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Yes We Can? Group Efficacy Beliefs Predict Collective Action, But Only When Hope is High
Abstract
Surprisingly, hope is under-researched in contemporary social-psychological explanations of collective action and social change. This may be because collective action research typically focuses on “high-hope” contexts in which it is generally assumed that change is possible (the main appraisal of hope), and thus the main question is whether “we” can change the situation through collective action (i.e., group efficacy beliefs). This line of thought implies that such beliefs should only motivate collective action when hope is high. To test this hypothesis, we conducted three experiments in contexts that were not “high-hope”. In Study 1, conducted within the “low-hope” context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we found that manipulated group efficacy beliefs did not increase individuals’ collective action intentions. Studies 2 and 3 used the contexts of NHS privatization in the United Kingdom and Gun Control Reform in the United States --- contexts that were neither “low-hope” nor “high-hope”, which enabled us to manipulate hope and group efficacy beliefs together in one design. Consistent with our hypothesis, findings of both experiments revealed that group efficacy beliefs only predicted collective action when hope was high. Replicating Study 1, when hope was low, group efficacy had no effect on collective action intentions. We discuss our findings in light of the idea that only when hope for social change is established, the question of whether “we” can create change through collective action becomes relevant. Without hope, there can be no basis for agency, which informs goal-directed action.
... It is also possible that different types of hope manipulations might be differentially effective at promoting action on climate change. For example, hope manipulations may be particularly effective when they also promote a sense of efficacy (Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren, 2018), while those that promote a sense that climate change is not a serious problem may decrease engagement (Ojala, 2012a). Additionally, hope manipulations' effectiveness at increasing engagement may increase as they exert greater increases in hope. ...
... " Therefore, it is informative that they did not significantly or substantially increase climate engagement (nor decrease climate engagement; d = 0.05). It is possible that these manipulations could be more effective at increasing engagement under the right boundary conditions, such as with populations already highly motivated to engage or who already have a sense of personal efficacy (e.g., see Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren, 2018). Alternatively, these manipulations might not immediately promote climate engagement but could sustain engagement over time (Ojala, 2016). ...
... The effectiveness of this combination is consistent with the extended parallel process model (Witte, 1992), which suggests that a combination of risk and efficacy is likely to be most motivating (also see Tannenbaum et al., 2015). Another example demonstrated in other domains of collective action (Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren, 2018) showed that collective action on the topics was most likely when messages include both a hope appeal and a group efficacy-boosting component. ...
Researchers are increasingly examining whether hope can motivate action on climate change, or conversely, whether it might demotivate such action. We present a meta-analysis (k = 46) of quantitative studies examining the relationships between measures and manipulations of hope with climate engagement. On average, measured hope was associated with greater climate engagement (r = 0.18); however, this effect differed based on the target of hope. Hope regarding the possibility of respondents taking action was particularly strongly associated with greater engagement (r = 0.40), while in contrast, hope grounded in climate change not being a problem was associated with less engagement (r = −0.40). Hope in response to climate change generally, and domain-general hope, were only weakly associated with greater engagement (rs = 0.13, 0.20). On average, hope manipulations fostered increased engagement, though the increase was small (Cohen’s d = 0.08). Subgroup analyses suggested two promising types of hope manipulations warranting future research: personal efficacy (k = 2, d = 0.18) and in-depth (k = 2, d = 0.49). In contrast, messages suggesting societal efficacy (i.e., providing a sense of possibility that climate change could be addressed) did not significantly or substantially boost (nor discourage) engagement (d = 0.05), and status quo-framed messages (i.e., messages highlighting that environmental conditions could stay the same if climate action is taken) had a marginally significant negative effect on engagement (d = −0.18). After excluding a single outlier, the extent to which manipulations increased hope were not correlated with increases in climate engagement, suggesting the possibility that hope might be incidental to the success of some manipulations rather than a necessary component for promoting engagement. Overall, our meta-analysis does not suggest that increasing hope decreases climate engagement, with the possible exceptions of denial hope and status quo framed messages. Conversely, however, results provide partial yet inconclusive evidence for the hypothesis that increasing hope increases climate engagement. Given the existing published literature, we argue that future researchers should consider study designs that align with theoretical perspectives on how hope promotes climate engagement (e.g., longitudinal designs) and also consider directly assessing populations of interest (e.g., climate activists).
... Well-being is an essential consideration for the longevity of the climate action movement. Maintaining adequate well-being facilitates the psychological and physical effort associated with the long-lasting commitment to collective action that is required to achieve social change Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren 2018). Moreover, it is important to consider the interplay between well-being and collective action alongside the potentially dynamic relationship between them (Vestergren et al. 2018). ...
Averting the existential risks that climate change poses requires sustained collective action, yet little is known about the factors that maintain versus undermine such commitment over time. This study tests whether participants' ( N = 871) experience of political despair about climate change undermines long‐term collective climate action engagement both directly and indirectly because it diminishes well‐being (operationalised as stress, resilience and vitality). We examined these processes in the context of the 2019–2020 Australian black summer bushfires, measured across three time points (February, May and August 2020). Using a Random Intercept‐Cross Lagged Panel Model, we found significant trait‐level associations between political despair and well‐being, as well as political despair and collective climate actions. However, at the within‐person level, there was little support that political despair diminishes well‐being or intention to engage in collective climate action over time. Rather, results suggested the reverse: that feelings of political despair are outcomes of collective climate action and poor well‐being. This research highlights the importance of further examining the potentially dynamic and bidirectional links between emotions, action and well‐being.
... Marginalized people with little hope are less likely to feel this sense of racial efficacy (Hasan-Aslih et al. 2020). As people lose hope and their efficacy weakens they are less likely to engage in collective action (Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren 2018) this disposition may extend to their attitudes worsening their perceptions of such efforts. In this case, Asian men low in racial efficacy are less likely to engage with insurrection or perceive it positively as they lack the hope or a sense of belief in such actions actually yielding systemic change. ...
While the majority of 2021 Capitol insurrection participants were white men, the media prominently highlighted the involvement of male conservative activists of color. However, we still know little about the perspectives of men in the general public regarding this event in our nation’s history, particularly across racial/ethnic and other identity groups. This project examines the influence of racialized anger and racial efficacy on self-identified male views toward the 2021 Capitol insurrection across racial/ethnic groups. We utilize the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), which was the only national, post-election dataset to yield responses on the Capitol insurrection across a large number of identity groups like men of color. Using the CMPS, we hypothesize that the level of racialized anger and racial efficacy will impact attitudes toward the 2021 Capitol insurrection for men across racial groups comparing men of color and their white male counterparts. We find racial anger has a negative effect on political attitudes about the 2021 Capitol insurrection across all groups of men, while racial efficacy has varied effects on certain men of color groups in comparison to white men. This paper underscores the importance of intersectionality in the study of public opinion formation and the effect of political attitudes like racial efficacy and racialized anger on non-traditional political engagement.
... Collective efficacy has been defined as individuals' perception of the ability to collectively achieve a common goal (Bandura, 2000). When facing a collective threat, such as climate change (Chen, 2015;Homburg & Stolberg, 2006;Jugert et al., 2016;van Zomeren et al., 2010;Wallis et al., 2022), or COVID pandemic (Kim et al., 2022;Wallis et al., 2022), the perceived efficacy of collective efforts can be a better predictor of protective behaviors than the perceived efficacy of personal efforts (but see also Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018;Doherty & Webler, 2016;Meijers et al., 2023). However, past research has also shown that believing in the efficacy of a group's actions can sometimes reduce an individual's intention to participate in such actions (e.g., Bamberg et al., 2015;van Zomeren et al., 2019), as this belief may lead individuals to perceive their own participation as unnecessary for achieving the collective goal (the "free rider" effect; Olson, 1971). ...
In the face of complex and urgent environmental crises, researchers increasingly advocate for transformation-oriented approaches that consider the scale of changes required. This paper introduces a Collective Protection Motivation (CPM) model, which builds upon Protection Motivation Theory’s (PMT) robust analysis of personal decision-making and integrates recent findings from collective environmental action research. Specifically, the CPM model adapts PMT’s appraisal processes to account for the collective and large-scale dimensions of climate change in terms of both impact and required responses. Two correlational studies tested the CPM model’s structure and predictive power in multi-level pro-environmental behavioral intentions through structural equation modeling analyses. Study 1 (N = 928) focused on general pro-environmental behavioral intentions, while Study 2 (N = 402) examined initiatives for reducing meat consumption-production. The results supported the overall structure of the CPM model, validating the collective conceptualizations of threat, coping, and costs-rewards appraisals. The model also successfully predicted a significant proportion of behavioral intentions. Notably, the model’s most innovative construct - collective coping, which incorporates the ability to envision sustainable futures (cognitive alternatives) - demonstrated systematic predictive power in individuals’ intentions to adopt general and specific pro-environmental behaviors. While further research is needed to confirm its generalizability, the CPM model offers a promising framework for understanding the decision-making processes behind both individual and collective pro-environmental actions. It emphasizes the contribution of cognitive alternatives to the subjective sense of collective agency and highlights the importance of merging individual and collective approaches to better understand the psychological drivers behind support for large-scale ecological transformations.
... Earlier work linked the perceptions of disadvantaged groups' need satisfaction to solidarity due to perceptions of deservingness (see Helbling & Kriesi, 2014;Kotzur et al., 2019). Similarly, the impact of outgroup need satisfaction may be partially driven by heightened feelings of efficacy and hope for social change (Cohen-Chen & van Zomeren, 2018), whilst outgroup need frustration might be linked to justice-related emotions such as anger and outrage (see Becker et al., 2011;Çakmak et al., 2024). How such well-established predictors of solidarity interact with basic needs amongst allies with different statuses is an area that remains unexplored. ...
