ArticleThe British journal of clinical psychology2023
Aspirational leaders help us change: Ingroup prototypicality enables effective group psychotherapy leadership.
Article in The British journal of clinical psychology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Group Psychosocial Interventions Following Acquired Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Group Process and Outcomes.Neuropsychology review · 2026Pooled it
- Co-designing strategies to enhance engagement in telehealth exercise classes among cancer survivors: a participatory study applying identity leadership theory and introducing the SIGN framework.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Article
- Leading by example: Experimental evidence that therapist lived experience disclosures can model the path to recovery for clients.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2025Article
- Understanding and Improving Athlete Mental Health: A Social Identity Approach.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2024Review
- Aspirational leaders help us change: Ingroup prototypicality enables effective group psychotherapy leadership.The British journal of clinical psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesResearch suggests that leaders are effective when they are ingroup prototypical (represent the identity of the group they seek to lead). However, it is unclear whether leaders should represent the group's current identity ("who we are") or aspired identity ("who we want to be"). This study investigated which of these forms of prototypicality best predicted leadership effectiveness in group psychotherapy.
designLongitudinal study.
methods519 questionnaire responses were obtained from 112 women attending a four-session body acceptance program. Focal measures included participant ratings of how often they thought their psychotherapy leaders and fellow group members would (a) engage in dieting thoughts and behaviours and (b) approve of dieting. Given the program's body acceptance focus, leader prototypicality was conceptualized as the difference between participants' perceptions of how often their leaders, versus group members, would diet at the start of therapy. Leadership effectiveness was conceptualized as reductions in perceived group approval of dieting across therapy. Two therapeutic outcomes were considered: body satisfaction and dieting intentions.
resultsA mixed-effects repeated measures analysis indicated that group approval of dieting decreased more rapidly when participants perceived their leaders to be aspirational (thought that group leaders dieted less frequently than group members) than when they perceived them to be exemplary (thought that group leaders dieted as frequently as group members). Changes in group approval of dieting mediated the relationship between leader prototypicality and improved therapeutic outcomes.
conclusionsFindings suggest that group psychotherapy leaders may increase their effectiveness by striving to embody their group's aspired identity.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.