Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Not “My” crisis: Social identity and followers’ crisis responses to COVID‐19

Not “My” crisis: Social identity and followers’ crisis responses to COVID‐19 Operationalizing social group identification as political partisanship, we examine followers’ (i.e., US residents’) affective experiences and behavioral responses during the initial COVID‐19 outbreak in the United States (March to May 2020). In Study 1, we conducted content analyses on major news outlets’ coverage of COVID‐19 (N = 4319) to examine media polarization and how it plays a role in shaping followers’ perceptions of the pandemic and leadership. News outlets trusted by Republicans portrayed US President Donald Trump as more effective, conveyed a stronger sense of certainty with less negative affective tone, and had a lower emphasis on COVID‐19 prevention compared to outlets trusted by Democrats. We then conducted a field survey study (Study 2; N = 214) and found that Republicans perceived Trump as more effective, experienced higher positive affect, and engaged in less COVID‐19 preventive behavior compared to Democrats. Using a longitudinal survey design in Study 3 (N = 251), we examined how emotional responses evolved in parallel with the pandemic and found further support for Study 2 findings. Collectively, our findings provide insight into the process of leadership from a social identity perspective during times of crisis, illustrating how social identity can inhibit mobilization of united efforts. The findings have implications for leadership of subgroup divides in different organizational and crisis contexts. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Analyses of Social Issues & Public Policy Wiley

Not “My” crisis: Social identity and followers’ crisis responses to COVID‐19

Download PDF
30 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/not-my-crisis-social-identity-and-followers-crisis-responses-to-covid-yAG90wqYCB
Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2022 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
ISSN
1529-7489
eISSN
1530-2415
DOI
10.1111/asap.12316
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Operationalizing social group identification as political partisanship, we examine followers’ (i.e., US residents’) affective experiences and behavioral responses during the initial COVID‐19 outbreak in the United States (March to May 2020). In Study 1, we conducted content analyses on major news outlets’ coverage of COVID‐19 (N = 4319) to examine media polarization and how it plays a role in shaping followers’ perceptions of the pandemic and leadership. News outlets trusted by Republicans portrayed US President Donald Trump as more effective, conveyed a stronger sense of certainty with less negative affective tone, and had a lower emphasis on COVID‐19 prevention compared to outlets trusted by Democrats. We then conducted a field survey study (Study 2; N = 214) and found that Republicans perceived Trump as more effective, experienced higher positive affect, and engaged in less COVID‐19 preventive behavior compared to Democrats. Using a longitudinal survey design in Study 3 (N = 251), we examined how emotional responses evolved in parallel with the pandemic and found further support for Study 2 findings. Collectively, our findings provide insight into the process of leadership from a social identity perspective during times of crisis, illustrating how social identity can inhibit mobilization of united efforts. The findings have implications for leadership of subgroup divides in different organizational and crisis contexts.

Journal

Analyses of Social Issues & Public Policy – Wiley

Published: Aug 1, 2022

References

  • Intergroup bias and perceived similarity: effects of successes and failures on support for in‐and outgroup political leaders
    Alabastro, A.; Rast, D.E.; Lac, A.; Hogg, M.A.; Crano, W.D.
  • American news consumption during times of national crisis
    Althaus, S.L.
  • Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook
    Bakshy, E.; Messing, S.; Adamic, L.A.
  • Self‐efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change
    Bandura, A.
  • Transformational leadership and organizational culture
    Bass, B.M.; Avolio, B.J.
  • An episodic process model of affective influences on performance
    Beal, D.J.; Weiss, H.M.; Barros, E.; MacDermid, S.M.
  • Threatened leadership and intergroup conflicts
    Bekkers, F.
  • Charisma under crisis: presidential leadership, rhetoric, and media responses before and after the September 11th terrorist attacks
    Bligh, M.C.; Kohles, J.C.; Meindl, J.R.
  • Charting the language of leadership: a methodological investigation of President Bush and the crisis of 9/11
    Bligh, M.C.; Kohles, J.C.; Meindl, J.R.
  • Public leadership in times of crisis: mission impossible?
    Boin, A.; Hart, P.T.
  • Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks
    Brady, W.J.; Wills, J.A.; Jost, J.T.; Tucker, J.A.; Van Bavel, J.J.
  • Organizational behavior: affect in the workplace
    Brief, A.P.; Weiss, H.M.
