Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do Groups Shape Identity and Collective Action?
Connect perceived representativeness with the identity and performance distinctions developed so far.
Why you’re reading it. Examine leadership as a relationship within a group.
A question to consider. How could a popular spokesperson represent members well while making poor collective decisions?
Why this reading
Leadership depends partly on who seems to represent a group. Hogg explains how shared identity can shape perceived influence, acceptance, and the emergence of differentiated leader and follower roles.
Before you read
A prototype captures what makes a group distinctive in a context; it need not be the average member. Social attraction here concerns liking someone as a representative of the group. Attribution concerns how influence is explained.
Read for
- Trace the separate steps from prototypicality to acceptance and attributed influence.
- Ask when group identification should strengthen those relationships.
- Distinguish evidence for particular predictions from the proposed model as a whole.
Consider afterwards
- A spokesperson gains support after a group's priorities change. What would distinguish representativeness from expertise or control of resources?
Editorial context
Evidence available in 2001 was stronger for some parts of the model than others. A later meta-analysis examines prototypicality and leadership outcomes across conditions. Acceptance, task effectiveness, and ethical conduct remain separate questions: representing a group does not guarantee either competence or responsible leadership.