The Psychology of Ethical Leadership in Organisations by Catarina Morais & Georgina Randsley de Moura

Author:Catarina Morais & Georgina Randsley de Moura
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030023249
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Group Reactions to Normative Deviance

As described in detail in the previous chapter, social identity theory proposes that individuals possess an intrinsic motivation to achieve or maintain a positive social identity. Therefore, individuals seek to maintain and maximise a positive intergroup differentiation (McPherson & Smith-Lovin, 2002; Tajfel, 1978) and to validate the normative standards and values of the in-group (Abrams, Randsley de Moura, Hutchinson, & Viki, 2005) to maintain this positive sense of group membership . In-groups are particularly important to the mechanism of reducing uncertainty, as when individuals validate the normative standards of the in-group, their uncertainty about the world is reduced (Abrams & Hogg, 1988, 1990; Abrams et al., 2005; Hogg, 2001; Hogg & Abrams, 2001; Marques & Paéz, 1994). This happens because the individual’s perception that the self and the in-group share the same norms and values reinforces both certainty and intragroup uniformity, this in turn provides a clear sense of how group members should think, feel, and behave (Abrams et al., 2005). Consequently, when a group member acts against these norms—deviates—their actions may threaten this validation and jeopardise positive social identity. When such situations occur, group members engage in a process of subjective group dynamics, whereby they simultaneously differentiate on two levels: intergroup (between in-group and out-group ) and intragroup (between normative and deviant group members) (Marques, Abrams, Páez, & Martinez-Taboada, 1998). Group members who deviate from norms can be responded to in different ways (cf. Kerr & Levine, 2008) and deviance needs to be psychologically managed to avoid the potentially negative impact on the group.

When members from the group violate the norms, the validity of those norms is threatened and, consequently, the uncertainty of group members increases. Once intragroup consensus is perceived as at risk, this threatens the positive image of the group; that is the image that the group is correct and, consequently, better than the relevant out-groups (Abrams et al., 2005; Marques, Abrams, Páez, & Hogg, 2001; Marques, Abrams, & Serôdio, 2001). Two different types of norms can be violated: the descriptive norms, which have the purpose of informing individuals regarding the opinions and behaviours that are more frequent in a specific situation; and the prescriptive norms, which function as a guide that informs individuals regarding the opinions and behaviours that are socially approved, regardless of their frequency (Cialdini & Trost, 1998; Reno, Cialdini, & Kallgreen, 1993). Depending on whether the descriptive or the prescriptive norm was violated, individuals adopt a descriptive or a prescriptive focus, in an attempt, respectively, to either differentiate the in-group from the out-group , or to differentiate specific group members (e.g., deviants, leaders ) whose opinions or behaviours legitimise or undermine the belief of the in-group being superior (Marques & Páez, 2008). So, in other words, group members who conform with the norms are contributing to a positive social identity and, as a consequence, receive approval from the group; and members who deviate from the norms, threaten this positivity and, therefore, trigger negative reactions from the group (Abrams et al.

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