  • Ethical leadership: a social learning perspective for construct development and testing
    Brown, M.E.; Treviño, L.K.; Harrison, D.A.
  • Emotional and evaluative consequences of inappropriate leader displays
    Bucy, E.P.
  • A follower‐centric approach to the 2016 US presidential election: candidate rhetoric and follower attributions of charisma and effectiveness
    Carsten, M.K.; Bligh, M.C.; Kohles, J.C.; Lau, W.V.
  • Ethical followership: an examination of followership beliefs and crimes of obedience
    Carsten, M.K.; Uhl‐Bien, M.
  • The courageous follower
    Chaleff, I.
  • Not‐so straightforward links between COVID‐19 conspiracy‐theory beliefs and disease preventive behaviours
    Chan, H.W.; Chiu, P.Y.C.; Zuo, S.; Wang, S.; Liu, L.; Hong, Y.
  • War against COVID‐19: how is national identification linked with the adoption of disease‐preventive behavior in China and the United States?
    Chan, H.W.; Wang, S.; Zuo, S.; Chiu, P.Y.C.; Liu, L.; Yiu, D.W.; Hong, Y.
  • Leader group prototypicality and job satisfaction: the moderating role of job stress and team identification
    Cicero, L.; Pierro, A.; Knippenberg, D.
  • Leadership and uncertainty: how role ambiguity affects the relationship between leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness
    Cicero, L.; Pierro, A.; Knippenberg, D.
  • Toward a behavioral theory of charismatic leadership in organizational settings
    Conger, J.A.; Kanungo, R.N.
  • Dynamic models of well‐being: implications of affective events theory for expanding current views on personality and climate
    Cropanzano, R.; Dasborough, M.T.
  • What goes around comes around: how meso‐level negative emotional contagion can ultimately determine organizational attitudes toward leaders
    Dasborough, M.T.; Ashkanasy, N.M.; Tee, E.Y.; Herman, H.M.
  • How do leaders promote cooperation? The effects of charisma and procedural fairness
    De Cremer, D.; Knippenberg, D.
  • The interactive effects of belongingness and charisma on helping and compliance
    Den Hartog, D.N.; De Hoogh, A.H.; Keegan, A.E.
  • Ideological social identity: psychological attachment to ideological in‐groups as a political phenomenon and a behavioral influence
    Devine, C.J.
  • The independence of positive and negative affect
    Diener, E.; Emmons, R.A.
  • New well‐being measures: short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings
    Diener, E.; Wirtz, D.; Tov, W.; Kim‐Prieto, C.; Choi, D.W.; Oishi, S.; Biswas‐Diener, R.
  • Cooperation versus competition in a mass emergency evacuation: a new laboratory simulation and a new theoretical model
    Drury, J.; Cocking, C.; Reicher, S.; Burton, A.; Schofield, D.; Hardwick, A.; Graham, D.; Langston, P.
  • Leaders and subgroups: one of us or one of them?
    Duck, J.M.; Fielding, K.S.
  • Leaders and their treatment of subgroups: implications for evaluations of the leader and the superordinate group
    Duck, J.M.; Fielding, K.S.
  • To mask or not to mask: modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID‐19 pandemic
    Eikenberry, S.E.; Mancuso, M.; Iboi, E.; Phan, T.; Eikenberry, K.; Kuang, Y.; Gumel, A.B.
  • G*Power 3: a flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences
    Faul, F.; Erdfelder, E.; Lang, A.G.; Buchner, A.
  • Social identity, self‐categorization, and leadership: a field study of small interactive groups
    Fielding, K.S.; Hogg, M.A.
  • Social identity, self‐categorization, and leadership: a field study of small interactive groups
    Fielding, K.S.; Hogg, M.A.
  • Unite against: a common threat invokes spontaneous decategorization between social categories
    Flade, F.; Klar, Y.; Imhoff, R.
  • What good are positive emotions in crisis? A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001
    Fredrickson, B.L.; Tugade, M.M.; Waugh, C.E.; Larkin, G.R.
  • Reducing intergroup conflict: from superordinate goals to decategorization, recategorization, and mutual differentiation
    Gaertner, S.L.; Dovidio, J.F.; Banker, B.S.; Houlette, M.; Johnson, K.M.; McGlynn, E.A.
  • ‘‘License to fail’’: goal definition, leader group prototypicality, and perceptions of leadership effectiveness after leader failure
    Giessner, S.R.; Knippenberg, D.