We propose a new motivational model that integrates self‐determination theory (with a focus on basic needs) with social‐psychological research on allyship and solidarity to better understand when and why allies may engage in different actions to address social injustice. We theorize that normative (e.g., donations and protesting) and non‐normative (e.g., blocking highways and disrupting events) solidarity‐based actions are motivated by allies' basic needs (measured at the individual and group levels) as well as their perception of disadvantaged groups' basic needs (measured at the individual and group levels). We tested the model in two cross‐sectional studies using two different contexts: English citizens' solidarity (i.e., allies from a high‐status group) with Ukrainian refugees and students' solidarity (i.e., allies from a low‐status group) with the striking university employees in the United Kingdom ( N total = 1232). In both studies, we found that the more allies' needs were satisfied, the more likely they were to engage in normative solidarity actions. In contrast, intentions to engage in non‐normative solidarity actions were predicted by frustration of allies' needs. Perceptions of disadvantaged group's needs predicted engagement in both normative and non‐normative actions. Notably, high‐status allies' solidarity was driven by both individual and group‐level needs, whilst low‐status allies were only motivated by group‐level needs.
... Research investigating collective action under severe repression has also demonstrated that efficacy only motivated collective action among Filipina domestic workers in Lebanon when the participants experienced low levels of fear of repression-related consequences on their lives, and was not significant at high levels of fear (Adra et al., 2020). Another set of studies showed that efficacy was not a good predictor of collective action in contexts characterized by low hope (Cohen-Chen et al., 2018). Given that individuals living in more repressive countries have more reasons to fear the consequences of their oppositional actions, and likely hold less hopeful outlooks on the outcomes of such actions, these findings speak to the potential dampening of the role of political efficacy in motivating overt, organized resistance in more repressive contexts. ...
This chapter proposes a framework to understand the multifaceted impact of macro-level repression on individuals' participation in political resistance. We focus on repression as a structural characteristic of a given country, and we propose that it may shape political resistance in two major ways. First, repression can influence resistance through affecting particular micro-level, psychological mechanisms that typically predict resistance (e.g., political dissatisfaction, efficacy). Second, repression can condition the links between resistance and many of its typical predictors. In other words, repression can make certain micro-level factors more, less, or differently relevant for resistance. To illustrate our propositions, we focus on two micro-level predictors of resistance-perceived injustice and political efficacy-and we draw on a wide range of political contexts, from backsliding democracies to stable authoritarian regimes.
... We were able to improve participation in SBCA among people from an advantaged group who are currently involved in an active conflict with the disadvantaged group, and we achieved this outcome by maintaining higher hope sentiments toward the outgroup. This expands on the role of hope in SBCA, which has been understudied, possibly since most contexts in SBCA research are considered "high hope" (Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018). Our findings support the existing understanding of the importance of hope in intractable conflicts and expand on it by establishing hope as an important mechanism in increasing SBCA, specifically, not only in affecting willingness to compromise but by joining an actual action. ...
The present study explores the impact of nonviolent communication (NVC) intervention on advantaged group members’ actual participation in collective action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups, also known as solidarity‐based collective action (SBCA). It also examines the mediating role of hope and empathy in this process. Using an experimental longitudinal field study in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Jewish Israelis ( N = 220) were randomly assigned either to an NVC or to a control condition. Results indicated that, relative to the control, participants in the NVC condition showed an increased tendency to engage in activities that are considered part of SBCA 6 weeks after the intervention. Furthermore, the NVC intervention affected both hope and empathy by maintaining higher levels of hope 6 weeks after intervention and by increasing empathy immediately after intervention. Yet hope, but not empathy, mediated the effect of the NVC intervention on participation in SBCA. Theoretical and applicable implications are discussed.
... Collective efficacy beliefs are crucial for ingroup members to perceive themselves as having influence on political decision-making or challenge the existing societal power relations. Collective efficacy belief is strongly connected to high intention to participate in voting behaviour (Grant et al., 2017), support for social change (Abrams & Grant, 2012), perceived legitimacy of social movements (Jiménez- Moya et al., 2019), and normative (Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018;Uysal & Akfırat, 2022) and non-nor mative collective actions (Lizzio-Wilson et al., 2021;Saab et al., 2016;Uysal et al., 2023). ...
Social psychological research on environmental collective action often overlooks the facilitating or hindering impact of a country’s context. The institutional attitudes of governments toward environmental issues can play a crucial role in mobilising environmental activism. To explore how individual and contextual factors interplay for engagement in environmental collective action, we conducted multilevel modelling using data from 12 countries (n = 18,746). While the engagement in environmental collective action was predicted by stronger environmental concern and environmental efficacy beliefs, the strength of these relationships was moderated by macro-level contextual variables related to political governance. In countries with more effective environmental policies, both environmental concern and environmental efficacy beliefs had a stronger impact on collective action compared to the countries with inadequate environmental governance. Moreover, our findings indicated that environmental concern is less likely to translate into environmental collective action in repressive countries. Findings are discussed within the frameworks of community resilience, identity, empowerment, and repression.
... If a consumer believes their actions influence collective performance, it increases hope and behavioral intention. As many behavioral interventions become ineffective when people have low levels of hope (Bonniface & Henley, 2008;Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018;Wright, 2009), we should address this issue. This is challenging since people tend to be pessimistic about solving environmental problems. ...
Although it is imperative to act collectively for the environment, people are often reluctant to do so, partly because they perceive the impact of their behavior to be limited. This research explores the effect of goal proximity to examine perceptual contingencies in collective action. Drawing on the collective effort model, it examines how pro-environmental behavior can be affected by perceived behavioral impact (i.e., how individuals perceive their behaviors on collective performance) and collective outcome expectancy (i.e., how individuals expect collective performance to lead to desirable collective outcomes). Results from two field experiments and three controlled experiments revealed an effect of goal proximity on collective action intention (H1). This effect was mediated by perceived behavioral impact (H2) and collective outcome expectancy (H3). Interestingly, perceived behavioral impact affected collective outcome expectancy (H4); thus, the goal proximity effect was sequentially mediated (H5). However, these effects dissipated when individuals compared the impact of their own behavior to that of others and perceived it as having less impact. In sum, this research suggests that individuals’ perception of the impact of their own behavior on collective performance is the key factor in promoting collective action for the environment.
... Past research has found that hope in the political process predicted self-reported voting behavior in the 2020 election 32 . In addition, hope is crucial in predicting whether people engage in collective action 33 . ...
Disagreement over divergent viewpoints seems like an ever-present feature of American life—but how common is debate and with whom do debates most often occur? In the present research, we theorize that the landscape of debate is distorted by social media and the salience of negativity present in high-profile spats. To understand the true landscape of debate, we conducted three studies (N = 2985) across online and lab samples. In contrast to the high-profile nature of negative debates with strangers, we found that people most commonly debate close contacts, namely family members and good friends. In addition, they often report feeling positive after engaging in debate. We then directly measured misperceptions regarding debate in a representative sample of Americans (N = 1991). We found that Americans systematically overestimated how often others engage in debate. This overestimation extended across debate partners (family members, good friends, acquaintances, coworkers, and strangers) and contexts (in-person and online; p’s < 0.001, d’s > 0.98), most strongly overestimating how often Americans debate strangers online. This misprediction may be psychologically costly: overestimating how often Americans debate strangers online significantly predicted greater hopelessness in the future of America. Together, our findings suggest that Americans may experience a false reality about the landscape of debate which can unnecessarily undermine their hope about the future.
... In the collective action literature, anger has been studied as a key, action-oriented emotion that flows from group memberships and facilitates engagement in collective action (see SIMCA; Agostini & van Zomeren, 2021;van Zomeren et al., 2008). There is also evidence that hope can be associated with collective action engagement (e.g., Cohen-Chen & van Zomeren, 2018;Greenaway et al., 2016;Wlodarczyk et al., 2017). We, therefore, consider the effects of political despair on collective action, controlling for the effects of anger and hope. ...
Anecdotally, people often report feeling despair about the political status quo. We conceptualise these feelings as political despair. But what is political despair, and what are its effects? We adapt intergroup emotion theory to analyse political despair in the context of racial inequality (Studies 1 and 2) and climate change (Study 3). Three cross‐sectional studies (total N = 866) tested the measurement of political despair (relative to anger and hope), its pattern of appraisals and outcomes for conventional and radical actions along with well‐being (stress, burnout and optimism). Structural equation modelling differentiated political despair from anger and hope and found that despair is associated with evaluations that the situation is both illegitimate and intractable (unchangeable). Moreover, political despair consistently had a negative relationship with well‐being and positive relationships with conventional and radical collective action. The results suggest political despair is negatively associated with well‐being and impact people's engagement in action for social change.
... Indeed, several studies highlighted the role of hope in mobilizing people to act for change (17)(18)(19). Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren (20) revealed that hope acts as a moderator on the efficacy-based pathway to collective action, such that perceived efficacy predicts collective action only among individuals who maintain high hopes for social change. ...
Background
This study examined the interplay between engagement in social unrest, mental indicators, state-hope and demographic variables. In addition, mental indicators and state-hope were compared in line with levels of engagement in social unrest.
Methods
In a cross-sectional study, conducted from March 23 to April 10, 2023, 2031 Israelis were recruited via a survey company. Participants completed self-report questionnaires to assess engagement in social unrest, anxiety, social unrest related distress, state-hope and demographic variables.
Results
Participants with higher engagement in social unrest, who opposed the law reform, were prone to higher levels of social unrest related distress, anxiety, and lower levels of state-hope compared to those not engaged in social unrest activities or those who supported the law reform.
Conclusions
Concerns regarding unmet mental health needs, during and following social unrest, regardless of the engagement level, should be actively addressed by mental health professionals and health policy makers.
... In other words, hope appears to play a mobilizing role similar to anger, such that individuals possessing a sense of collective efficacy are more likely to participate politically if they equally feel hopeful. This finding is consistent with the growing body of work examining how cognitive and affective resources contribute to political engagement (e.g., Cohen-Chen & van Zomeren, 2018;Wlodarczyk et al., 2017), and indicate that like anger, hope is an important ingredient needed for mobilizing for political action. ...
