Support For Collective Action Research Articles

Imagining a Positive Future: Desirability and Possibility as Possible Pathways to Hope and Commitment to Collective Action

We investigate if and how imagining a positive future where a societal issue has been rectified can promote hope and support for collective action. Participants imagined (vs. not) a positive future related to climate change (Study 1, N = 301) and economic equality (Study 2, N = 489), two years versus several decades from now. In both studies, imagining a positive future led to support for collective action via increased hope. In Study 1, imagination increased the perceived possibility of achieving the collective goal, in Study 2 it increased its perceived desirability. Possibility was positively related to hope, in particular when imagining a near future, whereas desirability of the collective goal was positively related to hope for a distant imagined future. The research provides evidence for the power of imagination in inspiring hope and collective action, and shows the shifting meaning of hope depending on collective action context and timeframe of the imagination.

“I Have Nothing to Complain About!”: System Justification Tendencies Undermines Collective Action Through Adherence to Hierarchy-Legitimizing Ideologies / “No tengo de qué quejarme”: Las tendencias a la justificación del sistema debilitan la acción colectiva a través de la adherencia a ideologías que legitiman la jerarquía

All societies are organized based on hierarchies, where some groups have more power than others. Although some may aspire for a hierarchy-free world, hierarchies are inevitable and strongly resistant to changes. People may feel motivated to see hierarchical social systems as fair, legitimate, and justified, and endorse system-justifying ideologies, such as social dominance orientation (SDO), contributing to the maintenance and perpetuation of intergroup inequality. Belief in the social system’s fairness and legitimacy should increase acceptance and support for the existing society-based social stratification and status hierarchies, weakening support for collective action towards social change. We tested this idea, with two studies, conducted on members of the general population ( N = 121) and on members of a disadvantaged group highly mobilized for social change towards intergroup equality ( N = 154). Results showed that system justification undermines collective action through SDO (full mediation). We discuss the implications of including ideological processes when predicting collective action.

Region-level Pākehā warmth towards Māori enhances collective action intentions: An extension of the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA)

New Zealand is a peaceful nation, but ongoing political tensions and inequities between Māori (the indigenous peoples of New Zealand) and Pākehā (the majority group of Europeans) persist as a result of its colonial history. Identifying ways to redress the enduring legacy of colonialism are therefore of critical importance. Accordingly, this paper examines data from 7017 Māori, as well as 37,233 Pākehā, to examine the impact of regional-level Pākehā warmth towards Māori on Māori support for progressive collective action. Results reveal that Pākehā warmth towards Māori varies markedly across 257 regional wards (regional units created for New Zealand electoral purposes). Moreover, multilevel modelling demonstrates that Pākehā warmth towards Māori at the region-level correlates positively with Māori identity and political efficacy at the individual level which, in turn, both correlate positively with collective action support. Collectively, these results demonstrate the impact of the broader social climate on social change, while identifying a previously-unknown facilitator of collective action support (namely, a broader context of warmth towards structurally disadvantaged groups).

The challenges of encouraging refugee assistance: lessons learned from reframing the problem as one of within-group collective action and norm change

Cooperation across group boundaries presents special theoretical and practical challenges. Fostering altruism towards refugees magnifies these difficulties given structural inequalities between host communities and those in need of help. Nonetheless, countless organisations and grass-roots efforts provide critical and effective support for asylum seekers around the world. In this article, we analyse a case of a successful grass-roots effort to help a family of asylum seekers in Australia. We use this as a starting point to review the evolutionary social-science literature on cooperation and suggest ways that collective action in support of refugees can be promoted and maintained. The challenge can be reframed as one of achieving two goals: first, norm change; and, second, encouraging altruistic actions. The former requires convincing prospective hosts that refugee support is indeed a public good at the community level. The second goal requires encouraging cooperation within the host community. We have better evidence of what works for the latter than the former.

