Psychological research typically distinguishes between normative (e.g., peaceful protests, petitions) and non-normative (e.g., property destruction, riots) collective action. This binary framework has proved useful in exploring the psychological factors that shape different forms of collective action. However, recent critiques suggest it oversimplifies the fluid, contested, and context-dependent nature of collective protest. Our paper develops these critiques through qualitative analysis of walking interview accounts and courtroom transcripts of an event occurring at a 2020 Black Lives Matter rally in the city of Bristol, UK. During this event, a public statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721), a 17th century slaver, was toppled, defaced, and thrown in the River Avon, and four protestors were subsequently charged with, then acquitted of, criminal damage. Implications for conceptualising and investigating collective action are explored and the importance of recovering the situated meanings and consequences of local understandings of normative and non-normative action emphasised.

Cooperative or competitive? Resolving social dilemmas in autonomous vehicles through evolutionary game theory.

Tackling the social dilemma of autonomous vehicles using social norms

Research shows that perceiving norms relevant to a collective phenomenon can motivate behaviour. This research examined whether dynamic social norms could counteract a collective disadvantage, that is, Brexit. We tested the effects of dynamic norm messages (emphasizing norms are changing over time) versus static norm messages (simply stating the norm) and a no-norm control condition on collective action intentions to stop Brexit among Remainers and Brexiteers across one pilot and two main experiments (Pilot 1 N = 150, Main Experiment 1 N = 750, Main Experiment 2 = 600) with British adults. Results showed that dynamic norms increased violent collective action intentions among Remainers and both violent and peaceful collective action intentions among Brexiteers compared with static norm and no-norm control conditions. Increased pre-conformity to future norms, more positive outgroup attitudes towards European immigrants and reduced outgroup threat perceptions from European immigrants mediated these effects. Findings suggest dynamic norms may reverse misinformation's detrimental impact by motivating actions counter to individuals' original stance. Highlighting norms are changing over time rather than static can be an effective tool for social change even in highly polarizing contexts.

Individuals today face two major global threats: climate change and the potential outbreak of a world war. Understanding the psychological factors that shape collective engagement in response to such threats is essential. This research focuses on positivity, a stable disposition potentially reflecting a balanced time perspective, which may influence how individuals mentally represent threats and behavioral responses to them. Drawing on Construal Level Theory, we hypothesized that higher levels of positivity may be associated with greater perceived psychological distance (across temporal, social, and hypothetical dimensions) from existential threats, thereby reducing intentions to engage in collective and mitigative actions. Two correlational studies were conducted with Italian adult samples. Study 1 ( N = 168) tested a mediation model in which positivity predicted lower intentions to engage in war-related collective action via increased psychological distance from the threat of a global war. Study 2 ( N = 283) replicated this model and extended it to climate change mitigation. In both studies, higher positivity was associated with greater psychological distance, which in turn predicted lower behavioral intentions, through a fully mediated pathway. These findings highlight a potential collateral effect of positivity and suggest that reducing perceived distance from existential threats may enhance collective engagement. • The relation between positivity and collective action has received limited attention. • Two studies examined psychological distance as a mediator of this relation. • Positivity increased perceived distance from war and climate change threats. • Perceiving threats as distant reduced collective and mitigation intentions. • Positive orientation may have unintended effects on collective engagement.

Gynaecological cancers are an increasing concern in Aotearoa New Zealand, with rapid growth in uterine cancer incidence in recent years. Understanding future incidence patterns is essential for planning and service delivery at a sub-national level. Cancer registry data (2001-2022) were combined with population projections to estimate incidence of gynaecological cancers to 2045. Projections were generated using age-period-cohort Poisson regression models, with non-parametric bootstrapping to quantify uncertainty. Annual gynaecological cancer cases are projected to increase 82% by 2045, reaching 2,497 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 2,263-2,774) compared with 1,375 in 2020-2022. The overall age-standardised rate is projected to rise 21% from 36.6 (95% confidence interval [CI] 35.5-37.8) to 44.2 per 100,000 (95% UI 38.9-50.3). Uterine cancer contributes the largest increase, more than doubling from 717 to 1,506 cases annually (110%). Among Māori, cases rise 132% from 214 to 497 per year (95% UI 449-553); for Pacific women, they rise 137% from 165 to 391 (95% UI 340-449). Uterine cancer age-standardised rates are projected to increase from 27.3 to 39.6 per 100,000 for Māori, and from 74.3 to 97.5 for Pacific women. Regional variation is expected: the Northern Region is projected to have the largest absolute increase (+506 cases, 527 to 1,033) and the largest percentage increase (96%). Gynaecological cancer incidence in Aotearoa New Zealand is projected to rise substantially over the next 20 years, driven by demographic change and increasing incidence of uterine cancer likely associated with risk factors such as excess body weight and diabetes. Findings highlight the need to prioritise prevention, proactive service planning and equity-focussed early detection.