A growing body of research has examined how access to political information via digital media contributes to democratic participation in new or transitory democracies. Much of this work focuses on cognitive factors, such as political efficacy and civic knowledge, while less attention is paid to the role of emotion. Drawing on insights from the orientation–stimuli–orientation–response (O-S-O-R) and anger activism model (AAM), this study proposes and tests a model of political information seeking and participation using a national survey of adult Nigerians ( N = 600). Findings provide support for the model and highlight potential pathways through which political information may enhance participation.
... While this empirical work focused on perceived efficacy when testing the nothing-to-lose hypothesis, the rationale for this hypothesis also highlights the emotional experiences of despair or lack of hope as motivating non-normative means of protest. Although previous research has focused on differentiating hope from efficacy beliefs by establishing the unique role of hope in motivating (normative) collective action (Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018;Wlodarczyk et al., 2017), there is evidence suggesting that a lack of hope might motivate non-normative acts of resistance, consistent with the nothing-to-lose hypothesis. In a behavioral experiment (Wright, 1990), for example, perceived lack of hope of future improvement of one's disadvantaged position best distinguished individuals who took non-normative forms of action from those who took normative forms of action. ...
The present research examined the psychological processes underlying engagement in non‐normative forms of resistance and the role of repression. We conducted two studies in the contexts of two distinct social movements, both characterized by high levels of repression— the Anti‐Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong and the “Chilean Spring” protests of 2019–2020. First, we tested whether non‐normative resistance was motivated by (1) moralization of non‐normative actions (moralization hypothesis), (2) perceived low efficacy of normative actions and lack of hope (nothing‐to‐lose hypothesis), or (3) perceived efficacy of non‐normative actions in achieving movement goals (strategic choice hypothesis). Our results provided converging evidence for the moralization and strategic choice hypotheses, but not the nothing‐to‐lose hypothesis. Furthermore, we proposed and provided evidence for a model of movement escalation, whereby experiences of police violence predicted stronger willingness to engage in future non‐normative actions via heightened motivations for non‐normative resistance and increased risk perceptions. Taken together, these findings illuminate that repression in the form of coercive police violence may be ineffective in quelling social unrest. Rather, it can contribute to the radicalization of protesters. Potential boundary conditions and cross‐contextual generalizability of the current results are discussed.
... Among the central factors that motivate people to take action is a sense of injustice, anger, strong identification with the group, and firm beliefs in group efficacy. Hope has also been studied as a motivator of participation in activism (Cohen-Chen & Van Zomeren, 2018;Courville & Piper, 2004;Greenaway et al., 2016;Leshem, 2019;Wlodarczyk et al., 2017) but mainly as a mediator between group efficacy and participation in collective action. Moreover, studies that explored the link between hope and activism did not utilize the bidimensional approach. ...
How does hope for peace form and proliferate in the seemingly hopeless reality of intractable conflicts, and why do despair and fear often prevail? How do political elites utilize hope and skepticism to manipulate their public during conflict? And how does hope manifest itself at the societal level? These questions are not only thought-provoking but also highly relevant to the political realities of millions of people worldwide who are struggling for justice, equality, and peace. Hope Amidst Conflict takes on the bold challenge of answering these questions by merging insights from philosophy and social psychology and investigating hope for peace in an intense political context—the intractable violent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Hope for peace has gathered scholarly attention in the past decade. However, the work has been focusing on the mechanisms of hope while failing to ask the bigger questions about hope’s role in the politics of conflict. Moreover, existing research presents a confusing account of what hope “is” and how it can be measured. This confusion yielded mixed results regarding the levels and consequences of hope during conflict. Combining the wisdom of more than a hundred years of scholarship on hope with insights from original data collected in conflict zones, this book offers a novel, concise but comprehensive conceptualization of hope and a standardized way to measure hope in a wide array of contexts. Using these new approaches, the work embarks on a journey to identify the determinants and consequences of hope amidst conflict.
... A large body of work demonstrates that group self-efficacy (i.e., the shared belief that one's group can achieve social change) predicts motivation to partake in collective action (121, 122). Feelings of hope are uniquely associated with Black Americans' collective self-efficacy in that willingness to act on a social matter was present for Black Americans with high hope, but this association was not observed among white Americans in the sample (123,124). This finding highlights the mobilizing power of hope for Black Americans and how hope is deeply woven into the fabric of Black American existence. ...
The radical imagination entails stepping outside the confines of the now and into the expansiveness of what could be. It has been described as the ability to dream of possible futures and bring these possibilities back to the present to drive social transformation. This perspective paper seeks to provide an overview of the radical imagination and its intersections with Afrofuturism, a framework and artistic epistemology that expresses the Black cultural experience through a space of hope where Blackness is integral. In this paper, I propose three processes that comprise the radical imagination: (1) imagining alternative Black futures, (2) radical hope, and (3) collective courage. I consider the neural networks that underlie each process and consider how the Black radical imagination is a portal through which aging Black adults experience hope and envision futures that drive social change. I conclude with considerations of what brain health and healing justice looks like for aging Black Americans— specifically, how invocation of the Black radical imagination may have positive brain health effects for a demographic group at increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
... Collective action, defined as acts undertaken by people on behalf of their group in order to achieve group goal (van Zomeren et al., 2004), is one of the core mechanisms of social and political change (Medina et al., 2007). Extensive psychological literature on collective action (predicted by collective action intentions as per the theory of planned behavior; Ajzen, 1985) establishes that group efficacy, the perception of one's ingroup as able to promote its goals, is one of the key drivers of collective action intentions (Cohen-Chen et al., 2014;Cohen-Chen and Van Zomeren, 2018;van Zomeren et al., 2004). ...
As a response to the shortcomings of the U.S. healthcare system, Americans are increasingly turning to crowdfunding platforms to bankroll their health-related costs. However, although medical crowdfunding has rapidly become institutionalized as part of the U.S. healthcare financing landscape, empirical evidence on how Americans perceive its role in healthcare and the impact it might have on public attitudes is scarce. To shed more light on the above, we analyze data from one correlational and one experimental study conducted over September-November 2021. Our correlational study reveals that political orientation is associated with Americans’ views on medical crowdfunding. Specifically, we find that those who self-identified as conservative perceived medical crowdfunding as a valid part of the system, and more positively than a universal healthcare system. In contrast, medical crowdfunding is perceived less positively, as hindering a system of universal and affordable healthcare by those more liberally-oriented. In our experimental study, we explore how medical crowdfunding narratives can induce social attitudes conducive to change. Specifically, we test the effect of politicized narratives (vs. control) on group efficacy and subsequently on collective action intentions for healthcare reform, as a function of political orientation. Our results show that politicized narratives might induce collective action intentions through higher group efficacy, but only among those who self-identified as conservative. Liberally-oriented individuals held high collective action intentions for healthcare reform and were not affected by the manipulation. Our work is the first to establish empirically that medical crowdfunding, when employing politicized narratives, can induce collective action intentions, but this effect is moderated by political ideology.
In high-density metropolitan areas, urban air pollution increasingly affects the physical environment of cities. The city of Jakarta has poor air quality which can threaten the health of its citizens. The purpose of this research was to find out whether the role of fusion identity with the city of Jakarta in the collective action demanding clean air in Jakarta is mediated by group efficacy and group-based anger. a correlational survey approach with cross-sectional was used for data collection. People who live in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi are the samples of this study. After data collection, 127 people were found with an age range of 17-47 years. Based on the results of the research, it proves that in this study there is a role for fusion identity towards collective action demanding clean air in mediation in Jakarta by group efficacy which can be confirmed. This finding is different from SIMCA, which shows that group-based anger emotions can mediate the indirect effect of social identity on collective action. In this study, we found that identity fusion has no effect on collective action.
Expectations of what the future holds are a significant driver of political behavior. It is therefore important to understand the sources of those expectations. In this paper, we explore the psychological dispositions driving positivity about the political future. We draw on psychologists’ distinction between optimism—a dispositional belief that good things will happen, come what may—and hope—a trait of envisioning, pursuing and believing one’s goals to be achievable. We assess pre-registered hypotheses about the distinct influences of optimism and hope on valence expectations—beliefs about whether there will be good or bad societal outcomes—and electoral expectations—beliefs about likely election outcomes—in a representative-sample survey experiment in the United Kingdom. We find that optimism drives positive valence expectations, but hope drives partisan electoral expectations. Indeed, partisan bias in electoral expectations is exhibited only by those scoring higher in hope. We show experimentally that positive information from polls and expert commentary dampens this impact of hope by raising the expectations of the otherwise unhopeful. Our findings suggest that so-called ‘wishful thinking’ about election outcomes might stem from a sense of agency around electoral politics, but that this sense of agency does not extend to how citizens envision society’s prospects.
Past research has highlighted the central role of ideology and political values in collective action. This research aims to determine whether, in addition to political ideology, political extremism can promote collective action. Arguing that political extremism may promote political activism per se, independently of its ideological content, we hypothesized an asymmetric U-shape relationship between political ideology and collective action, with emotions (anger, fear, hope) as mediators. We conducted two studies in the context of two real-world social movements in France. Study 1 (N = 1,386) examined collective action against COVID-19 restrictions, a movement that defended typical right-wing values. Study 2 (N = 418) examined collective action against pension reform, a movement that defended values typical of the left. In both studies, we found that the congruent political ideology (right-wing in Study 1 and left-wing in Study 2) but also political extremism, were both associated with greater intentions (Studies 1-2) and greater participation (Study 2) in collective action. Anger partially mediated the relationship between political extremism and collective action in both studies. Overall, our results call for considering political extremism in addition to the left/right dimension of political ideology, in order to better understand engagement in collective action.
As COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease) spread in the United States in Spring 2020, conventional safety nets were overwhelmed and unable to meet widespread and growing needs. Mutual aid practices proliferated as an essential form of resource provision and community care, including exchanges of food, financial assistance, and social connection. Our qualitative study interviewed 25 individuals engaged in mutual aid in Colorado, USA to investigate the perceived benefits of providing and receiving care through mutual aid in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that nonhierarchical care offered entry points to equitable ways of supporting communities through and beyond crisis. The non-hierarchical approach to care described in our study illustrated redistributed power and agency to meet community needs, and decentering institutional decision making. The experiences of mutual aid participants propose a significant ideological shift regarding our sense of care and community when conventional systems are insufficient to meet collective and individual needs, and suggest a need for future expansions of and changes to social work practice to embrace non-hierarchical care.
Bir değişim yaratma amacıyla sergilenen ortak bir davranış biçimi olarak kolektif eylemler, iklim değişikliği de dahil
olmak üzere sosyal alanı ilgilendiren birçok konuda etkili bir yol sunmaktadır. Bu makale, çevre yanlısı kolektif
eylemlerin nasıl ele alındığını incelemeyi ve ilgili araştırmaların bir özetini Türkçe literatüre kazandırmayı
amaçlamaktadır. Bu doğrultuda mevcut derlemede, Sosyal Kimlik Kuramından yola çıkılarak oluşturulan kolektif
eylem modelleri, iklim değişikliği tehdidine karşı gerçekleştirilen çevre yanlısı kolektif eylemler bağlamında ele
alınmaktadır. Alan yazında konuyla ilgili olarak dört farklı kolektif eylem modeli yer alınmaktadır. Bunlar, Kolektif
Eylemin Sosyal Kimlik Modeli (SIMCA), Kolektif Eylemde Sosyal Kimliğin Kapsüllenmiş Modeli (EMSICA), Çevre
Yanlısı Kolektif Eylemlerin Sosyal Kimlik Modeli (SIMPEA) ve Çevre Yanlısı Kolektif Eylemlerin Çevresel Kimlik
Modeli (EIMECA) olarak isimlendirilmiştir. Bu modellerin temel değişkenlerini, algılanan adaletsizlik (perceived
injustice), grup yeterliliği (group efficacy), sosyal kimlik (social identity) oluşturmaktadır. Buradan hareketle,
makalede öncelikle Sosyal Kimlik Kuramı ve kolektif eylemlerin çevre yanlısı davranışlar açısından nasıl ele
alındığına yönelik bilgiler sunulmuştur. Ardından sosyal kimlik modelleri açısından çevre yanlısı kolektif eylemlerin
nasıl incelendiğine dair araştırma bulgularına yer verilmiştir. Son olarak, çevre yanlısı kolektif eylemlerle ilgili olan
modellerin genel bir tartışması yapılmış ve gelecek çalışmalar için önerilerde bulunulmuştur.
Pro-Environmental Collective Actions: A Review in Social Identity Perspective and Suggestions
Abstract
Collective action as a form of collective behaviour to bring about change offers an effective way to address many
social issues, including climate change. This article aims to examine how pro-environmental collective action has
been addressed and to provide a summary of related research to the Turkish literature. Accordingly, in the present
review, collective action models based on Social Identity Theory are discussed in the context of pro-environmental
collective actions against the threat of climate change. There are mainly four different collective action models in the
literature on the subject. There are four major collective action models on this subject: the Social Identity Model of
Collective Action (SIMCA), The Encapsulated Model of Social Identity in Collective Action (EMSICA), the Social
Identity of Pro-Environmental Action (SIMPEA), the Environmental Identity Model of Environmental Collective
Action (EIMECA). The main variables of these models are perceived injustice, group efficacy and social identity. In
this article, we discuss how Social Identity Theory and collective actions relate to pro-environmental behaviors. We
then examine research findings on analyzing pro-environmental collective actions using social identity models.
Finally, we provide a general discussion of these models and offer suggestions for future studies.
Collective action can be a crucial tool for enabling individuals to combat crime in their communities. In this research, we investigated individuals' intentions to mobilize against organized crime, a particularly impactful form of crime characterized by its exercises of power over territories and communities. We focused on individuals' views and perceptions of state authorities, examining how these views may be linked to intentions for collective mobilization. Using a large dataset with participants from eight countries ( N Total = 2088), we tested two distinct and opposing indirect paths through which perceived state responsiveness may be associated with collective mobilization intentions against organized crime, namely increased collective community efficacy (a Catalyst Indirect Effect) and diminished perceived threat from criminal groups (a Complacency Indirect Effects). Results showed that state responsiveness was associated with stronger collective action intentions through increased collective community efficacy. There was also some evidence of reduced collective action intentions through diminished perceived threat. These findings highlight the complex role of state responsiveness in predicting people's intentions to mobilize against collective problems in their communities. Implications of the findings, limitations and future directions are discussed.
Penulisan Skripsi is a subject for student to complete their studies at Bachelor’s level. During the thesis work, students should actively search for theories and literature in various valid sources, read and understanding literature, and also carry out discussions and guidance with the lecturer as their supervisors, but the facts found are that students have behaviors that leads to problem focused coping. The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between hope, self regulated learning, and problem focused coping in final year students. The research method is a quantitative method and uses a saturated sampling as a technique for selecting research subjects. Research data is analized using product moment correlation and multiple correlation techniques to analized minor and major hypotheses. The research result showed that an R value of 0.648 was obtained. Sig value F.Change is 0.000, which shows that 0.000 < 0.05, which means self regulated learning and hope noth have a relationship with problem focused coping. The significance test was to determine the calculated F, obtained as F Change and calculated F > Ftable which was obtained 27.193 > 3.119. This shows that the major hypothesis is accepted and there is a positive relationship between self regulated learning, hope, and problem focused coping.
Having a vision and being able to imagine socially and ecologically just alternatives can motivate people for societal transformation. However, which psychological processes drive this link between the mental accessibility of societal alternatives and collective action? We hypothesized that collective efficacy beliefs and politicized identification form two pathways mediating the effects of cognitive alternatives on high-cost activist behaviour. Two studies and a pooled analysis tested these hypotheses longitudinally. Data were collected in two field settings: a climate camp and an online conference on socio-ecological visions. In line with our assumptions, and across three of the four analysed time-frames, latent change score modelling showed that changes in cognitive alternatives predicted changes in collective efficacy beliefs and social movement identification, which in turn, predicted changes in collective action intentions. We found clear evidence for our hypotheses in the short term and mixed evidence in the long term. Additional analyses including participative efficacy showed no relevant effects. We concluded that the ability to envision social change may foster a sense of agency as members of social movements. These processes linking imagination to activism are less about individual efficacy than about realizing the collective possibilities for change and identifying with the groups enacting it.
K E Y W O R D S collective action, politicized identity, self-efficacy, social change, social identity, utopian thinking, visions
Introduction
Demographic changes occurring throughout the world, as well as different forms of climate and social movements, are examples of the constant cultural change people experience. Many of these changes reflect broad political and existential threats. We developed and tested the concept of national prostalgia, which we define as the longing of the nation’s future. According to Cultural Inertia theory, national prostalgia is a psychological propeller that facilitates acceptance of cultural change.
Methods
We conducted two correlational studies to develop and test the construct, and the predictive, divergent, and convergent validity of national prostalgia by comparing it to two prospection scales that measure future-thinking, and a third study to experimentally test if national prostalgia can be manipulated. We hypothesized that national prostalgia would predict higher acceptance to cultural change. Change was operationalized as eco-friendly intentions, engagement of new norms created during the COVID-19 pandemic and lowering prejudiced attitudes–beyond the effect of national nostalgia, prospection, optimism, and openness to new experiences.
Results
Study 1 demonstrated that national prostalgia was a better predictor than prospection for higher eco-friendly intentions and acceptance of new normal norms, even when controlling for national nostalgia (i.e., a psychological anchor). In study 2, national prostalgia predicted higher eco- friendly intentions and acceptance of new normal norms, even when controlling for prospection, optimism, and openness to new experiences. National prostalgia did not predict outgroup derogation or white nationalism–variables that indicate prejudice. Study 3 replicated the basic effects, but manipulations designed to influence national prostalgia did not have their predicted effects.
Discussion
Thus, national prostalgia is a psychological propeller that goes above and beyond the effect of prospection and we now have a reliable and valid scale to measure national prostalgia.
Democratic backsliding, increased great power competition, hate speech and violence, mass atrocities and genocides, civil wars, revolution and counter-revolution, reactionary movements against women’s and minority rights, advancements in surveillance, censorship, policing technologies, war—the 21st century has become increasingly repressive and dangerous for political participation across the globe. At the same time, there has been increased protest and a proliferation of resistance movements. This seeming paradox has raised many questions among publics, academics, and policy makers, including: What motivates people to resist at the risk of their lives and livelihoods? What actions do people choose in order to resist and why, and when do resistance strategies change? What causes people to come together or fall out over whether and how to resist? When and why does resistance under repressive conditions escalate or fade away? This edited volume presents our current state of knowledge as well as new research and theorizing on these questions about the psychology of resistance in violent and repressive contexts. The chapters in this volume represent a broad range of diverse contexts, and contemporary as well as historical experiences of repression, violence, and resistance in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America—from cyberwars to civil wars, from police and state repression to pogroms and genocide. Taken together, this volume highlights the importance of considering the socio-political and historical contexts of resistance, the heterogeneity and complexity of psychological paths to resistance, and the variety of strategies people adopt to enact resistance to violence and repression.
Existing research supports the therapeutic value of hope in different therapies and for diverse patient groups. Patients who are socially inhibited tend to have a particularly difficult time in group therapy, and the experience of hope in that context may be especially poignant for them. The present study investigated the impact of hope on the outcome of a group-based treatment and whether this impact differed for patients depending on their level of social inhibition. The sample consisted of 49 consecutively admitted patients who completed treatment in an intensive, integrative group therapy program. Patients completed four self-report measures to assess hope, social inhibition, quality of life, and depression. Regression with moderation analysis was employed. The analyses revealed that social inhibition significantly moderated the impact of hope on treatment outcome, indicating that hope had a more pronounced effect among those patients with relatively higher levels of social inhibition.