  • Do we want a fighter? The influence of group status and the stability of intergroup relations on leader prototypicality and endorsement
    Gleibs, I.H.; Haslam, S.A.
  • Partisan differences in physical distancing are linked to health outcomes during the COVID‐19 pandemic
    Gollwitzer, A.; Martel, C.; Brady, W.J.; Pärnamets, P.; Freedman, I.G.; Knowles, E.D.; Van Bavel, J.J.
  • Self‐categorisation and leadership: Effects of group prototypicality and leader stereotypicality
    Hains, S.C.; Hogg, M.A.; Duck, J.M.
  • Politicization and polarization in COVID‐19 news coverage
    Hart, P.S.; Chinn, S.; Soroka, S.
  • Diction 6 the text analysis program help manual
    Hart, R.P.; Carroll, C.E.; Spiars, S.
  • Contextual changes in the prototypicality of extreme and moderate outgroup members
    Haslam, S.A.; Oakes, P.J.; McGarty, C.; Turner, J.C.; Onorato, S.
  • The link between leadership and followership: how affirming social identity translates vision into action
    Haslam, S.A.; Platow, M.J.
  • Social identity processes in organisational contexts
    Haslam, S.A.; Platow, M.J.
  • Ballots, a barrier against the use of bullets and bombs: Democratization and military intervention
    Hermann, M.G.; Kegley, C.W.
  • Group cohesiveness: a critical review and some new directions
    Hogg, M.A.
  • A social identity theory of leadership
    Hogg, M.A.
  • Identification and leadership in small groups: salience, frame of reference, and leader stereotypicality effects on leader evaluations
    Hogg, M.A.; Hains, S.C.; Mason, I.
  • Social identity, self‐categorization, and the communication of group norms
    Hogg, M.A.; Reid, S.A.
  • The social identity theory of leadership: theoretical origins, research findings, and conceptual developments
    Hogg, M.A.; Knippenberg, D.; Rast, D.E.
  • Intergroup leadership in organizations: leading across group and organizational boundaries
    Hogg, M.A.; Knippenberg, D.; Rast, D.E.
  • Identity and intergroup leadership: asymmetrical political and national identification in response to uncertainty
    Hohman, Z.P.; Hogg, M.A.; Bligh, M.C.
  • Flourishing across Europe: application of a new conceptual framework for defining well‐being
    Huppert, F.A.; So, T.T.
  • The strengthening of partisan affect
    Iyengar, S.; Krupenkin, M.
  • Mapping moral motives: approach, avoidance, and political orientation
    Janoff‐Bulman, R.; Sheikh, S.; Baldacci, K.G.
  • Ideological asymmetries and the essence of political psychology
    Jost, J.T.
  • Political ideology: its structure, functions, and elective affinities
    Jost, J.T.; Federico, C.M.; Napier, J.L.
  • Managerial coping with organizational change: a dispositional perspective
    Judge, T.A.; Thoresen, C.J.; Pucik, V.; Welbourne, T.M.
  • U.S. media polarization and the 2020 election: A nation divided
    Jurkowitz, M.; Mitchell, A.; Shearer, E.; Walker, M.
  • The role of positive affectivity in team effectiveness during crises
    Kaplan, S.; LaPort, K.; Waller, M.J.
  • Bad leadership: What it is, how it happens, why it matters
    Kellerman, B.
  • Political polarization on COVID‐19 pandemic response in the United States
    Kerr, J.; Panagopoulos, C.; Linden, S.
  • Divided groups need leadership: a study of the effectiveness of collective identity, dual identity, and intergroup relational identity rhetoric
    Kershaw, C.; Rast, D.E.; Hogg, M.A.; Knippenberg, D.
  • Effects of the disastrous pandemic COVID 19 on learning styles, activities and mental health of young Indian students‐a machine learning approach
    Khattar, A.; Jain, P.R.; Quadri, S.M.K.
  • Social identity performance: extending the strategic side of SIDE
    Klein, O.; Spears, R.; Reicher, S.
  • Principles and practice of structural equation modeling
    Kline, R.B.
  • Selecting serious or satirical, supporting or stirring news? Selective exposure to partisan versus mockery news online videos
    Knobloch‐Westerwick, S.; Lavis, S.M.
