Social norms-based interventions offer a promising avenue to encourage proenvironmental behavior change. From a social identity perspective, it is argued that social norms communications will be ...maximally effective when they are tied to salient group memberships and supportive ingroup norms are communicated. Across four studies conducted in a water scarce region in England we demonstrate that a water conservation ingroup norms appeal encourages a shift in behavioral intentions and behavior. We provide initial evidence of the efficacy of the appeal against an information-only message (Study 1) and the mediating role of perceived ingroup norms (Study 2). Across two randomized control field trials, we find the appeal is more effective than a general social norms appeal (Study 3) and that sign-ups to a water-savings program significantly increase when the appeal is integrated into existing promotional materials (Study 4). We conclude by discussing how these insights can offer new perspectives on proenvironmental behavior change.
•Normative messages should focus on the norms of behaviorally-relevant ingroups.•An ingroup norms appeal motivates water conservation behavioral intentions and behavior.•Effects are explained by changes in perceived norms.•Effects are investigated across four studies, including two field experiments.
Group identification can be both beneficial (a “social cure”) and detrimental (a “social curse”) for performance and well-being, which makes it crucial to explore its boundary conditions. Building on ...the norm enactment hypothesis and the influence hypothesis, we propose the group’s achievement norms as one such boundary condition. We argue that group identification predicts higher well-being and task performance if achievement norms are average, but lower well-being and task performance if achievement norms are very high. The results of a laboratory experiment ( N = 163) partially supported our propositions for task-related stress, but not for task performance and other well-being indicators. Additionally, exploratory analyses showed a moderated indirect effect on task performance such that group identification predicted more task-related stress when achievement norms were very high (but not when they were average), which, in turn, predicted lower task performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical relevance of these findings.
We examined the conditions under which workplace ostracism promotes prosocial reactions (i.e., helping behavior) and deters antisocial behavior (i.e., social loafing). Using data from 213 employees ...and their direct supervisors, we found that when group identification is strong, workplace ostracism increases the helping behavior and decreases the social loafing of employees. Moreover, we found that employees’ tenure further moderates this effect; for those employees who have a strong group identification and long tenure, the positive association of ostracism and helping behavior is the strongest.
Drawing on social identity theory, we present an integrative framework that simultaneously examines the beneficial intragroup effects and detrimental intergroup effects of leader group ...prototypicality. We use multiphase, multisource, multilevel data to show that leader group prototypicality strengthens group members’ group identification, which, in turn, drives group members to achieve better group performance and to show less engagement in intergroup citizenship behavior. Moreover, relative leader power influences the strength of the relationship between leader group prototypicality and its positive and negative outcomes. Implications for the leadership literature and management practices are discussed.
ABSTRACT
We conduct an experiment to examine the effects of multi-level group identification on intergroup helping behavior. We predict and find that stronger identification with a sub-group and a ...superordinate group—separately and interactively—increase helping behavior. We provide evidence that the relationships between stronger identification and helping behavior operate in part through increased salience of superordinate group boundaries, perceived potential benefits to one's own group of intergroup helping, and positive affect. Collectively, our findings illustrate the importance of understanding how individuals identify with the different groups naturally present in organizations and highlight how identification can be used as an informal control to motivate important organizational behaviors. Such an understanding can help firms determine the best organizational hierarchy, develop communication and control strategies to build identification at appropriate levels, and establish evaluation and compensation systems that measure and reward outcomes in a manner that accounts for these group effects.
Experimental information on the O 1s spectra of GO by X-ray photoelectron spectrometry is limited and this will prove to be a liability when analyzing samples that have high carbon to oxygen ratios. ...Here, the binding energy (B.E.) information of electrons from the O 1s orbital of oxygen atoms in different functional groups were identified by characterizing GO in an in-situ heating and characterization experiment, performed in a vacuum between 473 and 573K, and chemically modified GO. The B.E.s of the O 1s electrons in hydroxyls, epoxides, carbonyls and carboxyls on GO were determined and carboxyl formation on GO was found to occur between 543 and 561K. Here, carboxyl formation is a decrease in the proportion of oxygen atoms bound to GO as hydroxyls and epoxides groups, accompanied by a greater than proportional increase in the proportion of oxygen atoms bound as carboxyls, and this results in the formation of vacancies on the graphene basal plane.
•Identification of functional groups in graphene oxide from O 1s spectra•Identification of carboxylation temperature regime in graphene oxide•Verification of the functional groups by chemical modification of GO
Identity fusion is a relatively unexplored form of alignment with groups that entails a visceral feeling of oneness with the group. This feeling is associated with unusually porous, highly permeable ...borders between the personal and social self. These porous borders encourage people to channel their personal agency into group behavior, raising the possibility that the personal and social self will combine synergistically to motivate pro-group behavior. Furthermore, the strong personal as well as social identities possessed by highly fused persons cause them to recognize other group members not merely as members of the group but also as unique individuals, prompting the development of strong relational as well as collective ties within the group. In local fusion, people develop relational ties to members of relatively small groups (e.g., families or work teams) with whom they have personal relationships. In extended fusion, people project relational ties onto relatively large collectives composed of many individuals with whom they may have no personal relationships. The research literature indicates that measures of fusion are exceptionally strong predictors of extreme pro-group behavior. Moreover, fusion effects are amplified by augmenting individual agency, either directly (by increasing physiological arousal) or indirectly (by activating personal or social identities). The effects of fusion on pro-group actions are mediated by perceptions of arousal and invulnerability. Possible causes of identity fusion-ranging from relatively distal, evolutionary, and cultural influences to more proximal, contextual influences-are discussed. Finally, implications and future directions are considered.
A key prediction of uncertainty-identity theory is that under conditions of high self-uncertainty, people will identify more strongly with their group. This has been supported by numerous studies. To ...quantify this relationship, a meta-analysis was conducted on 35 studies from 30 papers (N = 4,657). The relationship between self-uncertainty and group identification varied significantly as a function of how psychologically real the uncertainty was, as reflected in how uncertainty was operationalized and how the study was conducted. Self-uncertainty operationalized as social identity uncertainty had the strongest relationship with identification (r = −.26, 6.8% variance accounted for), followed by indirect operationalization of self-uncertainty (r = .23, 5.3% variance accounted for), and direct operationalization of self-uncertainty (r = .14, 2.0% variance accounted for). The relationship did not differ between measured self-uncertainty (r = −.13, 1.7% variance accounted for) and manipulated self-uncertainty (r = .17, 2.9% variance accounted for). Implications and future directions are discussed.
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