Service-learning can produce timely paradigmatic shifts in the psychology curriculum and in teaching practices. This innovative pedagogy enhances students’ academic learning, personal growth, civic development, and professional development. Service-learning pedagogy also has the potential of enhancing students’ understanding of, and commitment to, “glocal” (global-local) issues as expressed in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Service-learning is defined and proffered to transform the undergraduate psychology curriculum by engaging the department faculty to align course outcomes and scaffold community-engaged activities from the introductory to capstone courses. This transformation is illustrated with a major contemporary challenge: climate change.
Hope has intrigued and attracted humans for centuries, with views on this emotion ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. To deepen and nuance our understanding of hope – a seemingly positive emotion – we apply to it a valence/function framework of emotion in group-based contexts. This framework facilitates the examination and categorisation of emotions as positive or negative along two orthogonal dimensions: the pleasantness of the emotional experience and their social outcomes. According to this framework, emotions can “move” on both dimensions (i.e. be experienced as pleasant or unpleasant and lead to functional versus dysfunctional outcomes), based on various factors. Applying this framework to group-based hope may seem surprising, as the emotion is often considered universally good. Yet a more nuanced approach reveals situations in which group-based hope can be a “do bad” emotion, and, at times, can even “feel bad.” We discuss the implications of these understandings for research on hope and its applications across different group contexts.
Die Klimakrise kann nicht gelöst werden, indem nur Einzelne ihr Verhalten ändern. Wir brauchen einen systemischen Wandel - einen Wandel im Kollektiv. Dieser beginnt mit engagierten Menschen: Personen, die Petitionen veröffentlichen, die eine Freiwilligengruppe organisieren oder zivilen Ungehorsam ausüben. Doch wie erhalten diese Menschen den Mut aufrecht, sich für einen sozial-ökologischen Wandel einzusetzen? Wie begeistern sie andere? Und wie entsteht daraus eine resiliente kollektive Bewegung?
Ausgehend von wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen aus der psychologischen Forschung wird praxisnah erklärt, wie Menschen zu Klimaprotest und Engagement motiviert werden und wie Klimagruppen widerstandsfähig, gesund und effektiv handeln können.
Este artigo tem por escopo analisar a produção da ação coletiva
do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), tendo em vista as relações de poder geradas nos assentamentos e as novas subjetividades produzidas por essas ações. A pesquisa está baseada em estudos de casos realizados em dois assentamentos do Estado da Paraíba: Mandacaru (na
região do Semiárido) e Massangana III (na região da Zona da Mata). Teoricamente, as reflexões estão amparadas nos “Novos Movimentos Sociais”, introduzidos por Alain Touraine, entre outros teóricos, a fim de discutir e mostrar como o MST produz a priori modelos de ações coletivas nos assentamentos assimétricas, além de tentar estabelecer um diálogo estratégico entre as visões de mundo dos assentados e a ideologia do movimento
Why do young refugees in the Dadaab camps in Kenya aspire to gain resettlement-based scholarships for tertiary education when the odds of getting them are minimal? The existing literature sheds light on the strong educational aspirations of refugee youth. However, our understanding is obscure of why they persistently pursue lofty educational goals when the chances of achieving them is not optimistic, especially through emergency education programs. This study contributes to our understanding of this puzzle, theoretically and empirically. In the study, I draw from ethnographic research, including semistructured interviews and future aspiration mapping exercises with Form One students, as well as interviews with their teachers. I then present several interconnected explanations that address the research question. First, students believe that success in education is a way for them to get out of the camps. Second, they imagine that getting an overseas scholarship will resolve their difficult economic conditions and academic restrictions. Third, they believe that, by working hard to succeed and being motivated by the dream of getting an education abroad, their chances for other tertiary education will increase. In this study, I argue that the cultural logic of hoping to achieve a better future through education sustains young people's motivation to pursue overseas scholarships, which outweighs the low odds of attaining them.
How does hope for peace form and proliferate in the seemingly hopeless reality of intractable conflicts, and why do despair and fear often prevail? How do political elites utilize hope and skepticism to manipulate their public during conflict? And how does hope manifest itself at the societal level? These questions are not only thought-provoking but also highly relevant to the political realities of millions of people worldwide who are struggling for justice, equality, and peace. Hope Amidst Conflict takes on the bold challenge of answering these questions by merging insights from philosophy and social psychology and investigating hope for peace in an intense political context—the intractable violent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Hope for peace has gathered scholarly attention in the past decade. However, the work has been focusing on the mechanisms of hope while failing to ask the bigger questions about hope’s role in the politics of conflict. Moreover, existing research presents a confusing account of what hope “is” and how it can be measured. This confusion yielded mixed results regarding the levels and consequences of hope during conflict. Combining the wisdom of more than a hundred years of scholarship on hope with insights from original data collected in conflict zones, this book offers a novel, concise but comprehensive conceptualization of hope and a standardized way to measure hope in a wide array of contexts. Using these new approaches, the work embarks on a journey to identify the determinants and consequences of hope amidst conflict.
The spreading of COVID-19 misinformation paralleled increasing fear towards the pandemic reported worldwide
in its early stages. Yet research on the emotional basis for misinformation susceptibility and how emotional
appeals may help reduce COVID-19 related misperceptions remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted a
2 (threat from COVID-19: yes vs. no) × 4 (correction conditions: none vs. factual correction vs. factual correction
+ words of optimistic outlook & individual efficacy vs. factual correction + words of optimistic outlook &
collective efficacy) between-participant factorial experiment among an online sample of Chinese residents (N =
836) in June 2020. Misinformation about COVID-19 treatments and mitigation was presented in all conditions.
Across five misinformation topics, threat information induced more misperceptions while all three types of
corrections mitigated threat information’s deleterious impact and improved belief accuracy. Importantly, corrections incorporating hope appeals showed enhanced effectiveness in improving belief accuracy when threat
information was present whereas factual corrections absent hope appeals did not show similar sensitivity towards threat information. For hope appeal corrections, their indirect effects on desirable downstream behavioral
intentions through corrected beliefs were stronger with than without preceding threat information. Our study
thus demonstrated the potential of deploying hope appeals to fight the COVID-19 infodemic in China and beyond
when threat information is prevalent, while highlighting the importance of studying the roles of emotional
appeals in health misperception formation and correction.
Studies examining the link between media use and political mobilization focus on contexts with high levels of democracy and freedom. This mixed-methods study investigates whether intentions for collective action are predicted by media use and past political participation offline and online in countries categorized as free versus restrictive. Quantitative analyses show that intensive users of offline media were more inclined toward future political participation if they were citizens of a free country and if they reported high levels of group efficacy. Although online media use also predicted future political participation, this likelihood was higher among citizens of restrictive countries who reported lower levels of group efficacy. Qualitative analyses provide a deeper understanding of the contextual differences between free and restrictive countries.
Guided by the Social Identity Model of Collective Action, the current research utilizes a three-wave longitudinal study collected pre and post the 2020 U.S. Presidential election to examine the motivations underlying Latino Americans’ group-based social media engagement (N = 1,050). Results revealed that Time 1 group (Latino) identity increased Time 2 perceptions of social media as efficacious in improving group outcomes, which in turn increased Time 3 group-based social media engagement. Although T1 Latino identification was not significantly associated with T2 perceptions of personal or group-based injustice, the former (but not the latter) increased T3 group-based social media engagement. Our findings reflect that marginalized group members engage with social media in part because they believe it is efficacious in improving their disadvantageous group status. This may be an especially attractive strategy for those who face individual experiences of unjust treatment.
Dehumanization predominantly affects groups facing structural inequalities and these groups often experience low agency in attaining satisfactory work and living conditions. Given that seeing groups as low in agency may underlie the association between social disadvantage and dehumanization, in seven preregistered studies (N =1502), we examined how to raise the perceived agency of disadvantaged groups to increase their humanness ascriptions. Several groups were presented as either succeeding or failing in various contexts (e.g., fighting for human rights, building a community center, crossing the border). Additionally, in five of those studies we added a manipulation of self-relevance to further increase the ecological validity of the presented manipulations. Across all studies, and independent of other factors, success increased agency, which in turn translated to lower dehumanization. The results indicated that shifting the narrative regarding the disadvantaged groups to reflect their successes rather than failures can improve the perception of those groups.
In 2002, a group of investigators joined forces to propose a new conceptual paradigm based on a cognitive approach to motivation. This approach, referred to as goal systems theory, offered a broad perspective on behavioral phenomena and inspired research programs in diverse domains of psychological science. The present volume collects the rich body of insights and findings that the goal systemic approach has yielded over the last two decades. These are contained in a set of chapters by leading researchers from some of the world’s most renowned universities who pushed the envelopes of their respective fields and discovered new psychological phenomena and relationships through applications of the goal systemic framework.
Americans are the world’s best armed citizens and public polling suggests protection/self-defense is their main reason for gun ownership. However, there is virtually no psychological research on gun ownership. The present article develops the first psychological process model of defensive gun ownership—specifically, a two-component model that considers both the antecedents and consequences of owning a gun for protection/self-defense. We demonstrate that different levels of threat construal—the specific perceived threat of assault and a diffuse threat of a dangerous world—independently predict handgun ownership; we also show how utility judgments can explain the motivated reasoning that drives beliefs about gun rights. We tested our model in two independent samples of gun owners (total N = 899), from just before and after the Orlando mass shooting. This study illustrates how social-cognitive theories can help explain what motivates Americans to own handguns and advocate for broad rights to carry and use them.
The study set out to integrate collective action models and emphasize the role of emotions. Whereas the importance of anger is indisputable, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of positive emotions, such as hope, in collective action research. Hence, the aim of the study was to explore the role of hope and anger as drivers of participation and involvement in collective mobilizations. A cross-sectional field study (N = 638) conducted right after the emergence of the 15-M socio-political protest movement in Spain assessed the emotions and beliefs of both demonstrators and those who took no part in the active mobilization. We hypothesized that anger and hope would sequentially mediate the relationship between collective action frames and participation in collective action. Furthermore, to test this premise, we ran two alternative sequential mediation models based on the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) and the encapsulated model of social identity in collective action (EMSICA), but with emotions as mediators between collective action frames and intensity of participation. Both models fit the data well, suggesting the importance of considering multiple causal pathways, and showing that anger and hope sequentially mediate the relation between these frames and involvement in collective action. The results support the crucial role of hope in mobilizing individuals to take part in collective action.