Mobilizing or Sedative Effects? A Narrative Review of the Association Between Intergroup Contact and Collective Action Among Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups

Academic In this narrative review, we examined 134 studies of the relationship between intergroup contact and collective action benefiting disadvantaged groups. We aimed to identify whether, when, and why contact has mobilizing effects (promoting collective action) or sedative effects (inhibiting collective action). For both moderators and mediators, factors associated with the intergroup situation (compared with those associated with the out-group or the in-group) emerged as the most important. Group status had important effects. For members of socially advantaged groups (examined in 98 studies, 100 samples), contact had a general mobilizing effect, which was stronger when contact increased awareness of experiences of injustice among members of disadvantaged groups. For members of disadvantaged groups (examined in 49 studies, 58 samples), contact had mixed effects. Contact that increased awareness of injustice mobilized collection action; contact that made the legitimacy of group hierarchy or threat of retaliation more salient produced sedative effects. Public We present a review of existing studies that have investigated the relationship between intergroup contact and collective action aimed at promoting equity for disadvantaged groups. We further consider the influence of contact that is positive or negative and face-to-face or indirect (e.g., through mass or social media), and we distinguish between collective action that involves socially acceptable behaviors or is destructive and violent. We identified 134 studies, considering both advantaged (100 samples) and disadvantaged groups (58 samples). We found that intergroup contact impacts collective action differently depending on group status. Contact generally leads advantaged groups to mobilize in favor of disadvantaged groups. However, contact has variable effects on members of disadvantaged groups: It sometimes promotes their collective action in support of their own group; in other cases, it leads them to be less likely to engage in such action. We examine when and why contact can have these different effects.

Positive and negative contact between Africans and native Italians: Importance for migrants' collective action in support of their and other groups' rights

AbstractThis research investigates the positive and negative contact experiences of African migrants with native Italians and the association between contact and behavioural intentions to reduce social inequalities. Two studies examined the associations between intergroup contact of migrants and their collective action in support of their or other group members, by testing the mediating role of positive and negative emotions towards natives. Hypotheses were tested with two samples of first‐generation, legal African migrants living in Italy for less than 3 years (Ns = 242 [118 males], 251 [154]). Negative contact was positively associated with collective action in support of one's group, especially among respondents with higher positive intergroup experiences, and anger towards native people mediated this association. The association of positive contact with collective action to foster a more egalitarian society in general was mediated by reduced fear towards native people, and the association between positive contact and collective action at large was stronger for migrants with lower negative intergroup contact. Overall, this research provides further evidence on the impact of intergroup contact on migrants, specifically on the role of affective factors in their association with migrants' willingness to engage in collective action to reduce societal inequality at large.

Emotional community and concerted action: on the emotional mobilization mechanism of disinformation in the Anti-extradition Law amendment movement in Hong Kong

Abstract With the large-scale application of computational propaganda, disinformation campaigns have emerged globally in response to the logic of “post-truth” politics. Organized disinformation campaigns operate frequently on overseas social media platforms, with China often being the target. In order to understand the dissemination mechanisms of such disinformation campaigns, the study found that the dissemination of disinformation became a key strategy for the campaign’s emotional mobilization. The main subjects of disinformation have formed an international communication matrix, creating and spreading all kinds of disinformation on a large scale. The “coalition of protesters” is based on the shared emotional experience evoked by disinformation and characterized by the act of spreading disinformation. Then, the widespread dissemination of the corresponding emotions leads to different perceptions of the “target,” thus prompting protesters to adopt different types of collective action. This mechanism of emotional mobilization shows that facts are “too big to know,” which exacerbates confirmation bias and provides more space for the spread of disinformation. The strong emotions embedded in disinformation contributed to the completion of the protesters’ imagination of community, and emotions became the dominant factor in coalescing the group and providing motivational support for collective action.

How Can Collective Action Support the Agroecological Transition in Geographical Indication Vineyards? Insights from the Loire Valley Wine Area

Few studies have examined the agroecological transition in viticulture, which involves transformation processes, especially at the territorial scale where collective action plays a key role in the dissemination of transition strategies. Collective action in the agroecological transition must be studied in order to encourage and accelerate changes in practices. In this study, collective action is analyzed to understand how governance structures influence the development of collective agroecological transition strategies. Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development and Social–Ecological Systems analysis frameworks were applied to the Anjou-Saumur wine area in the Loire Valley, where nearly 80% of wine production is under protected designations of origin. Data were collected through seven semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed qualitatively in order to identify the main actors and collective strategies in the agroecological transition. The study showed that the polycentric structure of governance in the protected designations of the origin system enables institutional actors to collectively coordinate their actions. Moreover, collective action is structured in three focal action situations that overlap at the institutional level due to two key actors in the agroecological transition, but also due to tacit rules of the organizational structure for some actors. Action situations dynamically interact with each other across time and geographical scales, helping the agroecological transition process forward by combining top-down and bottom-up strategies. This study provides a novel way of applying the IAD/SES framework as well as a new look at collective action for the agroecological transition at the institutional scale in French viticultural systems under protected designations of origin. This paves the way for interdisciplinary research for the agroecological transition, and might help to select the best strategies to encourage changes of viticultural practices.

