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Prototypical Leaders Do Not AlwaysGet Our Support: Impact of Self-Uncertainty and Need for CognitionDavid E. Rast IIIa, Michael A. Hoggb & Jessica J. Tomoryb

a Institute of Work Psychology, The Management School,University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UKb Department of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences,Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USAPublished online: 29 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: David E. Rast III, Michael A. Hogg & Jessica J. Tomory (2015) PrototypicalLeaders Do Not Always Get Our Support: Impact of Self-Uncertainty and Need for Cognition, Selfand Identity, 14:2, 135-146, DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2014.964755

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2014.964755

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Prototypical Leaders Do Not Always Get OurSupport: Impact of Self-Uncertainty and Need for

Cognition

David E. Rast III1, Michael A. Hogg2, and Jessica J. Tomory2

1Institute of Work Psychology, The Management School, University of Sheffield,

Sheffield, UK2Department of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University,

Claremont, CA, USA

Social identity theory of leadership research confirms that followers prefer group prototypical tonon-prototypical leaders. Drawing on uncertainty–identity theory, we argue that self-uncertaintyinteracts with need for cognition (NC) to influence this preference. Student participants (N ¼ 100)reported their self-uncertainty and NC before evaluating a prospective prototypical or non-prototypical student leader. We reasoned that self-uncertainty is a cognitive demand causing low NCparticipants to use prototypicality as a leadership heuristic—uncertainty strengthens the leaderprototypicality advantage. In contrast, high NC participants rely less on prototypicality as aheuristic—uncertainty weakens the leader prototypicality advantage. These hypotheses weresupported—elevated uncertainty strengthened the leader prototypicality advantage when NC waslow, but weakened it when NC was high.

Keywords: Leadership; Uncertainty; Social identity; Prototypicality; Need for cognition.

Deciding to support a group leader is an important decision with significant consequences.

Many factors can influence leader support. Social identity theory of leadership research,

for example, confirms that followers prefer prototypical to non-prototypical leaders (for an

overview, see van Knippenberg, 2011). This advantage afforded to prototypical leaders,

however, can be strengthened (Pierro, Cicero, Bonaiuto, van Knippenberg, & Kruglanski,

2005) or weakened (Rast, Gaffney, Hogg, & Crisp, 2012) by situational factors such as

self-related uncertainty. One possible reason why self-uncertainty may differentially

strength or weaken the leader prototypicality advantage is that uncertainty is a cognitive

load (e.g., Proulx & Inzlicht, 2012) to which people respond differently based on their

motivation to process information (i.e., their need for cognition, NC). That is, followers’

leadership preference might be affected by their capacity and motivation to process

prototype-relevant information about their leader in times of heightened uncertainty. This

short article provides an initial examination of how these three factors (uncertainty, NC,

and leader prototypicality) interact to influence leader support.

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

Correspondence should be addressed to: David E. Rast III, Institute of Work Psychology, The Management

School, University of Sheffield, Conduit Road, Sheffield S10 1FL, UK. E-mail: d.rast@sheffield.ac.uk

Received 21 January 2014; accepted 8 September 2014; first published online 29 September 2014.

We would like to thank Jeremy Dawson for his statistical advice and feedback about probing three-way

interactions in moderated regression analyses.

Self and Identity, 2015

Vol. 14, No. 2, 135–146, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2014.964755

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Social Identity Theory of Leadership

Leadership and influence are inextricable. Those who are most influential in a group

usually occupy a leadership role, and the study of effective leadership rests on the social

psychology of effective influence in a group (Hogg, 2010). Because leadership research

over the past several decades has primarily been conducted in the organizational and

management sciences (Goethals, Sorenson, & Burns, 2004), this natural connection

between leadership research and the social psychology of influence within a group has

been decoupled. However, in recent years, this has changed—primarily due to the

influence of the social identity theory of leadership’s focus on leadership as a social

identity and group membership-based influence process (Hogg, 2001; Hogg & van

Knippenberg, 2003; Hogg, van Knippenberg, & Rast, 2012; see also Haslam, Reicher, &

Platow, 2011).