In conflicts, political attitudes are based to some extent on the perception of the outgroup
as sharing the goal of peace and supporting steps to achieve it. However, intractable
conflicts are characterized by inconsistent and negative interactions, which prevent clear
messages of outgroup support. This problem calls for alternative ways to convey support
between groups in conflict. One such method is emotional expressions. The current
research tested whether, in the absence of outgroup support for peace, observing
expressions of outgroup hope induces conciliatory attitudes. Results from two
experimental studies, conducted within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, revealed support
for this hypothesis. Expressions of Palestinian hope induced acceptance of a peace
agreement through Israeli hope and positive perceptions of the proposal when outgroup
support expressions were low. Findings demonstrate the importance of hope as a means of
conveying information within processes of conflict resolution, overriding messages of low
outgroup support for peace.
Popular hope theories treat hope as an expectancy-based construct, with individuals more hopeful the greater their perceived likelihood of success. Consequently, the distinction between hope and other expectancy-based concepts (e.g., optimism) is unclear. The present research aims to identify the unique nature of hope, suggesting hope is invoked in particular when expectations of positive outcomes are low. As long as there is a possibility of those outcomes eventuating, individuals highly invested in them are more likely to hope; but with greater probability hope tends to align with optimism. In Study 1, for supporters of bottom-tier football teams strongly invested in the hoped-for outcome of their team winning, hope’s relationship with likelihood was cubic, accelerating with mere possibility; contrastingly, for optimism the relationship was linear. Study 2 replicated these findings for voters’ hope in state election outcomes. Hope is distinct from optimism and positive expectation; hope is tapped into when odds are low yet individuals are highly invested in the outcome.
A set of studies explored the possibility to instill hope for peace in the context of intractable conflicts. The first study examined Jewish-Israelis’ hopes for peace following a message from an out-group communicator. Results show that participants’ hopes increased after viewing a Palestinian conclude that the conflict was solvable. This held true regardless of whether the Palestinian communicator identified as a militant or a peace activist. However, Jewish-Israelis’ hopes for peace were not altered when an article, ostensibly written by conflict experts, concluded that the Palestinian–Israeli conflict was resolvable. In order to explore whether these trends are unique to group members involved in intergroup conflict, we replicated the study on uninvolved third-party participants. The article offers a comparison of belief malleability between those who experience conflict first hand and those who observe it from afar and presents strategies that may instill hope for peace in group members immersed in protracted violent conflicts.
Politics — and especially politics of protest — is full of emotions. People are angry about austerity measures, thrilled or fearful about the Arab Spring and indignant because they want real democracy now!1 Clearly, there is an emotional side to how people react to their social and political environment (Conover and Feldman, 1986; Lyman, 2004; Marcus, 2003; Marcus et al., 2000; Way and Masters, 1996). Politics of protest are imbued with emotions. In fact, protest is inconceivable without emotions. It is emotions which ‘give ideas, ideologies, identities and even interests their power to motivate’ (Jasper, 1997, p. 127). Social movements are carriers of meaning and organizers do their utmost to create moral outrage and to provide a target against which this can be vented. They must weave together a moral, cognitive and emotional package of attitudes. Organizers appeal to ‘attack emotions’ such as anger to create ‘fire in the belly and iron in the soul’ (Gamson, 1992, p. 32). However, ‘just’ being angry is not enough, as Martin Luther King aptly stated: ‘It is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force’. Social movements use their power, resources and creativity to turn individual grievances and emotions into collective claims and to stage opportunities to act upon these claims.
The importance of hope in promoting conciliatory attitudes has been asserted in the field of conflict resolution. However, little is known about conditions inducing hope, especially in intractable conflicts, where reference to the outgroup may backfire. In the current research, five studies yielded convergent support for the hypothesis that hope for peace stems from a general perception of the world as changing. In Study 1, coders observed associations between belief in a changing world, hope regarding peace, and support for concessions. Study 2 revealed the hypothesized relations using self-reported measures. Studies 3 and 4 established causality by instilling a perception of the world as changing (vs. unchanging) using narrative and drawing manipulations. Study 5 compared the changing world message with a control condition during conflict escalation. Across studies, although the specific context was not referred to, the belief in a changing world increased support for concessions through hope for peace.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
The question addressed is, when do disadvantaged-group members accept their situation, take individual action, or attempt to instigate collective action? Ss attempted to move from a low-status group into an advantaged, high-status group and were asked to respond to their subsequent rejection. Ss who believed that the high-status group was open to members of their group endorsed acceptance and individual actions. When access to the high-status group was restricted, even to the point of being almost closed (tokenism), Ss still preferred individual action. Disruptive forms of collective action were only favored by Ss who were told that the high-status group was completely closed to members of their group. Ss who believed they were near to gaining entry into the high-status group favored individual protest, while Ss distant from entry were more likely to accept their position. The theoretical and societal implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Emotional barriers have been found to play a critical role in forming attitudes and behaviors in conflict and peace-making. A major effect of such affective barriers is cognitive freezing, which reduces openness to new information and opportunities to conflict resolution. In the current research, we examined the hypothesis that hope and fear have opposite effects on information processing in such contexts. A time-lagged correlational study with 222 Israeli-Jews was conducted using a new computerized information processing simulator. Results revealed that when faced with an opportunity for peace, long-term hope was associated with acquiring information in favor of accepting the opportunity, whereas fear was associated with acquiring information that was biased towards rejecting the opportunity. Results also showed that both emotions were not associated with the amount of information gathered by participants. Findings have both theoretical and practical implications regarding the differential roles of hope and fear in identifying opportunities for, and promoting, conflict resolution.
Although negative out-group beliefs typically foster individuals’ motivation for collective action, we propose that such beliefs may diminish this motivation when people believe that this out-group cannot change in its very essence. Specifically, we tested the idea that believing in the malleability of immoral out-groups (i.e., targets of collective action) should increase collective action tendencies through group efficacy beliefs. Study 1 revealed that the more strongly participants believed that immoral out-groups could change as a function of contextual influences, the stronger their collective action tendencies were due to increased group efficacy. In Study 2, we experimentally replicated these findings using a manipulation of individuals’ beliefs about immoral out-groups being potentially malleable (vs. fixed). We discuss implications of our findings with an eye on the literature on collective action and implicit beliefs and on the promotion of civic engagement more broadly.
The importance of hope has long been asserted in the field of conflict resolution. However, little is actually known about either how to induce hope or what effects hope has on conciliatory attitudes. In the current research, we tested whether (1) hope is based upon beliefs regarding conflict malleability and (2) hope predicts support for concessions for peace. Study 1, a correlational study conducted among Israeli Jews, revealed that malleability beliefs regarding conflicts in general are associated with hope regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as well as with support for concessions. In Study 2, we established causality using an experimental manipulation of beliefs regarding conflicts being malleable (vs. fixed). Findings have both theoretical and practical implications regarding inducing hope in intractable conflicts, thus promoting the attitudes so critical for peacemaking.
For the past 10 years, a robust body of empirical and theoretical literature has been devoted to forgiveness within interpersonal relationships. However, only a few studies have empirically examined forgiveness in intergroup settings. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine empirically the interpersonal determinants of intergroup forgiveness within Northern Ireland. University students (N = 297) were given questionnaires that measured religiosity, empathy, contact with the "other community", hope, disposition to forgive, and forgiveness of the "other community". Structural Equation Modeling was used to determine a theoretical model that best fit the data. Results provided empirical support for the use of interpersonal factors in examining societal forgiveness in Northern Ireland. Implications for future research and societal interventions are discussed.
The article presents a conceptual framework that concerns the sociopsychological foundation and dynamics of intractable conflict. First, it defines and characterizes the nature of intractable conflict, and then it describes how societies involved in this reality adapt to the conditions of intractable conflict. This adaptation meets three fundamental challenges: satisfying the needs of the society members, coping with stress, and withstanding the rival. In trying to confront them successfully, societies develop appropriate sociopsychological infrastructure, which includes collective memory, ethos of conflict, and collective emotional orientations. This infrastructure fulfills important individual and collective level functions, including the important role of formation, maintenance, and strengthening of a social identity that reflects this conflict. Special attempts are made to disseminate this infrastructure via societal channels of communication and institutionalize it. The evolved sociopsychological infrastructure becomes a prism through which society members construe their reality, collect new information, interpret their experiences, and make decisions about their course of action. This infrastructure becomes hegemonic, rigid, and resistant to change as long as the intractable conflict continues. It ends up serving as a major factor fueling the continuation of the conflict, thus becoming part of a vicious cycle of intractable conflict.
This study explores the relationship between collective memory, delegitimization of the rival, and personal experiences, on the one hand, and personal and collective fear and hope, on the other hand, in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict. A questionnaire was administered to 217 Israeli-Jewish undergraduates from three academic institutions in Israel. The dependent variables were levels of fear and hope on a personal and collective level, whereas the independent variables were collective memory of the Jewish past, delegitimization of Arabs, and the personal experiences of contact with Arabs, military service in the occupied territories, close relationships to a terror victim, and family relationships with Holocaust survivors. Results show that (a) delegitimization of Arabs has the highest correlations with fear and hope, personally as well as collectively; and (b) the centrality of Jewish collective memory is directly related to levels of collective fear. In addition, we found a combined interaction effect of collective memory and personal contact with Arabs on fear, and of collective memory with political orientation and various elements of life experience on hope. Hence, it seems, that the level of centrality of collective memory serves to moderate the influence of conflict-related life experiences on personal and collective fear and hope.
