"A right to lead": The role of leader legitimacy on group reactions to transgressive leadership

Research on the transgression credit shows that groups may sometimes turn a blind eye to ingroup leaders who transgress moral norms. Although there is substantial research investigating the underlying criteria of what makes a “good” leader, research often neglects to investigate the role of followers in leader-group dynamics. In this paper, we offer a novel approach to transgressive leadership by proposing that leader legitimacy is a key factor that determines whether followers’ reactions to transgres-sive leaders are positive or negative. Across two experiments, participants ascribed transgression credit only to transgressive ingroup leaders perceived as legitimate (Studies 1– 2, total n = 308). Transgressive illegitimate leaders were viewed as more threatening to the group, were targeted for formal punishment, received less validation for their behavior, triggered negative emotions (anger and shame), and raised higher consensus for their removal from the leadership position than did legitimate leaders. This effect also occurred irrespective of the absence of formal social control measures implemented toward the transgressive leader (Study 2). Mediation analysis showed that leader illegitimacy triggered stronger feelings of group threat and stronger negative emotions which, consequently, fuelled agreement with collective protest against the transgressive leader. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

understanding which processes drive groups to accept versus punish their own transgressive leaders.In this paper, we report two studies testing the hypothesis that leader legitimacy shapes followers' perceptions of leader transgressions which, in turn, affect the acceptance versus punishment of transgressive leaders.

| Transgressive leadership
Transgressive leadership is perceived as morally questionable behavior that goes beyond mere opinion deviance, which may involve breaking laws or rules within a common social context (Abrams et al., 2013).These transgressions can be perceived to be driven by leaders' selfish, dishonest, or discriminatory attitudes (Kim et al., 2006;Mayer et al., 1995).However, whereas followers are usually punished for adopting similar behavior, ingroup leaders are often exempt from the same punishment (Abrams et al., 2013).Indeed, research on the transgression credit demonstrated that transgressive ingroup leaders tend to be treated leniently compared to similarly transgressive outgroup leaders and ingroup or outgroup regular members (Abrams et al., 2013;Randsley de Moura & Abrams, 2013).
Considering that leaders usually embody the group prototype (e.g., Hogg, 2001;Hogg et al., 1998Hogg et al., , 2012)), a negative reaction toward ingroup leaders could be perceived as a negative reaction toward the group itself.In this sense, tolerating an ingroup leader's transgression may be seen as an act of group loyalty (Abrams et al., 2013).This is not always the case.For example, transgressive ingroup leaders are depreciated when they are perceived to threaten members' social identity (Abrams et al., 2014).This might be because disruptions in leadership, like challenges or violations of the group's values, can reflect a flaw of the group itself and threaten the group's identity (Balser & Carmin, 2009).These feelings of threat can elicit hostile emotions, like anger (Lerner et al., 2003;Sadler et al., 2005), subsequently fuelling spontaneous and impulsive aggressive behaviors (van Stekelenburg et al., 2011).This suggests that followers can sometimes perceive transgressive ingroup leaders as threatening to their group, which may elicit derogatory and punitive reactions from the group.However, it is not yet clear what leads followers to feel threatened by transgressive leaders as opposed to tolerating their transgression.Based on previous evidence highlighting the importance of leader legitimacy on leader evaluation and endorsement, we propose that leader legitimacy will function as an important boundary condition for understanding how and when transgressive ingroup leaders pose a threat to the group.

| Leader legitimacy
Legitimacy is a psychological attribute that allows leaders to gather the support of followers, because their power is seen as both deserved and justified (Caddick, 1982;Tyler, 2006).This attribute constitutes the basis for leader selection in democratic systems (e.g., election of political leaders), and it is ultimately linked with leaders' standing with their followers (Bass & Bass, 2009).Some have initially argued that the process of legitimacy begins with the form of ascension to the leadership role, as elected leaders generally create higher expectations than appointed leaders (Julian et al., 1969).
However, significant research has also shown that leaders' legitimacy is acknowledged by followers through the display of trustworthiness, credibility, competence, fairness, and previous task success, rather than by simply exercising authority (Ratcliff & Vescio, 2017;Tyler, 2006;Vial et al., 2016;Willis et al., 2010).
The crucial aspect of legitimacy is the underlying belief that decisions made by the legitimate authorities are considered valid and entitled to be obeyed by virtue of the legitimate figure (Tyler, 2006).In this sense, legitimacy becomes a requirement for a leader's ability to exert influence and power, which ultimately creates a sense of duty and obligation amongst followers (Levi et al., 2009).This readiness to accept and comply with legitimate leaders (Magee & Frasier, 2014;Tyler, 2002) can even overcome followers' moral standards, such as when followers give leaders the power to determine what is right and wrong (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989).Therefore, it is possible that transgressive leaders escape punishment when they are legitimated within the group.In contrast, it is likely that followers are motivated to challenge illegitimate leaders' authority and support more punitive measures toward their transgressive behavior.