The social identity theory of leadership defines a group prototype as those beliefs,

attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that characterize a group and distinguish it from other

groups. It argues that as group membership becomes subjectively more important as a

basis of self-conception and identity, prototypical ingroup members are perceived as

increasingly more reliable sources than less-prototypical members of group- and social

identity-relevant information. This endows prototypical members with disproportionate

influence over the attitudes, identity, and behavior of other ingroup members—they thus

display leadership. Leader prototypicality refers to the extent to which a leader is

perceived to embody the defining attributes of the group and thus its corresponding social

identity (Hogg, 2001). This differs from other social-cognitive theories of leadership (e.g.,

leader categorization theory, Lord & Hall, 2003), which define leader prototypicality as

the degree to which a leader matches a global or more situation- and task-specific schema

or stereotype of effective leadership (e.g., people generally think masculine leader

attributes are superior to feminine leader attributes; see Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, &

Ristikari, 2011).

The most basic hypothesis of the social identity theory of leadership is that when group

membership is salient, important, and central to self-definition, effective leadership

increasingly hinges on the extent to which other members consider the leader to be a

prototypical member of the group. Members assess the leader’s prototypicality and

support prototypical leaders more than less prototypical leaders, and view them as being

more effective. Numerous lab and field studies convincingly confirm this prediction (for

review, see Hogg et al., 2012; van Knippenberg, 2011).

The social identity theory of leadership is framed by social identity theory’s meta-

theory (Abrams & Hogg, 2010), and grounded in the cognitive focus of self-categorization

theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) and its analysis of identity-

based influence processes in groups (e.g., Abrams & Hogg, 1990; Hogg & Turner, 1987).

Despite these cognitive credentials (cf. Rosch, 1978; Turner, 1982; Turner, Oakes,

Haslam, &McGarty, 1994) of the social identity theory of leadership, cognition is rarely if

ever discussed in regards to leader prototypicality and leader preference (see van

Knippenberg (2011) for a comprehensive summary and example).

Self-Uncertainty and NC

In this article, we examine how self-uncertainty and NC moderate preferential support for

prototypical over non-prototypical leaders. Uncertainty–identity theory (Hogg, 2007,

2012) argues that feelings of uncertainty, particularly about or related to self-conception

and identity, are aversive and people are motivated to reduce such uncertainty. Identifying

D. E. Rast III et al.136

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more strongly with one’s group is an effective way of doing this because social

categorization of self and others depersonalizes attitudes, feelings, and behaviors around a

group’s prototype. Groups provide a social identity that renders self and others relatively

predictable, while providing a clear and prescriptive definition of attitudes, values,

boundaries, and behaviors for its members. It is through this cognitive-motivational

process that uncertainty is reduced. There is now substantial evidence for these processes,

and in particular that self-uncertainty strengthens group identification (for review, see

Hogg, 2007, 2012).

Research confirms that self-uncertainty moderates the relationship between leader

prototypicality and support. However, the nature of the moderation is unclear—findings

are inconsistent (for in-depth discussion that goes beyond the scope of the current article,

see Hogg et al., 2012; Rast, in press). For example, focusing on dispositional factors

associated with a desire to reduce uncertainty [i.e., need for cognitive closure (NCC)1],

Pierro et al. (2005) found that uncertainty strengthened preference for a prototypical

leader, amplifying the leadership advantage of being prototypical. Conversely, when

focusing directly on self-related uncertainty, Rast et al. (2012) found that increased

uncertainty weakened (and even negated) the leader prototypicality advantage.

This discrepancy suggests that the role of uncertainty in leadership support may itself

be moderated by some other variable. One possibility lies in how uncertainty impacts

cognitive capacity or is affected by people’s cognitive processing motivation. That is, the

effect of uncertainty on prototype-based leadership judgments might be affected by

people’s orientation towards cognition—the extent to which they enjoy and are

comfortable with expending cognitive effort or prefer to rely on heuristics. The NC

(Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Petty, Brinol, Loersch, & McCaslin, 2009) may play a role.

However, as mentioned earlier, the cognitive-motivational aspect of the social identity

framework is relatively underexplored. Uncertainty–identity theory provides a possible

resolution to integrate persuasion research to help address this nexus. Self-uncertainty

makes group membership more self-definitionally important and thus redirects cognitive

resources from other activities onto evaluating self and group membership—people need

to spend disproportionately more cognitive effort on self-evaluation. This reasoning is

consistent with recent research demonstrating that uncertainty can impair or bottleneck

cognitive and neurological responses (Proulx & Inzlicht, 2012; Tullett et al., 2013).

