Exploring psychological mechanisms of collective action: Does relevance of group identity influence how people cope with collective disadvantage?

Riots are unpredictable and dangerous. Our understanding of the factors that cause riots are based on correlational observations of population data, or post hoc introspection of individuals. To complement these accounts, we developed innovative experimental techniques, investigated the psychological factors of rioting, and explored their consequences with agent-based simulations. We created a game, ‘Parklife’, that physically co-present participants played using smartphones. In two teams, participants tapped on their screen to grow trees and flowerbeds on separate but adjacent virtual parks. Participants could also tap to vandalise the other team’s park. In some conditions, we surreptitiously introduced inequity between the teams so that one (the disadvantaged team) had to tap more for each reward. The experience of inequity caused the disadvantaged team to engage in more destruction, and to report higher relative deprivation and frustration. Agent-based models suggested that acts of destruction were driven by the interaction between individual level of frustration and the team’s behaviour. Our results provide insights into the psychological mechanisms underlying collective action.

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When strike fails: The role of personal significance and positive expectations in maintaining a commitment to worker protests.

10.31234/osf.io/t5gd3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska ◽

Katarzyna Jasko ◽

Michał Bilewicz ◽

Tomasz Besta

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Current Paper ◽

Labor Rights ◽

Relative Role ◽

Emotional States ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Large Group ◽

Psychological Mechanisms ◽

Personal Significance

In the current paper, we address psychological mechanisms predicting commitment to collective action for labor rights. Specifically, we focus on factors that helped maintain engagement in a workers’ cause among participants of a failed teachers’ strike. We examined the relative role of positive and negative experiences and how they related to a sense of personal significance as motivators of further collective action after the failure of a national strike that a large group of teachers participated in. We also compared the effects of experienced emotional states with the effects of expectancy of success. The results suggest that when people experienced a boost in feelings of significance, even if the collective action failed, they were more willing to participate in a future collective action. We also found that expectancy was related to willingness to take part in another strike or other protest actions, which is in line with past studies.

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From Anti-Vaxxer Moms to Militia Men: Influence Operations, Narrative Weaponization, and the Fracturing of American Identity

10.31235/osf.io/87zmk ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Dana Weinberg ◽

Jessica Dawson

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Collective Action ◽

Group Identity ◽

American Identity ◽

Sense Of Identity ◽

Insight Into ◽

The Way

How in 2020 were anti-vaxxer moms mobilized to attend reopen protests alongside armed militia men? This paper explores the power of weaponized narratives on social media both to create and polarize communities and to mobilize collective action and even violence. We propose that focusing on invocation of specific narratives and the patterns of narrative combination provides insight into the shared sense of identity and meaning different groups derive from these narratives. We then develop the WARP (Weaponize, Activate, Radicalize, Persuade) framework for understanding the strategic deployment and presentation of narratives in relation to group identity building and individual responses. The approach and framework provide powerful tools for investigating the way narratives may be used both to speak to a core audience of believers while also introducing and engaging new and even initially unreceptive audience segments to potent cultural messages, potentially inducting them into a process of radicalization and mobilization.

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Psychosocial pathways of collective action participation in NIMBY conflict: A regulated double mediation model

International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education ◽

10.1177/0020720920931426 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 002072092093142

Author(s):

Bin Guo ◽

KunJi Li

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Relative Deprivation ◽

Group Identity ◽

Group Effectiveness ◽

Mediation Model ◽

Explanatory Variables ◽

Positive Effects ◽

Deprivation Group ◽

Key Factor ◽

Group Emotions

Frequent NIMBY conflicts have seriously affected social stability and urban development. This paper aims to explore the psychosocial path of people participating in the collective action of NIMBY conflict, and to provide theoretical basis for effective governance of NIMBY conflict. By integrating the psychosocial explanatory variables related to collective action, we construct a regulated double mediation Model, which is empirically tested with 566 questionnaires from the NIMBY conflict in gaoling, China. The results show that: group relative deprivation, group emotions and group effectiveness have positive effects on people's NIMBY conflict participation tendency; group effectiveness and group emotions are important mediating variables of group relative deprivation affecting people's NIMBY conflict participation tendency; group identity has a positive adjustment effect on people's group emotions, group effectiveness, and the participation tendency of NIMBY conflict. The research indicates that group relative deprivation is the key precursor of NIMBY conflict, group emotion is the key factor driving the deterioration of NIMBY conflict, and group identity is the key factor catalyzing the occurrence of NIMBY conflict. This study helps to explain the psychological mechanism of people's participation in NIMBY conflict, and has certain implications for the prevention and governance of NIMBY conflict.

