Chapter 6 How and When Leader Behavior Affects Intergroup Liking: Affect, Approval, and Allophilia

We report on research that investigated the emotional mediation of leader behavior on observers’ affinity for the members of a leader's group. Participants (N=181) read a vignette describing the positive, negative, or neutral behaviors of a national leader, and the approval or disapproval of that leader's followers for that behavior. Results revealed that liking (i.e., allophilia) for the leader's followers decreased when the group leader behaved negatively and group members expressed approval for their leader. These changes in allophilia were mediated by the amount of anger experienced by the participant. Implications of these findings for future work on leadership and intergroup relations are discussed.