| Social control and collective protest
Social control is typically the act of punishing group members who violate important social or group-specific norms (e.g., ingroup deviants), which can be a major way for a group to control and attenuate the potential damage caused to the group, and to reinforce adherence to social norms (Erikson, 1964;Gibbs, 1977;Levine, 1989;Marques et al., 2001;van Prooijen, 2018).However, when the group's social control mechanisms are perceived to be ineffective, group members shift to participation and endorsement of non-normative collective actions-informal measures to control or punish the offenders, often using unconventional means (Campos et al., 2017;Tausch et al., 2011).Such informal social control actions can range from participation in peaceful collective demonstrations to participation in civil disorder (Becker & Tausch, 2015;Tausch et al., 2011).They can also encompass intense informal punitive reactions aimed at compensating for the sources' inability to ensure or restore a perceived state of justice (Strelan & van Prooijen, 2013).
Collective protest is a form of collective action in which highly identified group members engage when they perceive their group to be a target of social injustice (Abrams & Randsley de Moura, 2002;Klandermans et al., 2002).Contrasting with normative collective actions that aim to protect and reinforce social norms, nonnormative actions exist to threaten the existing social order (Wright et al., 1990).These nonnormative actions are strongly predicted by negative emotions, such as: (1) anger, as it induces a tendency to punish people who violate norms (Smith & Kessler, 2004;Van Zomeren et al., 2004), and (2) shame, as the transgression could reflect a flaw in the group's identity (Lickel et al., 2005).In this sense, such emotions function as accelerators or amplifiers of protest (van Stekelenburg & Klandermans, 2017), connected to the goal of challenging and confronting targets responsible for injustice (Frijda et al., 1989).As such, group members then express their anger and shame directed at leaders who violate the group's shared beliefs and values by protesting against these leaders (van Stekelenburg et al., 2011; see also, Páez et al., 2013;Stürmer & Simon, 2009;Thomas et al., 2009;Van Stekelenburg & Klandermans, 2010).Thus, collective protest should reflect a group reaction through which group members demand the punishment of a transgressive illegitimate leader.

| THE PRE S ENT RE S E ARCH
In the present research, we investigate the impact of leader legitimacy on group reactions to transgressive leaders.Building on the notion that illegitimate leaders generally obtain less support from followers than do legitimate leaders (Ratcliff & Vescio, 2017), we test the role of leader legitimacy as an important contextual boundary of transgressive leadership.Specifically, we suggest that leader legitimacy should explain the differential outcomes between support versus rejection of leaders who break moral norms.In this sense, we propose that leader legitimacy allows for greater transgression because followers abdicate moral authority to their legitimate leaders.We will also test how followers react to (il)legitimate leaders that depending on whether they have been punished by the ingroup or not.We use an experimental vignette methodology across studies to construct organizationally relevant scenarios whilst also maintaining experimental control (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014).First, we manipulate leader legitimacy and measure how threatening to the group and punishable an illegitimate versus legitimate leader is (Study 1).Second, we investigate whether the presence or absence of social control (punishment measures) moderates the effect of leader legitimacy on the acceptance versus support for punishment of transgressive leaders (Study 2).