In conjunction with the well-supported idea that people have limited cognitive processing

capacity (e.g., Miller, 1956), it is not implausible to assume that self-uncertainty is a

cognitive load (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and therefore it is experienced and

reacted to differently as a function of NC. That is, leadership preference should be affected

differently by followers’ motivation or desire to processes prototype-relevant information

(i.e., NC) in times of heightened uncertainty, which impairs their cognitive capacity.

People with high NC enjoy expending cognitive effort thinking about, processing, and

elaborating information in a systematic manner, whereas those with low NC prefer to

avoid expending cognitive effort in this way and instead prefer to come quickly to a

decision through reliance on heuristics. Given that self-uncertainty accentuates people’s

need for leadership to give direction to self-definition, (a) low NC would be expected to

encourage greater automatic reliance on how prototypical the leader is (cf. Pierro et al.’s

2005 finding), whereas (b) high NC would encourage less automatic reliance on how

prototypical the leader is, and more careful, deliberative and critical consideration of

prototype-related information to ascertain the group’s prototype (see Rast et al.’s 2012

finding).

This rationale is consistent with recent advances in the elaboration likelihood model

and metacognitive model of persuasion (Petty & Brinol, in press). Horcajo, Brinol, and

Leadership and Uncertainty 137

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Petty argued for and found that “source status affects persuasion by serving as a simple

peripheral validity cue under low-elaboration conditions, and by validating thoughts—a

metacognitive process—under high-elaboration conditions” (2012, p. 1). Followers are

likely to equally think about the merits of the leader regardless of his/her group

position, and are less likely to derogate the source/leader based on biased or

illegitimate reasons, such as the source’s group status (e.g., Tormala, DeSensi, & Petty,

2007). In short, when presented with a single leadership option, high NC followers

are likely to put more thought and effort into their leader preference decision, and

be relatively supportive of a prototypical and non-prototypical in heightened

uncertainty.

The Present Study

To test this general hypothesis, we conducted an experiment with three predictor

variables—we measured participants’ feelings of self-uncertainty and their NC, and used a

text-based vignette to manipulate leader prototypicality. The dependent variable was a

measure of how strongly participants would support their leader. Consistent with the social

identity theory of leadership and with previous research, we predicted (H1) a main effect

for leader prototypicality—participants would support the prototypical leader more than

the non-prototypical leader.

Our key novel prediction (H2) was that this effect would be moderated by the

interaction of self-uncertainty and NC, both of which have been shown to differentially

and independently impact judgments about group prototypes: the effect would be

accentuated by self-uncertainty among those low in NC (greater reliance on

prototypicality as a heuristic), mainly due to elevated support for a prototypical leader;

and attenuated by uncertainty among those high in NC (less reliance on prototypicality as a

heuristic), mainly due to depressed support for a prototypical leader.

Method

Participants and Design

Participants were 34 male and 57 female students (9 participants did not indicate their sex;

N ¼ 100; see the “Discussion” section for discussion of sample size) from a consortium of

five small liberal arts colleges in southern California. They ranged in age from 18 to 29

with a mean age of 20 years. The majority self-reported being Caucasian (n ¼ 51), Asian-

American (n ¼ 14), and Hispanic-American (n ¼ 11), with the rest falling into smaller

ethnic/racial categories. The research was introduced as a study of student evaluations of

student leader candidates for an on-campus, student–faculty liaison position. There were

three predictor variables: the NC and self-uncertainty were measured, and leader

prototypicality was manipulated (high vs low). The dependent variable was a multi-item

measure of leader support.

Procedure

Participants were recruited at a campus dining hall by a member of the research team and

asked to participate in a study regarding a student leader candidate for a student–faculty

liaison position. Those who agreed were provided with the experimental materials.

First, they rated how uncertain they felt—a six-item scale modified from previous

uncertainty–identity theory research (e.g., Hogg, 2007; Rast et al., 2012; Rast, Hogg, &

D. E. Rast III et al.138

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Giessner, 2013). Items included “How uncertain do you feel about the kind of person you

are?” and “How uncertain are you about your place in society as a whole?” (1 ¼ not very

much, 9 ¼ very much, a ¼ .79). Next, participants completed the standard 18-item NC

questionnaire (Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984). They responded to statements such as “I

prefer complex to simple problems” and “Thinking is not my idea of fun” (reverse-coded),

with 1 ¼ extremely uncharacteristic, 9 ¼ extremely characteristic, a ¼ .88.