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The Energizing Role of Contact and Common In-group Identity on Collective Action Among Non-indigenous Groups in Mexico and Chile

10.1007/978-3-030-77688-6_7 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 113-134

Author(s):

David Sirlopú ◽

Huseyin Çakal ◽

Halime Unver ◽

Natalia Salas ◽

Anja Eller

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Group Identity ◽

Indigenous Groups

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We predict a riot: inequity, relative deprivation and collective destruction in the laboratory

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2020.3091 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 288 (1959) ◽

pp. 20203091

Author(s):

Guillaume Dezecache ◽

James M. Allen ◽

Jorina von Zimmermann ◽

Daniel C. Richardson

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Psychological Factors ◽

Relative Deprivation ◽

Population Data ◽

The Other ◽

Agent Based Models ◽

Agent Based ◽

Individual Level ◽

Psychological Mechanisms ◽

Post Hoc

Riots are unpredictable and dangerous. Our understanding of the factors that cause riots is based on correlational observations of population data, or post hoc introspection of individuals. To complement these accounts, we developed innovative experimental techniques, investigated the psychological factors of rioting and explored their consequences with agent-based simulations. We created a game, ‘Parklife’, that physically co-present participants played using smartphones. In two teams, participants tapped on their screen to grow trees and flowerbeds on separate but adjacent virtual parks. Participants could also tap to vandalize the other team's park. In some conditions, we surreptitiously introduced inequity between the teams so that one (the disadvantaged team) had to tap more for each reward. The experience of inequity caused the disadvantaged team to engage in more destruction, and to report higher relative deprivation and frustration. Agent-based models suggested that acts of destruction were driven by the interaction between individual level of frustration and the team's behaviour. Our results provide insights into the psychological mechanisms underlying collective action.

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Active pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine groups: Their group identities and attitudes toward science

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0261648 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (12) ◽

pp. e0261648

Author(s):

Józef Maciuszek ◽

Mateusz Polak ◽

Katarzyna Stasiuk ◽

Dariusz Doliński

Keyword(s):

Positive Attitude ◽

Group Identity ◽

Online Discussion ◽

Attitudes Toward Science ◽

General Science ◽

Negative Attitudes ◽

Active Involvement ◽

Psychological Mechanisms ◽

Group Identities ◽

Group Members

Vaccine rejection is a problem severely impacting the global society, especially considering the COVID-19 outbreak. The need to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying the active involvement of the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine movements is therefore very important both from a theoretical and practical perspective. This paper investigates the group identities of people with positive and negative attitudes towards vaccination, and their attitudes toward general science. A targeted sample study of 192 pro-vaccine and 156 anti-vaccine group members showed that the group identity of pro-vaccine individuals is higher than of anti-vaccine individuals. and that both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine individuals had a positive attitude toward science. Results are discussed in context of the heterogeneity of motivations causing vaccine rejection and the relation between active involvement in online discussion and group identity.

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Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin ◽

10.1177/0146167220933406 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 014616722093340

Author(s):

Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels ◽

Martijn van Zomeren

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Presidential Elections ◽

Group Identity ◽

Political Action ◽

Community Sample ◽

Group Identification ◽

Identity Expression ◽

The U.S ◽

Specific Identity

Although political action often requires activists to express who they are and what they stand for, little is known about the motivators of such identity expression. This research investigates how group identity content and identification with this content predict identity-expressive collective action in the U.S. 2016 presidential elections. We recruited a longitudinal community sample of U.S. party supporters ( N = 426) mid-October (T1), beginning November (T2), and mid-November (T3). Participants listed words they associated with party campaigners, and self-reported their identification with this identity content and the politicized group. Supporting H1, politicized group identification longitudinally predicted increased frequency of collective action more strongly than did identification with specific identity content. Supporting H2, identification with specific identity content longitudinally predicted increased desires to express that content through collective action more strongly than politicized group identification. Implications for our understanding of identity expression and identity content in collective action are discussed.

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