| S TUDY 1
Previous research has suggested that ingroup leaders are given transgression credit, compared to ingroup regular members (i.e., non-leaders; Abrams et al., 2013).Study 1 tests the prediction that ingroup leaders are given transgression credit only when they are perceived as legitimate as opposed to illegitimate.Given that illegitimate leaders lack trust and loyalty from group members (Hollander, 2009), we predict that their transgressions are more likely to be perceived as highly threatening to the group and, therefore, in need of being controlled.As such, we expect participants to support measures of formal punishment more (i.e., higher social control) when judging transgressive illegitimate (versus legitimate) leaders.We hypothesize that transgressive illegitimate leaders will trigger more negative reactions (group threat and formal punishment), compared to transgressive legitimate leaders.

| Participants and design
In order to reach a broad population, participants were recruited in public spaces with pen and paper questionnaires in a large city in mainland Portugal.The sample consisted of 116 Portuguese respondents (42 men, 65 women, and 9 who did not report gender), aged from 18 to 69 years old (M = 25.84;SD = 10.12).A Post hoc power analysis with α = 0.05 revealed that this sample size afforded approximately 80% power to detect effect sizes of r = 0.25 (G*Power;Faul et al., 2007) for the main effect of leader legitimacy on the dependent variables.The experiment was a Legitimate versus Illegitimate between-participants design.

| Procedure
A positive social group identity is a necessary condition for the transgression credit (Abrams et al., 2013;Travaglino et al., 2015), thus implying that we require a highly salient group to test our hypothesis.For this purpose, we created a scenario in a national (Portuguese) context and we started the study by measuring participants' national identification.Then, participants were presented with the scenario of a transgressive leader from a public national level organization, which included the Leader Legitimacy manipulation, presented through a piece of (fictitious) news.Participants read about a Portuguese leader, "Vítor Almeida," of a Portuguese publicprivate venture (an organization that was ostensibly part of the Ministry of Health) who was managing the construction of a hospital that would cover a significant part of Portugal with implications on the country's health system.This information was designed to make the Portuguese national identity salient and ensure that participants engaged with the scenario, by perceiving the organization's goals as relevant to the ingroup.The scenario was followed by measures of perceived legitimacy, group threat, and formal punishment.

| Leader legitimacy manipulation
The Leader Legitimacy manipulation was based on whether the group elected the leader or whether the leader was nominated (adapted from Julian et al., 1969), alongside attributes known to endow leaders with legitimacy, such as perceived competence, trustworthiness, and previous task success (e.g., Hollander, 2006).

| Legitimate condition
Vítor Almeida is the current President responsible for the project "More and Better Health" of the partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Hospital of Tomar, role he obtained through election by absolute majority from his partners and workers.
We collected opinions among the workers and partners of this organization about Vítor Almeida and they seem highly expectant about his performance.According to his business partners, "The choice of Vítor Almeida represents a strong commitment on our part" and "We believe that this partnership will be successful."Similarly, his employees commented that "He has our trust (…) the president seems to make understandable and reasonable decisions" and that "We know the past record of President Vítor Almeida and we know that we can count on him."

| Illegitimate condition
Vítor Almeida is the current President responsible for the project "More and better health" of the partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Hospital of Tomar, role he obtained through appointment by the government.
We collected opinions among the workers and partners of this organization about Vítor Almeida and they seem uncertain about his performance.According to his business partners, "Vítor Almeida's appointment was not our choice, it was a Government decision" and that "We do not believe this partnership will succeed."Similarly, his employees commented that "He does not have our support (…) the president seems to make disconcerting and unreasonable decisions," and that "We don't know the past record of President Vítor Almeida or even that much about him."

| Leader transgression induction
Following the Leader Legitimacy manipulation, participants learned of some of the leader's transgressions, specifically the way he ignored a few safety measures to spare time and how he made reductions to employees' wages in order to compensate for the costs of the construction of the hospital. 1

| National identification
National identification was measured by the following items (adapted from Abrams et al., 1998) (1 = Completely disagree; 7 = Completely agree): (1) "Being Portuguese is important to define who I am"; (2) "Portuguese citizens are valuable people"; (3) "I am glad to have been born in Portugal"; (4) "I am proud to be Portuguese."We used a mean score of the items (Cronbach's α = 0.83).