Participants then read about and evaluated a student leader ostensibly to provide the

University’s Office of Career Services feedback about the type of student leader to be

selected for a newly created student–faculty liaison position at the university. Participants

were randomly assigned to read a statement from either a prototypical (78 words) or non-

prototypical (75 words) student leader candidate. The candidate was described as sharing

attributes with and being typical and representative of other students at the university, or as

not sharing so many attributes and being less typical of other students. This slighted

revised manipulation of leader prototypicality has been successfully used in previously

published research (for details, see Rast et al., 2012). After reading this short passage,

participants evaluated their support for the leader on seven items adapted from previous

research (Rast et al., 2012; Rast et al., 2013). They responded to statements such as “This

student will be a very effective student leader if selected for a leadership position” and

“I will be a strong supporter of this student, if he/she is elected for the leadership position,”

with 1 ¼ strongly disagree, 9 ¼ strongly agree, a ¼ .95.

Because the prototypicality manipulation has been successfully piloted and employed

in previously published research (see Rast et al., 2012), it was checked by only a single

item adapted from van Knippenberg and van Knippenberg’s (2005) leader prototypicality

scale: “this student leader is representative of a typical student at your college”

(1 ¼ strongly disagree, 9 ¼ strongly agree). Finally, participants provided demographic

information, and were then thanked and debriefed.

Results

There were three predictor variables (self-uncertainty and NC were measured, leader

prototypicality was manipulated), a prototypicality manipulation check, and one

dependent variable (a multi-item measure of support for the leader). Following Aiken

and West (1991), predictor variables were mean-centered, interaction terms were

calculated, and simple slopes analyses were conducted for significant interactions. Table 1

displays reliabilities, means, SDs and inter-correlations of these variables. Nine of the 100

participants failed to complete the questionnaire and were removed from the regression

analysis via listwise deletion.

TABLE 1 Reliabilities, Means, SDs, and Inter-Correlation of All Variables

Variable a M SD 2 3 4 5

1. Leader prototypicality – 1.51 .50 .10 .01 .22* .32**2. Uncertainty (six items) .79 3.64 1.47 – 2 .22* .18 .043. Need for cog (18 items) .88 6.25 1.11 – 2 .13 .084. Leader support (seven items) .95 4.95 1.73 – .49**5. Manip check (one item) – 5.26 2.34 –

Notes: Means (N ¼ 100) can take values between 1 and 9, with 9 indicating more of the propertydescribed, except for leader prototypicality, which is a binary variable with values of 1 (non-prototypical) and 2 (prototypical). * p , .05, **p , .01.

Leadership and Uncertainty 139

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Background Variables and Manipulation Checks

The regression of age, gender, ethnicity and other background variables revealed no

significant effects on leader support; these variables were excluded from subsequent

analyses. The regression of prototypicality, uncertainty, and NC onto the prototypicality

check revealed only one significant effect—for the prototypicality manipulation, b ¼ .32,

t(87) ¼ 3.16, p ¼ .002. The manipulation was effective and clean—the prototypical

leader was considered significantly more prototypical than the non-prototypical leader

(Ms ¼ 6.00 and 4.50).

Leader Support

Hierarchical linear regression (see Table 2) of leader prototypicality, uncertainty, and NC

onto leader support was marginally significant at Step 1, R 2 ¼ .08, F(3, 87) ¼ 2.57,

p ¼ .06. As predicted under H1, participants supported the prototypical leader

significantly more strongly than the non-prototypical leader (b ¼ .21, t(87) ¼ 1.97,

p ¼ .05). Uncertainty and NC were not significantly associated with leader support.

Uncertainty and NC were, however, significantly and negatively correlated (r ¼ 2 .22,

p ¼ .032), supporting the notion that self-uncertainty is a cognitive demand. Inclusion of

the two-way interactions at Step 2 did not account for significant additional variance

(R 2 ¼ .11, DR 2 ¼ .03, F(3, 84) ¼ 0.78, p ¼ .51), but inclusion of the three-way

interaction at Step 3 did, R 2 ¼ .14, DR 2 ¼ .05, F(1, 83) ¼ 4.23, p ¼ .043.