  • Belief in group interdependence: facilitating evacuee–host interactions after the Fukushima nuclear accident
    Kobayashi, T.; Yoshida, K.; Takebayashi, Y.; Goto, A.; Kumagai, A.; Murakami, M.
  • Personality and susceptibility to positive and negative emotional states
    Larsen, R.J.; Ketelaar, T.
  • Leadership as a reflection of who we are: social identity, media portrayal, and evaluations of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential election
    Lau, V.W.; Bligh, M.C.; Kohles, J.C.
  • The hostile audience: the effect of access to broadband internet on partisan affect
    Lelkes, Y.; Sood, G.; Iyengar, S.
  • More than ideology: conservative‐liberal identity and receptivity to political cues
    Malka, A.; Lelkes, Y.
  • The romance of leadership as a follower‐centric theory: a social constructionist approach
    Meindl, J.R.
  • The trouble with thinking: people want to have quick reactions to personal taboos
    Merritt, A.C.; Monin, B.
  • Values, emotions, and authenticity: will the real leader please stand up?
    Michie, S.; Gooty, J.
  • The advantage of being oneself: the role of applicant self‐verification in organizational hiring decisions
    Moore, C.; Lee, S.Y.; Kim, K.; Cable, D.M.
  • The manipulation of ethnicity: from ethnic cooperation to violence and war in Yugoslavia
    Oberschall, A.
  • Two decades of developments in qualitative inquiry: a personal, experiential perspective
    Patton, M.Q.
  • Two tales of two protests: principled and partisan attitudes toward politically charged protests
    Peacock, N.; Biernat, M.
  • Reframing crisis management
    Pearson, C.M.; Clair, J.A.
  • Reframing crisis management
    Pearson, C.M.; Clair, J.A.
  • Psychological aspects of natural language use: our words, our selves
    Pennebaker, J.W.; Mehl, M.R.; Niederhoffer, K.G.
  • Leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness: the moderating role of need for cognitive closure
    Pierro, A.; Cicero, L.; Bonaiuto, M.; Knippenberg, D.; Kruglanski, A.W.
  • Personality, transformational leadership, trust, and the 2000 US presidential vote
    Pillai, R.; Williams, E.A.; Lowe, K.B.; Jung, D.I.
  • Intergroup leadership
    Pittinsky, T.L.; Simon, S.
  • A social identity analysis of leadership endorsement: the effects of leader ingroup prototypicality and distributive intergroup fairness
    Platow, M.J.; Knippenberg, D.
  • A special gift we bestow on you for being representative of us: considering leader charisma from a self‐categorization perspective
    Platow, M.J.; Knippenberg, D.; Haslam, S.A.; Knippenberg, B.; Spears, R.
  • Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it
    Podsakoff, P.M.; MacKenzie, S.B.; Podsakoff, N.P.
  • Leadership development: crisis, opportunities and the leadership concept
    Probert, J.; Turnbull, J.K.
  • Threatened leadership and intergroup competition
    Rabbie, J.M.; Bekkers, F.
  • Self‐uncertainty and support for autocratic leadership
    Rast, D.E.; Hogg, M.A.; Giessner, S.R.
  • Prototypical leaders do not always get our support: impact of self‐uncertainty and need for cognition
    Rast, D.E.; Hogg, M.A.; Tomory, J.J.
  • Leadership and social transformation: the role of marginalized individuals and groups
    Rast, D.E.; Hogg, M.A.; Randsley de Moura, G.
  • Why irrational politics appeals: Understanding the allure of Trump
    Reicher, S.; Haslam, A.
  • Social identity and the dynamics of leadership: leaders and followers as collaborative agents in the transformation of social reality
    Reicher, S.; Haslam, S.A.; Hopkins, N.
  • Social identity and the dynamics of leadership: leaders and followers as collaborative agents in the transformation of social reality
    Reicher, S.; Haslam, S.A.; Hopkins, N.
  • Seeking influence through characterizing self‐categories: an analysis of anti‐abortionist rhetoric
    Reicher, S.; Hopkins, N.
  • Psychology and the end of history: a critique and a proposal for the psychology of social categorization
    Reicher, S.; Hopkins, N.
  • Can a pandemic make people more socially conservative? Political ideology, gender roles, and the case of COVID‐19
    Rosenfeld, D.L.; Tomiyama, A.J.
  • lavaan: an R package for structural equation modeling
    Rosseel, Y.