| Formal punishment
Participants gave their agreement on several possible punitive reactions that the group could implement toward the target (1 = Completely disagree; 7 = Completely agree): (1) "Vítor Almeida should maintain his role of President in the project" (reversed); (2) "Authorities should carry out an audit of the activities of the President and the accounts of the company"; (3) "Authorities should initiate a disciplinary procedure to Vítor Almeida"; (4) "Vítor Almeida should be demoted and become an integrated member without exerting management decisions"; (5) "Vítor Almeida should be fired"; (6) "Authorities should open a judicial inquiry regarding Vítor Almeida." A Principal Components Factor Analysis with Varimax rotation showed that the six items saturated on a single factor explaining 53.63% of variance.We used a mean score of the items (Cronbach's α = 0.82).
Tables 1 and 2 provide descriptive statistics and correlations for measures in Study 1.

| National identification
Participants were on average highly identified with the ingroup (M = 5.67; SD = 1.08), as this mean was higher than the mid-point of the scale (4), t( 115

| Group threat
As expected, an analysis of variance showed a significant effect of Leader Legitimacy, whereby participants perceived the transgressive leader as more threatening to the group in the Illegitimate condition than in the Legitimate condition, F(1,114) =18.68, p < .001,η p 2 = 0.141.

| Formal punishment
As predicted, the analysis revealed a significant effect of Leader Legitimacy on Formal punishment, F(1,114) = 9.15, p = .003,η p 2 = 0.074.Specifically, participants agreed that the transgressive illegitimate leader should be punished more harshly by the group than the transgressive legitimate leader.

| S TUDY 2
Study 1 showed that followers warrant formal social control toward transgressive illegitimate leaders, as these leaders are perceived as more threatening to the group than legitimate ones.However, it is possible that participants might have assumed that the leader would go unpunished for their transgressions, which could be (at least partly) responsible for the observed feelings of threat and need for punishment.Therefore, in Study 2, we address this possibility by examining whether the absence (versus presence) of clear social control mechanisms over the transgressive leader moderates the effects of leader illegitimacy on the intent to punish the transgressive leader.
An important test to determine whether the acceptance of transgressive legitimate leaders is driven by legitimacy is to consider whether groups will still accept those leaders' transgressions in the absence of social control-that is, in threatening situations in which clear group mechanisms to punish a leader's transgressions are absent.If, as we hypothesize, leaders are given transgression credit when they have gained legitimacy, then this effect should not disappear in the absence of social control.In addition to the measures used in Study 1, we also measure validation of the leader's behavior, negative emotions (i.e., anger and shame), and collective protest.Overall, we test the idea that transgressive illegitimate leaders are perceived as more threatening to the ingroup and thus raise more negative emotions among followers than legitimate leaders do, which, in turn, can trigger collective protest from group members to remove such leaders from power.Given that perceived threat to the group elicits negative emotional responses (e.g., Levin et al., 2013), which, in turn, comprise strong predictors of engagement in nonnormative collective actions (Lickel et al., 2005;Van Zomeren et al., 2004), we believe that the negative emotions triggered by the threat of an illegitimate leader will predict collective protest.Therefore, we test the role of group threat and negative emotions as mediators (in sequence) of the relationship between leader legitimacy and collective protest.

| Procedure
Similar to Study 1, we first measured National identification to assess the condition of a positive social identity as a requirement for the transgression credit (e.g., Abrams et al., 2013).This condition is also essential for people's readiness to engage in collective action, when they are threatened or treated unjustly (Reicher, 1996;De Weerd & Klandermans, 1999).This was followed by a scenario of a transgressive leader, which included the Leader Legitimacy and Social Control manipulations, both presented through pieces of (fictitious) news, and finally followed by all the dependent measures.
Participants read about Senator Michael Jones who led the U.S. representatives on the International Health Committee.

| Leader Legitimacy manipulation
The Leader Legitimacy manipulation was similar to the previous study, though now adapted to the 2017 U.S. context.Accordingly, a recent poll involving U.S. citizens included comments like: "He did not earn our trust (...) Senator Jones seems to make incomprehensible and unreasonable decisions" and "We do not give him credibility due to his past, and we know we cannot count on him."

| Leader transgression induction
Following the Leader Legitimacy manipulation, participants learned of some of the leader's transgressions.
Recently, Senator Jones seems to have taken some "unconventional measures" during his mandate.In particular, there were reports stating that he has been ignoring some safety measures in U.S. hospitals as he considered them as "minor problems."Also, he has provided a report to the Government to support their proposed changes to the pay and support of hospital work.The report states that to ensure the provision of health services for longer hours, in a cost saving way, changes need to be made to all hospital worker contracts, increase the number of work hours, yet reducing the provision of their overtime pay.