The “hidden side” of intergroup contact: The role of perceived social structure in motivating support for social change among the disadvantaged and the advantaged

Intergroup contact is a powerful prejudice-reduction strategy, but research has also revealed its undesirable effects among the disadvantaged. To unravel these counterintuitive effects, we examine the explanatory role of sociostructural factors (permeability of group boundaries as well as stability and legitimacy of inequality) in the link between intergroup contact and both perceived group discrimination against the disadvantaged and support for collective action. We relied on quasirepresentative or nationwide samples of immigrants ( N = 1,539) and host nationals ( N = 838), who participated in two survey-based studies. Among the disadvantaged, contact was associated with less awareness of group discrimination and collective action intentions via more perceptions of permeability and/or stability. Among the advantaged, intergroup contact was associated with greater awareness of group discrimination and collective action intentions (primarily) via perceived illegitimacy of existing status disparities. Our findings elucidate the importance of structural factors in understanding the implications of intergroup contact in addressing inequality and inequity, as well as designing contact-based interventions.

Self-uniqueness increases women's willingness to participate in collective action for gender justice, but not support for sex quotas.

Affiliation with certain groups allows to simultaneously satisfy two competing needs: the need to be moderately different from others and the need to belong. We propose that the feminist movement, that has been turning towards individualistic goals based on individual empowerment, may be one of such groups for women. In three studies we examined the relationship between self-uniqueness and women's support for collective action and structural measures (i.e. sex quotas) promoted by the feminist movement. A first correlational study indicated that self-uniqueness need is positively associated with willingness to participate in collective action for gender justice generally, but not with support for sex quotas. Consistently, two experimental studies (Studies 2-3) found that priming self-uniqueness increases collective action intentions, but not quota support. Study 3 also showed that the effect of self-uniqueness on collective action intentions for gender justice may be mediated by greater perceptions of personal discrimination for being a woman and fusion with the feminist movement. These results suggest that appeals to self-uniqueness may attract women to the feminist movement but do not guarantee support for concrete collective measures against gender inequality.

Why, how and with whom? The impact of perceived ally motives on migrants’ support for collective actions

Social inequalities between migrants and the host society trigger collective actions that aim to reduce such inequalities. Such actions can be led by migrants themselves, or by advantaged members from the host society who act as allies. In three studies conducted in Spain (N Study 1 = 182 low vulnerability migrants; N Study 2 = 160 forced migrants and refugees; N Study 3 = 418 migrants with different levels of vulnerability) we evaluated: How perceived ally motives (egalitarian, paternalistic and performative) impact three different types of migrants’ collective action tendencies: pro-alliance (e.g., meetings between migrants and Spaniards), led by Spaniards (e.g., pro-migrant demonstrations organized by Spaniards), and/or led by migrants (e.g., creation of political associations led by migrants). Additionally, we evaluated what type of alliance (as one-group recategorization or coalition) migrants prefer to build with members of the advantaged group. We also analyzed how perceived motives to support migrants relate to the evaluation for the types of alliance (Studies 2 and 3), and whether the level of vulnerability of the participants moderates the role of perceived paternalistic motives on collective action tendencies (Study 3). The results confirm that perceived ally egalitarian motives predict higher migrant support for pro-alliance collective action, as well as those led by Spanish allies across studies. Perceived paternalistic motives have a greater impact on highly socioeconomically vulnerable migrant support for collective action tendencies than on less vulnerable ones. There is no clear pattern of preference about perceiving themselves as part of a singular group (one-group recategorization) or in a coalition with advantaged group members who share the goal to promote migrants’ rights. However, perceived egalitarian motives are positively related to the value attached to one-group recategorization. This research contributes to understanding the factors involved in participation to achieve social change amongst refugees or asylum seekers as well as less vulnerable migrants.

