Beene, for their contribution to this project. Finally we would like to thank the reviewers who contributed their expertise and insight to this work.

The effect of stereotype content on intergroup uncertainty and interactions

ABSTRACT Drawing on intergroup threat theory and the stereotype content model, we examine intergroup relations in an organizational context. We surveyed 108 Asian immigrants working at a large international organization located in the United Kingdom. We found that perceptions of warmth and competence interact to predict minority group members’ willingness to interact with an outgroup majority. Extending previous research, we demonstrate that warmth and competence differentially affect intergroup uncertainty, which mediates the relationship between stereotype content and willingness to interact with the outgroup. Three novel aspects of this research contribute to the existing literature: (1) the focus on stereotype content eliciting intergroup emotions; (2) examining the thoughts and feelings of a minority group (Asian immigrants) toward the majority group (British citizens); (3) the organizational context of the sample presents a real-world situation.