  • The communication of emotion during conflict in married couples
    Sanford, K.
  • Social identity framing communication strategies for mobilizing social change
    Seyranian, V.
  • Presidential charismatic leadership: exploring the rhetoric of social change
    Seyranian, V.; Bligh, M.C.
  • The motivational effects of charismatic leadership: a self‐concept based theory
    Shamir, B.; House, R.J.; Arthur, M.B.
  • Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership
    Shamir, B.; Howell, J.M.
  • Keeping positive and building strength: the role of affect and team leadership in developing resilience during an organizational crisis
    Sommer, S.A.; Howell, J.M.; Hadley, C.N.
  • # lockdown: network‐enhanced emotional profiling in the time of Covid‐19
    Stella, M.; Restocchi, V.; De Deyne, S.
  • Presidential speechmaking style: emotional response to micro‐expressions of facial affect
    Stewart, P.A.; Waller, B.M.; Schubert, J.N.
  • When exemplification fails: hypocrisy and the motive for self‐integrity
    Stone, J.; Wiegand, A.W.; Cooper, J.; Aronson, E.
  • Working while liberal/conservative: a review of political ideology in organizations
    Swigart, K.L.; Anantharaman, A.; Williamson, J.A.; Grandey, A.A.
  • Using multivariate statistics
    Tabachnick, B.G.; Fidell, L.S.
  • The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized text analysis methods
    Tausczik, Y.R.; Pennebaker, J.W.
  • Posttraumatic growth: conceptual foundations and empirical evidence
    Tedeschi, R.G.; Calhoun, L.G.
  • Revisiting followership through a social identity perspective: the role of collective follower emotion and action
    Tee, E.Y.; Paulsen, N.; Ashkanasy, N.M.
  • Prosociality and hoarding amid the COVID‐19 pandemic: a tale of four countries
    Tse, D.C.; Lau, V.W.; Hong, Y.Y.; Bligh, M.C.; Kakarika, M.
  • Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences
    Tugade, M.M.; Fredrickson, B.L.
  • Followership theory: a review and research agenda
    Uhl‐Bien, M.; Riggio, R.E.; Lowe, K.B.; Carsten, M.K.
  • Advances in mergers and acquisitions (Advances in Mergers and Acquisitions)
    Ullrich, J.; Dick, R.
  • Using social and behavioural science to support COVID‐19 pandemic response
    Van Bavel, J.J.; Baicker, K.; Boggio, P.S.; Capraro, V.; Cichocka, A.; Cikara, M.; Willer, R.
  • The partisan brain: an identity‐based model of political belief
    Van Bavel, J.J.; Pereira, A.
  • The paranoid style in American politics revisited: an ideological asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking
    Linden, S.; Panagopoulos, C.; Azevedo, F.; Jost, J.T.
  • The empowering potential of intergroup leadership: how intergroup leadership predicts psychological empowerment through intergroup relational identification and resources
    Stoep, J.; Sleebos, E.; Knippenberg, D.; Bunt, G.
  • Procedural fairness and endorsement of prototypical leaders: leader benevolence or follower control?
    Dijke, M.; De Cremer, D.
  • Leader self‐sacrifice and leadership effectiveness: the moderating role of leader prototypicality
    Knippenberg, B.; Knippenberg, D.
  • Embodying who we are: Leader group prototypicality and leadership effectiveness
    Knippenberg, D.
  • A social identity model of leadership effectiveness in organizations
    Knippenberg, D.; Hogg, M.A.
  • Mood of India during Covid‐19‐An interactive web portal based on emotion analysis of Twitter data
    Venigalla, A.S.M.; Chimalakonda, S.; Vagavolu, D.
  • The effects of crisis, cynicism about change, and value congruence on perceptions of authentic leadership and attributed charisma in the 2008 Presidential election
    Williams, E.A.; Pillai, R.; Deptula, B.; Lowe, K.B.
  • Crisis, charisma, values, and voting behavior in the 2004 Presidential election
    Williams, E.A.; Pillai, R.; Lowe, K.B.; Jung, D.; Herst, D.
  • Misery loves company: the spread of negative impacts resulting from an organizational crisis
    Yu, T.; Sengul, M.; Lester, R.H.
  • Examining the role of personal identification with the leader in leadership effectiveness: a partial nomological network
    Zhu, W.; Wang, G.; Zheng, X.; Liu, T.; Miao, Q.