| Group threat
As predicted, the analysis of variance showed a significant effect of Leader Legitimacy, indicating that participants perceived the illegitimate transgressive leader to be more threatening to the group than the legitimate transgressive leader, F(1,188) = 15.48,p < .001,η p 2 = 0.076.There was no significant effect of Social Control or interaction, Fs(1,188) ≤ 1.

| Negative emotions
As predicted, participants reported significantly more anger and shame when the transgressive leader was perceived as illegitimate as opposed to legitimate, F(1,188) = 19.13,p < .001,η p 2 = 0.092.

| Collective protest
As predicted, participants agreed more with collective protest in the Illegitimate condition, than in the Legitimate condition, F(1,188) = 7.64, p = .006,η p 2 = 0.039.There was no significant effect of Social Control or interaction, Fs(1,188) < 1.

| Mediation analysis
Considering that Social Control did not show a main effect or significant correlations with the dependent variables (r ≤ 0.062, p ≥. 392), we proceeded with our hypothesized mediation analysis.As such, we tested a sequential mediation model in which Leader Legitimacy (Legitimate = −1 and Illegitimate = 1) is associated with higher levels of Group threat, which in turn is associated with Negative emotions and, finally, with agreement with Collective protest.The Pearson's product-moment correlations between all measures were all significant (r ≥ 0.196, p ≤ .006).We proceeded to a sequential mediation analysis (Model 6, with 10,000 bootstraps; see Hayes, 2013) to test our prediction (see Figure 1).The total model significantly explained Collective protest, F(3, 188) = 30.60,p < .001,accounting for 32.81% of the variance.In line with our prediction, Group Additionally, Study 2 also tested the idea that participants view the group's social control inaction toward a transgressive leader as an acceptable reaction, if they perceive such leader as legitimate.In this sense, we found that legitimate leaders that engaged in transgressive behavior still benefit from transgression credit, even when it became clear that such leaders would not suffer consequences for their misconduct.Indeed, even in the absence of formal social control mechanisms, followers reacted more favorably toward transgressive legitimate leaders, compared to illegitimate leaders.Interestingly, we observed that in the absence of social control, participants perceived social control as less ineffective in controlling transgressive behavior from legitimate leaders, compared to illegitimate ones.This finding could be partly accounted by the influence that leader legitimacy can have on people's perceptions, and it could potentially explain why people at times seem indifferent toward transgressive leaders who go unpunished.

| G ENER AL D ISCUSS I ON
Both studies consistently showed that leader legitimacy is key in determining either favorable or unfavorable reactions toward a transgressive leader.A transgressive legitimate leader came across as less threatening to the ingroup and was more tolerated than a transgressive illegitimate leader.Study 1 demonstrated that punitive reactions to transgressive leaders were higher when they were perceived as illegitimate by their followers, as compared to legitimate leaders.
In contrast, the transgressive legitimate leader was perceived as less threatening and raised less agreement with formal punishment measures (transgression credit), than the illegitimate leader.These results clarify the transgression credit given to leaders (Abrams et al., 2013), by showing that legitimate (but not illegitimate) leaders are considered worthy of the "benefit of the doubt" and forgiven for their transgressive behavior.Consequently, leader legitimacy allowed for greater transgression because followers abdicated moral authority to their leaders.
Study 2 showed that transgressive illegitimate leaders received less validation for their actions, raised feelings of anger and shame among group members and gathered higher agreement with collective protest.Specifically, the threat caused by illegitimate leaders triggered negative emotions that acted as fuel for collective actions to remove such leaders from their role.Considering the implications of an absence of leadership in groups, it is interesting to find that groups prefer to remove their leader (and become leaderless until a replacement is found), than accepting transgressive illegitimate leadership.Moreover, initial acknowledgment of leaders acts as a buffer for transgressive behavior, possibly giving such leaders a high degree of leniency for misconduct (Abrams et al., 2013;Randsley de Moura & Abrams, 2013).Furthermore, participants' reactions were fundamentally dependent on whether the leader was legitimate or not, even when presented with different outcomes of social control (i.e., the leader was facing punishment or would remain unpunished by authorities).Interestingly, in the absence of social control mechanisms, individuals showed more distrust in the group's social control system when the transgressive leader was perceived as illegitimate.
In a sense, once deemed illegitimate, leaders' actions might be more easily perceived as transgressive.Future research could further explore whether people's opinions on the effectiveness of the justice system are influenced by the leader's legitimacy.