The broad array of theoretical and empirical traditions that frame this body of work have provided valuable insights, but, not surprisingly, have also exposed inconsistencies and contradictions. In this chapter, we examine one fundamental difference in strategic focus that, on the surface, may appear inconsequential or even complementary, but when examined it is exposed as one case when differences in strategies, typically associated with differences in the perspective of advantaged and disadvantaged groups, by which positive intergroup relation can be achieved, can serve to undermine progress toward intergroup equality an social justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
in our discussion of emotion and dysfunction, we have intimated that emotions are instructive about persons because both emotions and the personality are organized around the problem of surviving, getting along, and flourishing over the life course
begin by addressing the question of what an emotion is / describe our own [the authors'] recent work directed at illuminating what we see as one of the important issues in emotion theory—the role of cognitive appraisal
embed this work in a general model of emotion, which identifies the key variables and processes within a systems framework emphasizing person-environment relationships and cognitive mediation
illustrate how emotion theory makes firm contact with a variety of topics currently being pursued across diverse psychological disciplines, especially personality and social psychology
the adaptational problem and the evolution of emotion / appraisal theory / personality, society, and biology in emotion (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this article, we argue that progress in the study of collective action rests on an increasingly sophisticated application of the social identity approach. We develop the view, however, that the application of this theoretical perspective has been limited by theoretical and empirical difficulties in distinguishing between social categories and psychological groups. These problems have undermined the ability of researchers to correctly specify the collective identities that actually underpin many instances of collective action. As a partial solution to this problem we focus on collective identities based on shared opinion (opinion-based groups). We develop the proposition that much collective action reflects the crystallization or instantiation of opinion-based groups. We also outline an intervention aimed at stimulating commitment to collective action through group-based interaction involving opinion-based group members. We conclude by emphasizing that opinion-based groups tend to be most successful when they present themselves as being representative or aligned with dominant, positively valued social categories such as nations.
We address the question why fear dominates hope in the life of individuals and collectives on the basis of the accumulated knowledge in the psychology, neurology and sociology of emotions. This knowledge suggests that fear, as primary emotion, is grounded in the experienced present and based on the memorized past, processed both consciously and unconsciously, causes freezing and conservatism, and sometimes leads to pre-emptive aggression. Hope, in contrast, as a secondary emotion, involves cognitive activity, which requires anticipation and the search for new ideas and thus is based on complex processes of creativity and flexibility. Therefore, hope is often preceded and inhibited by spontaneous, automatically activated and faster fear. Fear and hope can each become a collective emotional orientation, and as such organize society's views and direct its actions. Societies involved in intractable conflict are dominated by a collective fear orientation. This orientation is functional for society's coping with the stressful and demanding situation—but it may serve as a psychological obstacle to any peace process, once it starts. The case of the collective fear orientation in the Jewish Israeli society is presented as an example. The article ends with a presentation of a particular approach, suggesting that individuals and collectives can overcome their fear with much determination, and establish an orientation of hope which allows change in situations dominated by fear. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The study comprises an analysis of processes of psychological change among participants at an environmental protest. A participant observation study found evidence of a radicalized self concept among a number of crowd members, and indicates a link between radicalization, an asymmetry of categorical representations between protesters and the police, and the subsequent interaction premised on these divergent representations. The analysis supports an elaborated social identity model of crowd behaviour (Reicher, 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Stott & Reicher, 1998). It is argued that, in order to account for both social determination and social change in collective behaviour, it is necessary to analyse crowd events as developing interactions between groups. Where crowd members hold a different understanding of their social position to that held by an out-group (e.g. the police) and where the out-group has the power to treat crowd members in terms of its understandings, then those members who act on the basis of one understanding of their social relations find themselves in an unexpected and novel set of social relations. This then provides the basis for a series of changes, including the self-understanding of crowd members.
Three studies examined the conceptual and psychological differences between hope and related mental states. In Study 1, participants provided definitions of hope as well as optimism, want, desire, wish, and the non-anticipatory state of joy; in Study 2, participants wrote about a time when they had experienced each of these states. These definitions and stories were coded for a number of psychological features that were then used to distinguish the different states. Study 3 mapped the differences among the six mental states into a multidimensional conceptual space. Overall, hope is most closely related to wishing but distinct from it. Most important, hope is distinct from optimism by being an emotion, representing more important but less likely outcomes, and by affording less personal control. The importance of combining a folk-conceptual perspective with a more traditional analysis of appraisal for understanding differences among psychological constructs is discussed.
In this article the authors explore the social psychological processes underpinning sustainable commitment to a social or political cause. Drawing on recent developments in the collective action, identity formation, and social norm literatures, they advance a new model to understand sustainable commitment to action. The normative alignment model suggests that one solution to promoting ongoing commitment to collective action lies in crafting a social identity with a relevant pattern of norms for emotion, efficacy, and action. Rather than viewing group emotion, collective efficacy, and action as group products, the authors conceptualize norms about these as contributing to a dynamic system of meaning, which can shape ongoing commitment to a cause. By exploring emotion, efficacy, and action as group norms, it allows scholars to reenergize the theoretical connections between collective identification and subjective meaning but also allows for a fresh perspective on complex questions of causality.
How and why do moral judgments vary across the political spectrum? To test moral foundations theory (J. Haidt & J. Graham, 2007; J. Haidt & C. Joseph, 2004), the authors developed several ways to measure people's use of 5 sets of moral intuitions: Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity. Across 4 studies using multiple methods, liberals consistently showed greater endorsement and use of the Harm/care and Fairness/reciprocity foundations compared to the other 3 foundations, whereas conservatives endorsed and used the 5 foundations more equally. This difference was observed in abstract assessments of the moral relevance of foundation-related concerns such as violence or loyalty (Study 1), moral judgments of statements and scenarios (Study 2), "sacredness" reactions to taboo trade-offs (Study 3), and use of foundation-related words in the moral texts of religious sermons (Study 4). These findings help to illuminate the nature and intractability of moral disagreements in the American "culture war."
Two correlational studies of activists examined the association between belonging to community organizations or groups and sustained activism within a particular domain. In Study 1 (N = 45) larger activist networks, controlling for activist identification and greater political knowledge, were associated with stronger activism intentions. In Study 2 (N = 155), larger Time 1 peace activism social networks were associated with more Time 2 peace activism and, via Time 2 activism, with sustained activism at Time 3. In contrast, Time 1 nationalist and party political identities were inhibiting factors of peace activism at Time 2, and indirectly at Time 3. In addition, larger peace activism networks at Time 1 were associated with greater international human rights activism and Christian activism at Time 3, but not as consistently with other forms of cross-domain activism. The possible organizing principles for these interrelationships are discussed. © 2016 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
The political psychology of political action provides the potential for building bridges between scholars from different fields. The main aim of this article is to set some baby steps toward building two conceptual bridges by bringing together a core motivation approach to political action with core features of the social structure that embeds those core motivations. The first conceptual bridge relies on considering a broader motivational model than provided by rational actor or social identity approaches, whereas the second bridge relies on considering core features of the social structure as potentiating these core motivations for political action. More specifically, I first discuss definitions of political action. Second, I identify four converging themes across different literatures on collective action, social movement participation, and voting turnout, resulting in a taxonomy of core motivations for political action (i.e., personal or group-based identity, efficacy, emotion, and moral motivations). Third, in a more explorative fashion I identify four core features of the social structure (ingroup, outgroup, interpersonal network, and institutional features), which I tentatively connect with the taxonomy of core motivations. Finally, I discuss the theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of this generalist, generative, and integrative perspective on political action.
In this article, the authors propose that individuals' moral beliefs are linked to their implicit theories about the nature (i.e., malleability) of their social-moral reality. Specifically, it was hypothesized that when individuals believe in a fixed reality (entity theory), they tend to hold moral beliefs in which duties within the given system are seen as fundamental. In contrast, when individuals believe in a malleable reality (incremental theory), one that can be shaped by individuals, they hold moral beliefs that focus on moral principles, such as human rights, around which that reality should be organized. Results from 5 studies supported the proposed framework: Implicit theories about the malleability of one's social-moral reality predicted duty-based vs. rights-based moral beliefs.
Theory and research documents but does not explain the empirically observed
different motivational profiles of activists and non-activists. For this reason, little is
known about how non-activists become activists. Building on a broad literature that
views humans as relational beings, I propose to reconceptualize collective action as
social interaction that regulates social relationships (i.e., which relationships are
individuals regulating, and how?) This facilitates an integrative understanding of the
different motivational profiles for activists and non-activists (based in Fiske’s (1991)
notion of different relational models with associated taboos and obligations to guide
their regulation), which enables the development of a new relational hypothesis about
how non-activists become activists (namely through two specific changes in relational
models with one’s ingroup and outgroup, authority, or system, in response to taboo
violations in social interaction). I discuss implications of this relational perspective for
theory and research on collective action and psychological and social change.
Hope is an emotion that has been implicated in social change efforts, yet little research has examined whether feeling hopeful actually motivates support for social change. Study 1 (N = 274) confirmed that hope is associated with greater support for social change in two countries with different political contexts. Study 2 (N = 165) revealed that hope predicts support for social change over and above other emotions often investigated in collective action research. Study 3 (N = 100) replicated this finding using a hope scale and showed the effect occurs independent of positive mood. Study 4 (N = 58) demonstrated experimentally that hope motivates support for social change. In all four studies, the effect of hope was mediated by perceived efficacy to achieve social equality. This research confirms the motivating potential of hope and illustrates the power of this emotion in generating social change.
Collective action against collective disadvantage is a theoretically and socially relevant phenomenon that has received increased scientific attention in recent years. Because recent work combines different theoretical traditions, the last decade can be rightly called an ‘age of integration’. In this article, I take stock and look ahead by briefly reviewing four core social‐psychological motivations for undertaking collective action (based on identity, morality, emotion, and efficacy). I then review recent accumulating evidence for an encompassing social‐psychological model of collective action that integrates all four core motivations. Based on this model's shortcomings, I close by calling for an ‘age of innovation’ for which I propose a theoretical and research agenda.