As predicted under H2, the three-way interaction between leader prototypicality,

uncertainty, and NC accounted for significant variance in leader support, b ¼ 2 .22,

t(83) ¼ 2.06, p ¼ .043 (see Figure 1). Analyses of simple slopes revealed as predicted

under H2 that among low NC participants (Figure 1, Panel A), uncertainty significantly

strengthened support for the prototypical leader (b ¼ .55, t(83) ¼ 2.51, p ¼ .014). The

relationship between prototypicality and support was not significant under low uncertainty

but became marginally significantly positive under high uncertainty (b ¼ .33,

t(83) ¼ 1.70, p ¼ .09). Also as predicted under H2, among high NC participants

(Figure 1, Panel B) the positive relationship between prototypicality and support was

significant under low uncertainty (b ¼ .36, t(83) ¼ 2.03, p ¼ .045), but attenuated to non-

significance under high uncertainty. The attenuation was due to a non-significant increase

in support for the non-prototypical leader and a reduction in support for the prototypical

leader. This pattern of results is consistent with the pattern predicted under H2. No other

TABLE 2 Hierarchical Linear Regression for Leader Prototypicality, Uncertainty, and Need forCognition onto Leader Support at Step 3 with All Main Effects, Two-Interactions, and Three-WayInteraction in the Model

Variable R 2 DR 2 F b SE b t

Final step .15 .08 4.23Leader prototypicality .49 .18 .14 1.34Uncertainty .19 .13 .16 1.43Need for cognition 2 .12 .17 2 .08 2 .71ProtoXUnc .24 .26 .10 .90UncXNC 2 .11 .10 2 .11 21.10ProtoXNC .37 .33 .12 1.11ProtoXUncXNC* 2 .42 .21 2 .22 22.06

Notes: Although not depicted in this table, Step 1 included all main effects, Step 2 included the maineffects and the three two-interactions, and Step 3 included the main effects, the three two-wayinteractions, and the three-way interaction. *p , .05.

D. E. Rast III et al.140

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simple slopes were statistically significant. Simple interaction analyses (Hayes, 2013)

indicated that the interaction between leader prototypicality and uncertainty was

significant among low NC (21 SD), b ¼ .71, SE ¼ .35, t ¼ 2.00, p , .05, but not high

NC followers (þ1 SD), b ¼ 2 .24, SE ¼ .34, t ¼ 20.71, ns. Condition effects analysis

further revealed the main effect of leader prototypicality was significant only for high NC

followers (þ1 SD) at low (21 SD; b ¼ 1.26, SE ¼ .51, t ¼ 2.04, p , .05) and moderate

(þ0 SD; b ¼ .91, SE ¼ .51, t ¼ 1.79, p ¼ .07) levels of self-uncertainty.

Following recent recommendations (Dawson & Richter, 2006), we further explored the

moderation effect to test the a priori three-way interaction hypothesis. This procedure

allows us to compare one simple slope against another (analogous to simple main effects

testing in ANOVA). We hypothesized that high uncertainty would strengthen the leader

prototypicality advantage when NC was low, but weaken it when NC was high. That is, we

expected a significant slope difference in the high leader prototypicality and low NC

versus high leader prototypicality and high NC slopes as a function of increased

uncertainty. This is precisely what we found (t ¼ 22.15, p ¼ .035) and is consistent with

the simple slope analyses in supporting H2.

Previous research demonstrates that messages from or information about prototypical

ingroup members is processed centrally while information about or messages from

Panel A: Low Need for Cognition

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Non-prototypical Prototypical

Lead

er S

uppo

rt

Leader prototypicality

High uncertaintyLow uncertainty

Panel B: High Need for Cognition

High uncertaintyLow uncertainty

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Non-prototypical Prototypical

Lead

er S

uppo

rt

Leader prototypicality

FIGURE 1 Leader support as a function of leader prototypicality for high and low

uncertainty participants.

Leadership and Uncertainty 141

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outgroup or non-prototypical ingroup members are processed peripherally (McGarty,

Haslam, Hutchinson, & Turner, 1994; van Knippenberg & Wilke, 1992). We only found

this effect under low uncertainty. A significant slope difference emerged between the low

uncertainty and high prototypicality versus low uncertainty and low prototypicality slopes

as NC increased, t ¼ 2.28, p ¼ .025.