Civic technologies are increasingly promoted as tools to enhance democratic participation, decision-making, collective action, and digitally enabled governance. This study examines the emergence of AI-enabled multilingual civic platforms and their potential to support inclusive participation and social innovation in linguistically diverse democracies. The study adopts a conceptual and exploratory research design, supported by qualitative analysis, to enhance the theoretical clarity of contested concepts such as digital empowerment and social innovation. A systematic review of 158 civic technology platforms was also conducted to examine the role and limitations of major public resource repositories in promoting multilingual democratic processes through three dimensions: social innovation, digital democracy, and civic technology. The findings show that instrumentalist approaches to social innovation – prioritising efficiency, performance, and scalability of civic tools implementation – predominate over approaches that emphasising empowerment, deliberation, and changes in social and governance relations. Most platforms are technology-driven rather than human-centered, with limited attention to inclusion, linguistic diversity, and meaningful participation. Consequently, their capacity to enable transformative forms of social innovation remains constrained. The study concludes that while AI-enabled multilingual platforms may reduce language barriers and facilitate the participation of minority and vulnerable groups, their democratic and socially innovative potential depends on the alignment between technological and user design, governance arrangements, and the extent to which they enable inclusive participation and knowledge co-creation.

ABSTRACT This article examines how processes of making cultural heritage (heritagisation) help illuminate the multifaceted ways in which the state is produced, recognised, and contested. Rather than treating the state as a fixed institutional apparatus or heritage as a catalogue of pre-existing objects, we reconceptualise both as dynamic, interrelated processes. We argue that, in heritage regimes where activation is stabilised through authorised expertise and administrative documentation, heritagisation provides a privileged arena in which state effects, such as the production of subjects, the stabilisation of collective identities, the creation of technical languages, and the delineation of spatial and jurisdictional boundaries, become empirically observable. Drawing on documentary and media practices, narrative regimes, and spatial interventions, we show how heritage procedures can individualise publics, crystallise imagined communities, and generate forms of expert knowledge that render cultural diversity governable. Simultaneously, heritagisation reorganises territories and scales, often intersecting with wider dynamics of inequality, governance, and contestation. This does not imply that all activations consolidate state effects in the same way. We therefore conclude by proposing a set of operational indicators for empirical research and by inviting further comparative, situated studies on how heritage practices make power legible and negotiate relationships between memory, territory, and collective action.

Roma people, being the largest ethnic minority in Europe, continue to experience prejudice and structural discrimination. Moreover, there is low participation in Roma collective action and allies' solidarity-based actions. This pre-registered experimental research examines on samples from non-Roma population in Spain how social class, discrimination awareness, and group efficacy predict prejudice towards Roma and non-Roma participation in solidarity-based actions as allies in addition to test the role of intergroup emotions on those effects. In Study 1 (N = 870) social class and discrimination awareness were manipulated. Results showed that individuals assigned to the low social class condition exhibited more prejudice towards Roma in terms of stereotypes, emotions and discriminatory behaviors. Moreover, discrimination awareness condition indirectly predicted more participation in pro-Roma solidarity-based actions through increased outrage about about the situation of Roma. Study 2 (N = 1,000) confirmed the effect of social class on prejudice. Further, it showed two different paths for predicting solidarity-based actions: discrimination awareness (high vs. low) predicted higher participation in solidarity-based actions indirectly via empathy towards Roma people and outrage towards about the situation of Roma, whereas group efficacy (high vs. low) predicted participation in solidarity-based actions through hope in relation to the situation of Roma and empathy towards Roma. This experimental research highlights the need to address the role of Roma social class as a crucial factor in understanding prejudice and confirms the discrimination (via outrage and empathy) and efficacy (via hope) routes for promoting solidarity-based actions participation to support Roma rights and promote social equity.