A major barrier to conflict resolution is group members' tendency to hold on to the ingroup's narrative of the conflict and reject the outgroup's perspective. In the current research, we propose that voicing internal criticism to an outgroup crowd can undermine such orientations and foster intergroup openness. Across four experiments, Israeli Jews who were exposed to a Palestinian criticizing Palestinians were more open to the Palestinians' perspective of the conflict, than those not exposed to the criticism. This effect was obtained when the criticism was related (Study 1) and unrelated (Study 2) to the conflict, and was consistently mediated by increased hope about the future relations between the groups. Study 3 showed that the effect is more pronounced among those who believe that groups can change. Study 4 established that perceptions about the outgroup as open-minded underlie the effect of ingroup criticism on hope, and further demonstrated downstream effects of openness.
G*Power (Erdfelder, Faul, & Buchner, 1996) was designed as a general stand-alone power analysis program for statistical tests commonly used in social and behavioral research. G*Power 3 is a major extension of, and improvement over, the previous versions. It runs on widely used computer platforms (i.e., Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.4) and covers many different statistical tests of the t, F, and chi2 test families. In addition, it includes power analyses for z tests and some exact tests. G*Power 3 provides improved effect size calculators and graphic options, supports both distribution-based and design-based input modes, and offers all types of power analyses in which users might be interested. Like its predecessors, G*Power 3 is free.
This chapter attempts to provide empirical support for some of the key predictions of social identity theory. This theory not only describes the psychological processes underlying the desire to establish positive social identity, it also identifies antecedent conditions to the use of different options to improve one's status position. On the basis of the theoretical statements provided by social identity theory, a research programme, designed to investigate conditions under which group members would be inclined to pursue status improvement individually or as a group, was set up. A theoretical analysis implies that status structures can be characterized with a limited number of variables and that such socio-structural variables are likely to be important determinants of people's preference to display individualist or collectivist behaviour when striving for higher status. The main variables in this respect seem to be: (1) the relative status position of one's group; (2) the permeability of group boundaries; (3) the stability of group status; and (4) the legitimacy of personal status or group status. In a series of experiments, different status structures were simulated, in order to assess the cognitive and behavioural consequences for people operating in these structures. The outcomes of these experiments and their theoretical implications are discussed.
In this target article, we present evidence for a new model of individual differences in judgments and reactions. The model holds that people's implicit theories about human attributes structure the way they understand and react to human actions and outcomes. We review research showing that when people believe that attributes (such as intelligence or moral character) are fixed, trait-like entities (an entity theory), they tend to understand outcomes and actions in terms of these fixed traits (''I failed the test because I am dumb'' or ''He stole the bread because he is dishonest''). In contrast, when people believe that attributes are more dynamic, malleable, and developable (an incremental theory), they tend refocus less on broad traits and, instead, tend to understand outcomes and actions in terms of more specific behavioral or psychological mediators (''I failed the test because of my effort or strategy'' or ''He stole the bread because he was desperate''). The two frameworks also appear to foster different reactions: helpless versus mastery-oriented responses to personal setbacks and an emphasis on retribution versus education or rehabilitation for transgressions. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for personality, motivation, and social perception.
Social identity theory is employed to conceptualise the role of group identification in the conversion of discontent into participation in political protest. It is assumed that higher levels of group identification stimulate participation in protest on behalf of the group. Perceived characteristics of the intergroup situation such as the permeability of group boundaries, and the stability and legitimacy of intergroup relations are supposed to modify the role of group identification. Group identification is decomposed into an affective and a behavioural component. Furthermore, ingroup identification is distinguished from outgroup differentiation; and groups are defined at different levels of inclusiveness. In a longitudinal study among Dutch farmers (n=168) the relationship between group identification and protest participation is investigated. Group identification, be it affective or behavioural, appears to influence action preparedness. People seem to enter the protest arena with some level of group identification. This level of group identification sets the level of action preparedness. Once set, the level of action preparedness remains fairly stable over time and appears to be a strong predictor of future action preparedness and participation. Action preparedness in its turn together with the behavioural component of group identification influences actual participation in collective action. Outgroup differentiation did not have any impact on protest participation. Identification with farmers in the European Union did not matter, but identification with farmers at the national or regional level did stimulate protest participation. Perceived characteristics of the intergroup situation did not have an impact on group identification, but permeability and stability did affect protest participation. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Social cognitive theory adopts an agentic perspective in which individuals are producers of experiences and shapers of events. Among the mechanisms of human agency, none is more focal or pervading than the belief of personal efficacy. This core belief is the foundation of human agency. Unless people believe that they can produce desired effects and forestall undesired ones by their actions, they have little incentive to act. The growing interdependence of human functioning is placing a premium on the exercise of collective agency through shared beliefs in the power to produce effects by collective action. The present article analyzes the nature of perceived collective efficacy and its centrality in how people live their lives. Perceived collective efficacy fosters groups' motivational commitment to their missions, resilience to adversity, and performance accomplishments.
Two aspects of the social psychology of collective action are of particular interest to social movement organizers and activists: how to motivate people to engage in collective action, and how to use collective action to create social change. The second question remains almost untouched within social psychology. The present article delineates research from political science and sociology concerning variables that moderate the effectiveness of collective action and maps these variables against intergroup research. Within intergroup social psychology, there is a theoretical literature on what needs to be done to achieve change (e.g., changing identification, social norms, or perceptions of legitimacy, stability, permeability). The article considers possible testable hypotheses concerning the outcomes of collective action which can be derived from intergroup research and from the synthesis of the three disciplines. For theoreticians and practitioners alike, a program of research which addresses the social-psychological outcomes of collective action and links these to identities, norms, intentions, and support for social change in bystanders, protagonists, and opponents has a great deal of interest.
The articles presented in this volume describe part of a new generation of interest and vigor in the social psychological study of collective action. This new wave builds nicely on the foundation set by social identity, self-categorization, and relative deprivation theories but also introduces a number of important innovative perspectives and variables. In this commentary, I review some of these expansions and additions, raise a number of conceptual concerns that arise out of these new directions, and discuss more generally some novel and important directions that emerge from the work presented in the volume and in other recent work on collective action.
Research has shown limited support for the notion that perceived effectiveness of collective action is a predictor of intentions to engage in collective action. One reason may be that effectiveness has been in terms of whether the action will influence key decision makers. We argue that the effectiveness of collective action might be judged by other criteria, such as whether it influences third parties, builds an oppositional movement, and expresses values. Two hundred and thirty one attendees at a rally rated the effectiveness of the rally and their intentions to engage in future collective action. For those participants who were not members of an organization, intentions were linked to the perceived effectiveness of the rally in expressing values and influencing the public. For those who were members of an organization, intentions were linked only to the effectiveness of the rally in building an oppositional movement.
Although group identification and group efficacy are both important predictors of collective action against collective disadvantage, there is mixed evidence for their (causal) relationship. Meta-analytic and correlational evidence suggests an overall positive relationship that has been interpreted as consistent with the idea that group identification leads to group efficacy. However, experimental evidence has not supported this causal relationship. To resolve this paradox, we show in an experiment that it is group efficacy that leads to increased group identification because group efficacy puts individuals' identity into action. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
To explain the psychology behind individuals' motivation to participate in collective action against collective disadvantage (e.g., protest marches), the authors introduce a dynamic dual pathway model of approach coping that integrates many common explanations of collective action (i.e., group identity, unfairness, anger, social support, and efficacy). It conceptualizes collective action as the outcome of two distinct processes: emotion-focused and problem-focused approach coping. The former revolves around the experience of group-based anger (based in appraised external blame for unfair collective disadvantage). The latter revolves around beliefs in the group's efficacy (based in appraised instrumental coping potential for social change). The model is the first to make explicit the dynamic nature of collective action by explaining how undertaking collective action leads to the reappraisal of collective disadvantage, thus inspiring future collective action. The authors review empirical support for the model, discuss its theoretical and practical implications, and identify directions for future research and application.
It is well known that negative intergroup emotions such as anger, fear, and hatred play a major role in initiating and maintaining intergroup conflicts. It is far less clear, however, what factors promote the resolution of intergroup conflicts. Using an emotion regulation- framework, we hypothesised that one form of emotion regulation-namely cognitive reappraisal-should play a salutary role in such conflicts, and be associated with increased hope as well as greater support for humanitarian aid to out-group members. To test these hypotheses, we used a nationwide survey of Jewish-Israeli adults, conducted during the war in Gaza between Israelis and Palestinians. Results obtained via structural equation modelling revealed that Israelis who regulated their negative emotions during the war through reappraisal were more supportive in providing humanitarian aid to innocent Palestinian citizens and that this relation was partially mediated by an enhanced feeling of hope.
We tested a social-identity relative deprivation (SIRD) model predicting Scottish nationalist beliefs and intention to vote for the separatist Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). Data were from a survey of a large and representative sample of Scottish teenagers administered in the late 1980s. The SIRD model distinguishes effects of group-based and personal relative deprivation, which should be independent of one another. Importantly, social change beliefs should mediate the effects of both collective relative deprivation and group identification on protest intentions (in this case intention to vote for the SNP). Egoistic relative deprivation should be the strongest predictor of feelings of depression. Using structural equation modelling, the results strongly support this model and replicate in two different cohorts.
The present article reports a longitudinal study of the psychological antecedents for, and outcomes of, collective action for a community sample of activists. At Time 1, activist identification influenced intentions to engage in collective action behaviours protesting the Iraq war, both directly and indirectly via perceptions of the efficacy of these behaviours for achieving group goals, as well as perceptions of individual-level benefits. At Time 2, identification was associated with differences in the dimensions on which the movement's success was evaluated. In the context of the movement's failure to achieve its stated objectives of troop withdrawal, those with strong activist identity placed less importance on influencing government decision making. The implications are discussed in terms of models of collective action and social identity, focusing on a dynamic model that relates identification with a group to evaluations of instrumentality at a group and individual level; and to beliefs about strategic responses to achieve group goals.