Discussion

The social identity theory of leadership focuses on the identity function of leadership

(Hogg et al., 2012). Because followers look to their leaders to clarify the group’s attributes

and thus its members’ social identity, followers pay greater attention to and are influenced

more by leaders who are prototypical of the group than those who are not—prototypical

leaders are supported more strongly than non-prototypical leaders. There is substantial

empirical support for this basic prediction.

We drew on uncertainty–identity theory (Hogg, 2012) and the construct of NC

(Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) to investigate how self-uncertainty and NC interact to affect the

leadership advantage of prototypicality. We reasoned that self-uncertainty would be

experienced as a cognitive demand (e.g., Proulx & Inzlicht, 2012; Tversky & Kahneman,

1974) because it invites cogitation, and that how people deal with this depends on their NC.

Those with low NC prefer to avoid expending cognitive effort and instead come

quickly to a decision through reliance on heuristics—under self-uncertainty they would

rely more strongly on prototypicality as a basis of their leadership support. In contrast

those with high NC enjoy expending cognitive effort thinking about, processing, and

elaborating information—under uncertainty they would rely less on prototypicality as a

heuristic guiding their leadership support. In both cases, uncertainty might have a slightly

stronger effect on prototypical than non-prototypical leader support as group membership

would also be salient.

We tested this analysis by measuring self-uncertainty and NC, and manipulating leader

prototypicality to investigate their effects on leader support. As predicted, and in line with

previous research, there was indeed a significant leadership advantage in being viewed as

prototypical (H1). However, this main effect was significantly moderated as hypothesized

(H2)—among low NC participants, self-uncertainty greatly strengthened support for the

prototypical leader and thus accentuated the leadership advantage of being a prototypical

leader. Among high NC participants, uncertainty erased the leadership advantage of being

prototypical, due to some weakening of support for the prototypical leader and

strengthening of support for the non-prototypical leader.

The finding that uncertainty strengthened low NC participants’ support for a

prototypical leader is consistent with related research by Pierro et al. (2005) where NCC

was associated with increased prototypical leader support (NCC is an epistemic motivation

that is weakly related to, but distinct from, the NC—Webster & Kruglanski, 1994).

The results of our study were supportive of our hypotheses, and overall conceptual

analysis. However, although the key three-way interaction was significant as predicted, not

all predicted simple main effects within the interaction were statistically significant—one

very obvious reason for this is our relatively small sample. The only puzzling finding was

that the low uncertainty, low NC participants did not show significant preference for the

prototypical leader. There is no obvious reason why they did not behave like their high NC

counterparts who did show the expected significant preference for the prototypical leader.

It could simply be that the conjunction of low self-evaluative load (low self-uncertainty)

and little general inclination to reflect deeply (low NC) reduced overall processing of the

group leadership-related information as a whole that was presented in the study.

D. E. Rast III et al.142

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The present study shows that prototypical leaders of self-relevant groups are not always

supported more than non-prototypical leaders. Self-uncertainty, which is typically

associated with increased group identification (Hogg, 2007, 2012), plays a role. For

example, a pair of studies by Rast et al. (2012) has shown that leadership evaluations of a

non-prototypical leader were significantly improved by self-uncertainty, but only when

such a leader was evaluated alone and not in comparison to a prototypical leader.

However, in the present study, self-uncertainty plays a slightly different role, not the

simple identification-mediated role one might expect (i.e., strengthening prototype-based

leadership support). Rather it can play a more cognitive role associated with the fact that

high self-uncertainty involves greater cognitive work than low self-uncertainty. As such,

people’s orientation towards cognition, their level of NC, affects the way they address

elevated self-uncertainty—low NC favors prototype-based leadership support, more than

does high NC. Importantly, the results also provide a potential boundary condition

regarding when prototype-relevant information will be processed and elaborated

systematically versus heuristically. The findings demonstrate how uncertainty–identity

theory (Hogg, 2007) stipulates when these interactive effects will emerge.