ABSTRACT Managing the COVID-19 pandemic required governments to act quickly with little input from legislatures, civil society, and citizens. This crisis created a critical opportunity for populists to fuel distrust in media, government, and science. Using digital media, they and other political leaders can communicate directly with citizens through websites and social media accounts. Furthermore, misinformation on social media circulating during the pandemic created further opportunities to generate support for populist ideas and motivate collective action in reaction to public health measures. This paper examines the roles of populist attitudes, direct online political sources, misinformation, and pandemic activism using a survey conducted in January and February 2023 in Germany, Canada, the UK, the US, and France. We find that perceived exposure to misinformation, self-assessed ability to detect misinformation, and sharing of misinformation positively correlate with populist attitudes and pandemic activism. Sharing misinformation relates to pandemic activism in all five countries and all ideological groups. Consuming direct online sources of information from candidates and parties, such as on websites and social media, is weakly related to populist attitudes but highly correlated with pandemic activism. Specifically, visiting candidates’ or parties’ websites significantly correlates with pandemic activism; this relationship is significant in all countries and ideological groups. Finally, we find a weak relationship between holding populist attitudes and participating in pandemic activism; this relationship is only significant in Canada, France, and Germany. We offer important insights into cross-national differences in pandemic activism. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of misinformation-motivated activism.

ABSTRACT Climate change is an existential threat, and it is often difficult to translate the urgency and immediacy of climate catastrophes into common parlance. One way to effectively engage the public in climate change conversations is through effective communication practices, such as persuasive communication. Persuasive communication uses tailored messages to elicit desirable behavioural outcomes in the audience and has great potential to promote positive attitudinal and behavioural changes in the target audience. However, while persuasive communication has potential, recurring evidence suggests that using fear appeals in climate change communication can create unintentional mental health challenges for the audience. In light of the scale and scope of climate crises, positive, personal, and people‐centred persuasive communications may be more suitable for long‐term and sustainable deployment. However, there is a shortage of research in the literature. Bridging this research gap, this paper aims to explore how fear‐based climate communications impact public mental health and how alternative positive messaging frameworks can serve as sustainable interventions. This study seeks to enhance public mental health and cultivate a sense of engagement and responsibility among individuals, thereby facilitating collective action and influencing policymakers to implement more constructive climate‐response strategies. Ultimately, we aspire to offer inclusive and sustainable solutions that empower the public to actively participate in protecting our shared environment while mitigating climate change.

Integrated behavioral health (IBH) is an evidence-based approach to addressing mental health in primary care settings. It typically involves augmenting a primary care team with a behavioral health professional (e.g., psychologist, licensed clinical social worker) who sees patients for brief, focused concerns; can function as a bridge to specialty care; and provides medical providers with support and education about patient behavioral health concerns. IBH has slowly begun to disseminate across the United States, but practices encounter significant implementation barriers. How IBH is implemented has not been systematically studied outside of trials, yet this study could provide a rich foundation for selecting and optimizing implementation strategies that can increase the speed of IBH scale-up. Using rapid ethnographic assessment (REA), we conducted site visits, interviews, and surveys at a stratified sample of five primary care clinics in three different healthcare systems in two Midwestern states. We coded the data in a primarily deductive analysis approach using Stephens' IBH Cross-Model Framework (CMF) to characterize the IBH intervention; the Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM) to characterize implementation barriers and facilitators; and the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) taxonomy of implementation strategies. Using a matrixed multiple case study design, we identified implementation strategies that clinics found effective in implementing and sustaining IBH. Despite geographic variability, the clinics primarily served low-income and-resource populations. A strong pattern emerged regarding common IBH aspects targeted for internal implementation support, associated barriers, and strategies used for them. Successful implementation strategies included accessing additional funding for start-up, creating new clinical teams, revising professional roles, promoting adaptability, facilitating relay of data to clinical providers, and purposely reexamining the implementation process. The Normalization Process Theory (NPT) mechanisms of coherence, cognitiveparticipation, collective action, and reflexive monitoring were all clearly identified in successful implementations. Implementation of IBH is an ongoing process of implementing, maintaining, and improving many specific processes. People with knowledge of the IBH practice model and desire to implement and sustain it are critical, as are policies and programs that support initial and ongoing implementation, and an organizational culture that embraces IBH as its standard of practice.