| Theoretical and applied implications
Results suggest that group members rely on a leader's (il)legitimacy in order to decide how to interpret the transgression, and consequently, how to react.These data shed light on why some leaders are pressured to resign from their position after their misconducts become public, while others are allowed to remain in office.In fact, our results show that disinvestment from the group (Pinto et al., 2016) may not be the only reaction group members adopt.Alternative responses such as tolerance (and validation/ acceptance) of the transgression behavior or informal punitive reactions can be implemented toward the transgressors.Future research could consider the impact that these responses have on commitment to the group and on group cohesion.
The current paper provides novel insights into the drivers of tolerance for transgressive leaders, but its findings also have important applied implications.Ensuring an ethical environment is of importance for many organizations and promoting ethical conduct is key to effective corporate governance (Jamali et al., 2008).This is especially relevant, given that leaders have a key role in shaping ethical organizational culture (Ciulla, 1998;Freeman et al., 1988;Treviño, 1990) and are likely to modulate their followers' behavior (Brown et al., 2005).In fact, our studies suggest that judgments of unethical leaders seem to depend more on how legitimate leaders are perceived to be than their actual behavior.Indeed, demonstrations The presented manipulation of legitimacy consisted in two parts: (1) leader emergence (or selection by employees/peers) versus leader appointment and the granting of leadership; (2) Combination of positive (versus negative) traits and interactions with the group.
Although previous research has equated leader selection by peers with granting of leadership (Ben-Yoav et al., 1983;Hollander & Julian, 1970;Julian et al., 1969), in most workplaces, leaders are appointed and not elected.In fact, the notion that a president of a company was elected by employees or peers is unrealistic.Naturally, leaders can be appointed, and still be granted leadership.Because of this, we adjusted our scenarios to more public organizations in an attempt to create a more realistic scenario.Nevertheless, we argue that the process behind leader selection is not the only factor contributing to one's legitimacy.That is, in an attempt to pin down the factor of leader legitimacy, we focused on positive impressions/interactions between the leader and "other group members" (Phillips et al., 2009), along with other relevant traits, such as trust and competence (Hollander, 2009;Julian et al., 1969;Shapiro et al., 2011).In fact, even the manipulation check of leader legitimacy might conflate perceptions of purely trust and perceptions legitimacy (granting of leadership).While related, they are not necessarily the same.
In that regard, the concept of leader legitimacy might share similarities with other relevant concepts in leadership research.Future research should focus on a more detailed conceptualization to explore these differences.
In the present research we used experimental vignettes, as this has been shown to be a valid and appropriate method (e.g., Aguinis & Bradley, 2014), and is a mechanism which allows to test research questions that might pose ethical complexities in typical organizational research methods (e.g., manipulating leader transgression in a real organizational context would not be possible).Furthermore, this research was conducted in two different countries (Portugal and the United Kingdom), and consistently showed the legitimacy effect.
Nonetheless, future research could extend the generalizability of these findings using alternative methods (e.g., longitudinal surveys, particularly when considering the role of perceived leader legitimacy as a predictor of socially relevant outcomes), varied normative contexts and settings (e.g., politics, organizations, sports).
In summary, leader legitimacy seems to be essential to account for reactions to transgressive leaders, as legitimate leaders are given more credit for moral transgressions.In a sense, the group seems to enter a validation process of the leader's misconduct, as legitimate leaders are perceived to have earned the right to lead and, thus, deserve a "second chance."Above all, it seems that a leader's formal role is not the only aspect that defines their power, as leadership seems to be of little use without the group's acknowledgment and validation of the leader's legitimacy.

