Moved by Social Justice: The Role of Kama Muta in Collective Action Toward Racial Equality.

Diana M Lizarazo Pereira,Thomas W Schubert,Jenny Roth

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.780615

Diana M Lizarazo Pereira, Thomas W Schubert + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.780615

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Abstract

Participation in collective action is known to be driven by two appraisals of a social situation: Beliefs that the situation is unfair (injustice appraisal) and beliefs that a group can change the situation (collective efficacy appraisal). Anger has been repeatedly found to mediate the relationship between injustice appraisals and collective action. Recent work suggests that the emotion of being moved mediates the relationship between efficacy appraisals and collective action. Building on this prior work, the present research applies kama muta theory to further investigate the relationship between efficacy appraisals and collective action. Kama muta is a positive emotion that is evoked by a sudden intensification of communal sharing, and largely overlaps with the English concept being moved. We investigated its relationship with collective action in both advantaged and disadvantaged racial groups in the context of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) in Spring of 2020. In one pilot study (N = 78) and one main study (N = 215), we confirmed that anger toward the system of racial inequalities mediated between injustice and collective action intentions, and that kama muta toward the movement mediated between collective efficacy and collective action intentions. Both mediations were found for both Black and White participants. We also observed additional unpredicted paths from anger to kama muta and from efficacy to anger. Together, this provides evidence for the pivotal role of emotions in collective action intentions, but also points out that appraisals need to be better understood.

Highlights

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) has become the largest social movement in the history of the United States (Buchanan and Patel, 2020)
The system of racial inequalities elicited the highest levels of anger and sadness, while Black and White people elicited the highest levels of kama muta
We hypothesized that kama muta toward the BLM movement would mediate the path of collective efficacy appraisals to collective action intentions

Summary

Introduction

The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) has become the largest social movement in the history of the United States (Buchanan and Patel, 2020). In 2020, the unfortunate events of racial discrimination against Black people had a massive impact worldwide. Black people and other racialethnic minorities have raised their voices to condemn the systematic racism that affects them on a daily basis. Many White people have stood up in solidarity in the fight for racial justice. This social movement is an example of how members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups can join efforts to act for social change. Emotions play a pivotal role to motivate or undermining collective action efforts because they sit at the intersection of multiple determining processes: They influence decision-making and action (Montada and Schneider, 1989; Jasper, 2011). Emotions can coordinate social interactions and cooperative behavior (Thomas et al, 2009b) and they may influence social

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