This study incorporates historical performance into traditional imitation rules and proposes a moderated strategy update rule. In this framework, an individual’s temporal historical performance is calculated using the BM model. By adjusting the parameter δ, the influence of historical performance on strategy learning is determined, and the evolution of cooperation is subsequently observed. Results show that the proposed strategy update rule promotes cooperation more effectively than the traditional version, and systemic cooperation is further enhanced as δ increases. The reason why the proposed rule enhances cooperation is that it amplifies the evaluation of cooperative behavior while compressing the evaluation of defective behavior. Although establishing system objectives may hinder the diffusion of cooperative behavior, appropriate performance evaluation mechanisms can mitigate this adverse effect. Our results indicate that multidimensional evaluation can provide a theoretical basis for explaining cooperative behavior in complex environments.

This study investigates the interplay between temporal and emotional dynamics during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic at a public hospital in the Grand Est region of France, and their influence on strategic crisis management. We use the concept of concert time to analyze how temporal structures and temporal work were reconfigured under conditions of extreme urgency and uncertainty. Our qualitative case study is based on interviews with twelve hospital decision-makers and a range of internal and external documents. The findings reveal that in the absence of established routines, emotionally charged real-time coordination became central to collective action. Concert time encouraged a sense of alignment, cohesion, and togetherness among staff, enabling more effective decision-making. In contrast to dominant narratives that frame crisis emotions primarily in terms of fear or anxiety, our study highlights the mobilizing role of shared positive emotions—such as pride, moral purpose, and collective enthusiasm. These emotions served not only to support resilience but also acted as a mechanism for temporal coordination. However, the findings also point to the fragility of emotional alignments, which often dissolve when emotional labor is left unrecognized after the crisis. By examining how time is experienced as a lived phenomenon and how emotions function as organizational forces, this study contributes to emerging literature that foregrounds the constitutive role of emotions in decision making and coordination during crises.

ABSTRACT This article investigates how political discourse during the COVID-19 crisis discursively constructs temporalities as a means of legitimizing crisis management. Building on Critical Discourse Studies and the Discourse-Historical Approach, it explores how continuity – often overlooked in crisis research – is not only maintained but actively constructed in discourse. Drawing on 28 Belgian governmental press conferences (2020 to 2022), the study identifies six discourses of continuity that were mobilized to justify measures, manage expectations, and synchronize collective action. Continuity unfolds in six discourses of the crisis: (1) maintaining the essentials, (2) the creation of habits in crisis, (3) the permanence of effort, (4) waiting as a tool, (5) projection in and out of the crisis and (6) predicting and progressing. These six discourses contrast with a view of continuity as inertia, as the absence of action or change. Instead, they articulate continuity at times as the maintaining force of a certain order, and at others as a creative force normalizing newness. The article argues that continuity, far from being inert, becomes a response to disruption, sustaining governance and order. Thereby, it contributes to the understanding of temporality as a central vector of legitimization in contemporary crises.

Flood disasters, as one of the major impacts of climate change, often exert significant pressure on rice-farming communities, particularly in sustaining production and ensuring food security. Strengthening the resilience of farmer groups in flood-prone areas requires targeted learning processes and well-structured social organization. These two aspects are essential in enhancing resilience through: a) The selection of rice varieties adaptive to climate change and b) The utilization of social institutions to address flood challenges. The Dosen Pulang Kampung (Dospulkam) program of IPB University was implemented in Ciuyah Village, Cirebon regency, to facilitate resilience improvement among rice farmer groups through an integrated training program. The training encompassed the selection of rice varieties and the enhancement of farmer group capacity in managing irrigation resources. The integrated training was conducted from 7‒9 July 2025. The method was conducted through focus group discussions (FGDs), small group discussions, lectures, field surveys, and the distribution of stimulus assistance in the form of IPB 9G seeds, IPB 13S seeds, and IPB 9G rice. Training participants were organized at two levels: group and village. At the community level, 23 community participants represented eight groups from the village; meanwhile, decision-makers, including the village government, the Combined Farmers Group, and village extension workers, were also involved. The results indicated that farmer groups developed a strong understanding of the use of IPB 9G as a climate-smart variety and optimized collective action through social institutions to address irrigation channel constraints. This program has contributed to enhancing the adaptive capacity of rice farmer groups to flood disasters caused by climate change.