O RCI D
Participants gave their opinion about the threatening character of the transgressive leader to the group in three items (1 = Completely disagree; 7 = Completely agree): (1) "This individual jeopardizes the country"; (2) "These situations threaten our country's image"; (3) "The content of this news report undermines my confidence in the Portuguese political system."We used a mean score of the items (Cronbach's α = 0.84).
) = 16.58,p < .001.There were no a priori 1 The leader's transgression was tested through a pilot study.Participants (N = 26) were asked to evaluate several actions supposedly implemented by leaders of projects related to PPP (Public-Private Partnerships) institutions [1 = Completely wrong; 7 = Completely right].Results showed that the statements "He ignored a few safety measures to save time" and "He made reductions to the workers' wages in order to compensate for the costs of the construction of the hospital" were the most negatively evaluated, (M = 2.15, DP = 1.46) and (M = 2.42, DP = 1.27), respectively.Thus, these statements were selected for the transgression manipulation for the experiment.
p <.05; ** p < .01;*** p < .001.Leader Legitimacy coded: Legitimate = −1; Illegitimate = 1.U.S. citizens (N = 192, 71 men, 120 women, and 1 did not report gender), aged from 19 to 75 years old (M = 38.77;SD = 12.41) participated in this study via Amazon Mechanical Turk.A Post hoc power analysis with α = 0.05 revealed that this sample size afforded approximately 80% power to detect effect sizes of r = 0.25 (G*Power; Faul et al., 2007) for the main effects and interactions between leader legitimacy and social control on the dependent variables.The experiment was a 2 (Leader Legitimacy: Legitimate versus Illegitimate) × 2 (Social Control: Present versus Absent) between-participants design.
threat and Negative emotions significantly sequentially mediated the association between Leader Legitimacy and Collective protest: total indirect effect: b = 0.30, SE = 0.07, 95% CI = [0.16,0.45]; total effect: b = 0.32, SE = 0.12, t = 2.76, p = .006,95% CI = [0.09,0.55]; direct effect: b = 0.03, SE = 0.10, t = 0.25, p = .806,95% CI = [−0.18,0.23].In sum, the model shows that participants perceived the transgressive illegitimate leader as more threatening, and the more threatening the leader was perceived to be, the more anger and shame participants felt and, consequently, the stronger agreement with collective protest toward the leader.Conversely, the legitimate leader triggered less group threat, which was associated with less anger and shame, which in turn were associated with less willingness to engage in collective protest toward the legitimate leader.F I G U R E 1 The mediating effect of Group threat and Negative emotions on the association between Leader Legitimacy and Collective protest (Study 2).Leader Legitimacy coded: Legitimate = −1; Illegitimate = 1.*p < .05**p < .01,***p < .001, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jasp.12739 by Test, Wiley Online Library on [15/03/2023].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License7.4| DISCUSSIONOverall, Study 2 provides further support to the idea that a leader's perceived (il)legitimacy determines how threatening the group perceives the leader's transgression to be, and, consequently, the extent to which participants agree with the implementation of formal punitive measures.Study 2 also extends previous findings, by showing that illegitimate leaders obtain less validation from group members, trigger more negative emotions and higher agreement with collective protest, compared to a transgressive legitimate leader.In sum, Study 2 found that only legitimate leaders are awarded transgression credit, and that they gather more validation for their decisions than illegitimate leaders do.Moreover, results also show that anger and shame (triggered by the threat posed by a transgressive illegitimate leader) are associated with increased willingness to engage in punitive collective protest aiming at removing the transgressive leader from the leadership role.In contrast, transgressive legitimate leaders were perceived as less threatening to the group, which resulted in a lower negative emotional state, and a relatively tolerant response from the group.
15591816, 2021, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jasp.12739 by Test, Wiley Online Library on [15/03/2023].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons Licenseacross several countries are filled with social frustration toward their countries' leaders; some of them are even violent in requesting for leaders' resignation.The current European socioeconomic crisis weighs heavily on the people, and in many countries, leaders appear to be failing in restoring common well-being.Such failure may deem leaders as illegitimate, for not being competent or motivated enough, by failing to meet the promises made, and therefore, losing credibility among the people.These leaders are ultimately seen through a filter of negative expectations that can easily unchain perceptions that these leaders' behaviors are less valid, while triggering punitive collective attitudes toward them, namely claiming for their removal.