This research also addresses the under-exploration of the cognitive-motivational aspect

of the social identity framework. The limited research in this area has produced mixed

findings. On the one hand, researchers have shown that prototype-relevant leadership

information may be processed centrally rather than heuristically (McGarty et al., 1994;

van Knippenberg & Wilke, 1992). On the other hand, it has been argued that prototype-

based leadership judgments may rely on prototypicality as a heuristic that circumvents

more laborious systematic inductive information processing (e.g., Leicht, Crisp, &

Randsley de Moura, 2013). Our findings show that uncertainty moderates how people

process prototype-relevant information centrally versus heuristically. We found support

for he former only when uncertainty was low, but support for the latter among low NC

followers when uncertainty was high.

A promising new direction to take this research on the more cognitive impact of

uncertainty on leadership evaluation and support invokes the language and logic of

Blascovich’s biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat (Blascovich & Tomaka,

1996). If self-uncertainty is considered a cognitive demand then, when we believe our

cognitive resources to deal with the demand are adequate, we feel a cognitively enriched

sense of challenge. But when we believe our resources are inadequate, we feel a

cognitively constrained sense of threat. Future research could manipulate uncertainty in

the context of another cognitive resource variable that affects whether uncertainty is

subjectively experienced as a challenge or a threat. The NC may be one such variable, but

others might include the availability or complexity of identity-related information, or the

extent to which people have a complex or simple identity structure that provides

alternative identities (e.g., Roccas & Brewer, 2002). Threat might be associated with

greater reliance on prototypicality as a leadership support heuristic, whereas challenge

might be associated with more deliberative leadership assessment in which prototypes are

less relied on or in which prototype information is more exhaustively considered.

There are some limitations in the current study. A sample size of 100 might be

considered “small” for testing a three-way interaction in regression. Studies with smaller

samples can produce artificial effects, particularly if these studies employ scales with low

reliability, examine relationships with small effect sizes, have a poor N to k ratio, or if

multicollinearity is problematic (Aguinis & Stone-Romero, 1997; Evans, 1985). However,

recent research demonstrates that smaller sample sizes can be accurate when the

previously mentioned shortcomings are absent (e.g., Dawson & Richter, 2006). This is

true of the current study where the sample size is considered small but the measures are

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moderately to highly reliable, effect sizes are medium to large, and the key variables are

not significantly intercorrelated.

Another possible limitation is the focus on potential or emerging leaders, rather than

incumbent leaders. Changing the status of the leader from an emerging to an incumbent

leader would likely affect the results. For example, Abrams, Randsley de Moura, Marques,

and Hutchison (2008) found that newly appointed or future leaders were given more

leeway to be innovative—this ‘innovation credit’ is not accrued by established or

incumbent leaders. The present findings are also in line with findings in the attitude change

literature, where NC is a trait often examined within the Elaboration Likelihood Model:

NC is typically associated with attitude change, but not necessarily attitude formation

(Petty & Wegener, 1998). For instance, one could predict that if people have not yet

formed an attitude about their leader, then they will be more lenient when evaluating a

deviant, anti-normative, or non-prototypical leader than when evaluating a leader about

whom they already have formed an attitude. The attitude formation and leadership

literatures have yet to be empirically tested in conjunction, and thus future research would

benefit from exploring the overlap between them. The present study provides initial

evidence showing how self-uncertainty, NC, and leader prototypicality interact to affect

leader evaluations, irrespective of the source’s message. Given the preliminary nature of

the present study integrating leadership and attitude change research, many directions are

available for future research, such as examining whether a leader is advocating a strong

versus weak message further moderates our findings.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the research reported in this article accomplishes two significant objectives:

(a) it adds to a growing literature identifying conditions under which the leadership

advantage of being prototypical in a salient group is diminished and (b) it represents the

first empirical test of an extension of uncertainty–identity theory that argues that the

effects of self-uncertainty on group behavior, including leadership evaluations and

support, may be different as a function of people’s level of NC. Returning to our opening

questions, we can now say that being a group prototypical leader is advantageous,

particularly where followers are self-uncertain and have a low NC. But, being prototypical

is less advantageous where followers are self-uncertain and have a high NC.

Note

1. NC and NCC have been examined, and compared/contrasted by others (e.g., Webster &

Kruglanski, 1994), as have NCC and self-uncertainty (Hogg, 2007). We do not wish to add

to this discussion. Need for cognitive closure is an epistemic motivation related to one’s

desire for order, rules, stability, and predictability. This is different from our

conceptualization of NC and self-uncertainty, and we do not wish to further discuss the

relationship between these variables.

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