Dynamic, Yet Stable: Separating Within- and Between-Person Components of Collective Action in Support of a Disadvantaged Outgroup and its Antecedents

Despite an increasing interest in the drivers of intergroup solidarity, the within-person longitudinal relationships between advantaged group members’ engagement for disadvantaged groups and its postulated antecedents remain scarcely tested. In the context of the refugee crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey (NT1 = 804, NT2 = 702, and NT3 = 624) assessing Poles’ (the advantaged group) willingness to act for Ukrainians (the disadvantaged group), together with three hypothesized predictors—moral convictions, intergroup contact, and politicized identity. Employing a random intercept cross-lagged panel model that separates between- from within-person variance, we found that within-person changes in moral convictions and friendship contact directly predicted subsequent action intentions. Contrary to past theorizing, politicized identity emerged as consequence rather than an antecedent of collective action. Superficial intergroup contact indirectly predicted engagement intentions by facilitating cross-group friendship. We discuss the implications of our findings for current models of collective action.

How Solutions Journalism Shapes Support for Collective Climate Change Adaptation

ABSTRACT News media are the public’s primary source about risks such as climate change, but traditional journalistic approaches to climate change have failed to build support for collective social responses. Solutions journalism, an emerging practice focused on credible stories about responses to societal problems, may offer an alternate approach. From an online experiment with a convenience sample of U.S. undergraduates (N = 348), we found that solutions journalism stories were positively associated with perceived behavioral control, which mediated support for collective action for climate change adaptation. Additionally, attribution of responsibility to individuals and government, participant hope, and eco-anxiety were associated with support for collective action. Findings extend our understanding of how risk communication affects policy support for climate change adaptation and suggest that solutions journalism may allow journalists to communicate climate change’s danger without depressing support for social action to mitigate its effects.

Examining the between‐ and within‐person effects of relative deprivation: Results from a 7‐year longitudinal panel sample

AbstractDespite the extensive literature on relative deprivation theory, few studies have examined the longitudinal effects of individual‐ and group‐based relative deprivation (IRD and GRD, respectively) on individual‐ and group‐based outcomes, nor has research investigated the between‐person and within‐person effects of these constructs. Using two random intercept cross‐lagged panel models, we address these oversights by estimating the between‐person and average annual within‐person associations IRD and GRD have with psychological distress and collective action support in a nation‐wide longitudinal panel sample (N = 64,607). As expected, IRD and GRD were more strongly associated with psychological distress and collective action support, respectively, at the between‐person level and contemporaneously at the within‐person level. However, contrary to expectations, temporary departures in IRD and GRD predicted within‐person increases in collective action support and psychological distress, respectively. These results raise questions about how and when people respond to inequality and provide the foundations for future longitudinal research.

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

Can producer groups improve technical efficiency among artisanal shrimpers in Nigeria? A study accounting for observed and unobserved selectivity

It is widely recognized that participation in producer groups is advantageous for smallholders who must deal with complex production and marketing constraints and dynamic business environments. However, available data on this process are scarce in the fishery sector, while existing evidence is limited by smallholders’ potential self-selection into producer groups. This study, therefore, examined the selectivity-corrected role of fisher groups in improving shrimpers’ technological and technical efficiency. Using the latest primary data from artisan shrimpers in Nigeria, we applied propensity score matching and Greene’s selectivity stochastic production frontier model to control for selection bias from both observable and unobservable factors. Empirical results from our metafrontier approach show that technical efficiency scores for members tend to be overestimated if selectivity is not properly controlled. However, the technical efficiencies and productivities of members were significantly higher regardless of how biases were corrected, implying that participation in fisher groups is positively related to increases in shrimpers’ capture and technical efficiency. Further findings suggest that current artisanal fisher groups are “production-oriented” as they ensure that members access vital shrimping inputs at lower costs. With declining returns to scale for members, the study concludes that without public and private support for collective action in the fishery sector, membership in artisanal fisher groups may not lead to significant improvement in shrimpers’ productivity. The study discusses several recommendations on how collective action can be further encouraged and developed among artisan fishers.

