Leadership Endorsement: The Role of Distributive and Procedural Behavior in Interpersonal and Intergroup Contexts

Previous research (Platow, Hoar, Reid, Harley, & Morrison, 1997) showed that the difference in the strength of endorsements provided for a distributively fair over an unfair leader in interpersonal contexts attenuates when the unfairness is ingroup-favoring in intergroup contexts. We extended this to the realm of procedural fairness, and manipulated a leader's distributive fairness, procedural fairness, and the interpersonal versus intergroup context of these behaviors. Results revealed independent intergroup attenuation effects as a function of distributive and procedural fairness; procedural fairness did not moderate the distributive fairness by social context interaction. These findings are discussed within a social identity framework.