Abstract
Generalized attitudes toward authority and justice are often conceptualized as individual differences that are resistant to enduring change. However, across two field experiments with Chinese factory workers and American university staff, small adjustments to people’s experience of participation in the workplace shifted these attitudes one month later. Both experiments randomly assigned work groups to a 20-minute participatory meeting once per week for six weeks, in which the supervisor stepped aside and workers discussed problems, ideas, and goals regarding their work (vs. a status quo meeting). Across 97 work groups and 1,924 workers, participatory meetings led workers to be less authoritarian and more critical about societal authority and justice, and to be more willing to participate in political, social, and familial decision-making. These findings provide rare experimental evidence of the theoretical predictions regarding participatory democracy: that local participatory experiences can influence broader democratic attitudes and empowerment.
Highlights
Generalized attitudes toward authority and justice are often conceptualized as individual differences that are resistant to enduring change
Dij refers to a binary variable of experimental manipulation randomly assigned to the participants, in which Dij = 1 refers to participatory meetings treatment condition and Dij = 0 refers to the observer control condition
Following a six-week period in which workers experienced a participatory meeting in which workers talked and supervisors listened, treatment workers reported less deference to generalized authority and lower belief in the just nature of the world, compared with workers who were not assigned to these meetings
Summary
Generalized attitudes toward authority and justice are often conceptualized as individual differences that are resistant to enduring change. Across two field experiments with Chinese factory workers and American university staff, small adjustments to people’s experience of participation in the workplace shifted these attitudes one month later Both experiments randomly assigned work groups to a 20-minute participatory meeting once per week for six weeks, in which the supervisor stepped aside and workers discussed problems, ideas, and goals regarding their work (vs a status quo meeting). Across 97 work groups and 1,924 workers, participatory meetings led workers to be less authoritarian and more critical about societal authority and justice, and to be more willing to participate in political, social, and familial decision-making These findings provide rare experimental evidence of the theoretical predictions regarding participatory democracy: that local participatory experiences can influence broader democratic attitudes and empowerment. The research is motivated by Lewin’s7 idea that meaningful social groups can serve as “cultural islands,” where local attitudes can develop from immersive group experiences, even when these experiences stand in contradiction to the group’s broader societal context[7]
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