Climate change threats increase modern racism as a function of social dominance orientation and ingroup identification

Processing information on the negative consequences of climate change can have unrelated side-effects such as increased outgroup derogation. Previous research suggests differing theoretical explanations for these “generalization” effects such as buffering existential anxiety. Across two pre-registered experiments (N = 1031; USA & UK), we examine whether ingroup identification and social dominance orientation (SDO) moderate the relationship between experimentally induced collective threats and subjective threat perceptions (i.e., climate change and intergroup threat), modern racism, and pro-environmental collective action support. In Study 1, SDO and ingroup identification were measured 2 years prior to our experiment as antecedents of threat perceptions. Our results suggest that informing individuals about negative consequences of climate change (e.g., wildfires, floods, resource scarcity, health etc.), leads to higher intergroup threat perceptions and modern racism. These generalization effects, in turn, are moderated by SDO but not by ingroup identification. In Study 2, we successfully replicate our findings, measuring SDO and ingroup identification directly after the threat manipulation. Moreover, we use a behavioral measure of pro-environmental collective action to assess more direct stimuli-responses. In Study 2, again, we show that SDO moderates the generalization effects. In contrast, ingroup identification showed only marginally significant moderation of the generalization effect and did not increase itself in response to experimental threat-cues. Notably, we also find that intergroup threat-cues generalize onto higher climate change threat perceptions. No effects on behavioral collective action support were found.

The socio-psychological predictors of support for post-truth collective action

ABSTRACT Politics in the current era are replete with unreliable media stories which lack evidence, sometimes disparagingly dubbed “fake news”. A survey on a sample of Muslims in Indonesia (N = 518) in this work found that participants’ endorsement of collective action in of support issues with little to no empirical evidence (i.e., post-truth collective action) increased as a function of their belief in fake news and prejudice against the outgroup (i.e., non-Muslims). Belief in fake news stemmed from participants’ generic and specific conspiratorial thinking, whereas prejudice was positively predicted by relative Muslim prototypicality, denoting how much Muslims in Indonesia view that their group is more representative than non-Muslims of the superordinate Indonesian identity that encompasses both groups. Additionally, our findings revealed that generic conspiratorial thinking and relative Muslim prototypicality were positively predicted by collective narcissism, which in turn spurred participants’ support for collective action by augmenting belief in fake news.

Discrimination and Monopsony Power

Wage inequalities between identical workers of different race, ethnicity, and gender are a persistent feature of labor markets. However, most labor market models either ignore important empirical evidence or focus very narrowly on specific labor market dynamics. To better understand such wage differences, we create a labor market model that integrates firm competition for workers, employee movement between jobs in response to market signals, potential monetary frictions in the job transition process, and workers' collective action which is a function of government support. Our model shows that because of gender- and race-specific historical and social outcomes, like the relatively lower household wealth of Black and Latino families and the increased household responsibilities of women, women and minority workers are more exploitable; employers can push their wage farther below the value of their marginal product. Also, our model shows that the cumulative wage gap for non-White women is greater than the additive gaps of being nonmale and non-White. Lastly, our model shows that a reduction in government support for collective action enables employers to wield monopsony power more freely, independent of changes in employer concentration. Because certain groups are more exploitable, employers' increased capability in wielding monopsony power means increased wage differentials replicating discriminatory biases against marginalized groups of workers.

Conformity to group norms: How group-affirmation shapes collective action

Why do people collectively support action for (or against) marginalized groups in society? Three studies (N = 1161) conducted in France and Romania tested the hypotheses that collective action is partly driven by conformity, as people follow what they perceive as normative in the social context. Further, we hypothesized that a contemporaneous affirmation of group identity would amplify such conformity. Consistent with expectations, participants randomly assigned to affirm a value central to their groups tended to conform to salient group norms in their support for collective action, regardless of whether salient norms were discriminatory or non-discriminatory. Participants assigned to self-affirmation condition (Study 1) or to a control condition (Studies 1–3) were less influenced by group norms. The results suggest that group-affirmation increases conformity and, as such, may foster pro-minority collective action when the normative context is non-discriminatory. However, group-affirmation could also foster anti-minority collective action when the normative context is discriminatory. Results are discussed in the context of how to understand motivations for and against collective action on behalf of marginalized groups in society.