Abstract Polygynous households constitute a significant share of agricultural producers in sub-Saharan Africa, which can influence productivity and food security through intrahousehold cooperation. Economic analyses often focus on the outcomes of cooperation while overlooking the diverse institutional mechanisms that shape it. This study aims to address this gap by analysing cooperation within polygynous households as a collective action problem using an adapted version of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Fulani and Mossi communities in rural Burkina Faso—which includes participant observation, focus group discussions, Net-Maps, and semi-structured interviews— we examine how rules-in-use shape cooperation regarding agricultural production in polygynous households. Our findings indicate that cooperative outcomes reflect distinct institutional arrangements. Rather than emerging solely from aligned interests, the feasibility of cooperation depends on specific configurations of institutional rules; while some arrangements facilitate collective action by reducing bargaining costs and reinforcing accountability, others—such as rigid gendered taboos—impose institutional barriers that preclude cooperation. In Mossi households, spousal cooperation is driven by mutual dependence and structured incentives. By contrast, in Fulani households, gendered taboos create institutional constraints that lead to an involuntary lack of spousal cooperation. However, this lack of cooperation does not extend to all intrahousehold relations; Fulani co-wives collaborate effectively on private plots enabled by pre-agreed income use and equal sharing norms. This differs sharply from Mossi co-wives who rarely cooperate, due to unequal payoff rules linked to seniority and a lack of formal mechanisms for joint decision-making. These findings demonstrate that cooperation is shaped by the interaction of institutional rules with gender norms, hierarchies, and labour expectations. Consequently, agricultural policies that aim to enhance agricultural productivity and equity must account for this institutional diversity, particularly the varying roles of male provisioning, female autonomy, and collective work.

The capstone of John R. Commons’ economics of collective action: an attempt to restore its excluded part

The concept of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EE) has gained traction both in academic and policy circles over recent years. Despite this, many questions still exist especially regarding micro-level aspects of EEs, particularly the role of support organisations, and how local actors contribute to and shape a cohesive ecosystem. This study aims to garner an in depth understanding of the role of a local ecosystem leader/facilitator organisation in furthering the well-being agenda of their region. This is critical given the current preoccupation within the EE literature on high growth ecosystems. Through an in-depth case study of an ecosystem facilitator in South West Wales, the findings highlight the critical yet often overlooked role played by less common types of organisations within local ecosystems in contributing to and furthering the sustainable development goal and well-being agenda. The facilitator develops a cohesive ecosystem through the collective action of actors in a vibrant and engaged ecosystem.

Postmodernity imposed a new mode of writing and philosophy over literature. There are no longer the simple psychological or social dilemmas that the characters face. The readers are expected to read novels with new, challenging ideas that appeal to human intellectuality. Postmodern literature tends to break the traditional structures of notions such as identity, race, history, and power. It seeks to deconstruct them and routinize new modes of ideas. Such a deconstructing challenge is best found in works like Beloved by Toni Morrison, Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth, The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf, and Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee. Each of these works proposes new questions through fragmentation, ideological disorientation, unreliability of voices, and dispersion of unified narratives. For example, in Beloved, the boundaries between past and present are blurred by casting racial trauma and historical fragmentation. The voice becomes unreliable in Lost in the Funhouse, making it difficult for the reader to find a stable and singular self. Coetzee in Disgrace presents postmodern attitudes towards race, ethical responsibility, and power. Time and space become unstable in Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall. These postmodern literary works threaten traditional works' stable narrative and philosophical line, being replaced with a loss of coherent identities and histories.