The current research investigates what motivates people to engage in normative versus nonnormative action. Prior research has shown that different emotions lead to different types of action. We argue that these differing emotions are determined by a more basic characteristic, namely, implicit theories about whether groups and the world in general can change. We hypothesized that incremental theories (beliefs that groups/the world can change) would predict normative action, and entity theories (beliefs that groups/the world cannot change) as well as group identification would predict nonnormative action. We conducted a pilot in the context of protests against a government plan to relocate Bedouin villages in Israel and a main study during the Israeli social protests of the middle class. Results revealed three distinct pathways to collective action. First, incremental theories about the world predicted hope, which predicted normative action. Second, incremental theories about groups and group identification predicted anger, which also predicted normative collective action. Lastly, entity theories about groups predicted nonnormative collective action through hatred, but only for participants who were highly identified with the group. In sum, people who believed in the possibility of change supported normative action, whereas those who believed change was not possible supported nonnormative action.
Collective action research tends to focus on motivations of the disadvantaged group, rather than on which tactics are effective at driving the advantaged group to make concessions to the disadvantaged. We focused on the potential of nonnormative nonviolent action as a tactic to generate support for concessions among advantaged group members who are resistant to social change. We propose that this tactic, relative to normative nonviolent and to violent action, is particularly effective because it reflects constructive disruption: a delicate balance between disruption (which can put pressure on the advantaged group to respond), and perceived constructive intentions (which can help ensure that the response to action is a conciliatory one). We test these hypotheses across four contexts (total N = 3650). Studies 1-3 demonstrate that nonnormative nonviolent action (compared to inaction, normative nonviolent action, and violent action) is uniquely effective at increasing support for concessions to the disadvantaged among resistant advantaged group members (compared to advantaged group members more open to social change). Study 3 shows that constructive disruption mediates this effect. Study 4 shows that perceiving a real-world ongoing protest as constructively disruptive predicts support for the disadvantaged, while Study 5 examines these processes longitudinally over 2 months in the context of an ongoing social movement. Taken together, we show that nonnormative nonviolent action can be an effective tactic for generating support for concessions to the disadvantaged among those who are most resistant because it generates constructive disruption. Word count: 239 EFFECTIVENESS OF NONNORMATIVE NONVIOLENT COLLECTIVE ACTION 3 Disrupting the System Constructively: Testing the Effectiveness of Nonnormative Nonviolent Collective Action "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth." ~ Martin Luther King Junior, Letter From a Birmingham JailCollective action and grassroots social movements are often assumed to be pivotal in advancing social change towards greater equality (Louis, 2009). Notable examples include the civil rights movement, early feminist struggles, and the Stonewall riots which are reflected in contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the modern LGBTQ+ movement. Whereas some protests may have spurred large changes in public opinion or policy, others seem to have had little impact or even provoked regressive backlash (Brym &
When transgressions are committed by a group, those highly identified with the group are often least likely to recognize the transgressions, feel collective guilt, and engage in action to address them. We hypothesized that especially among high identifiers, demonstrating that in-group transgressions threaten the group's image can induce normative conflict and thus collective guilt and action. In the first study, we demonstrate that high (vs. low) image threat increases normative conflict among high identifiers. In Study 2, we show that inducing normative conflict through image threat leads to increased collective guilt and collective action among high identifiers. In Study 3, we replicate this effect with the addition of a control condition to demonstrate increased normative conflict and collective guilt relative to both a low threat and baseline conditions. In Study 4, we again replicate these effects with a modified manipulation that more precisely manipulated image threat. Together, these studies indicate that image threat can be an effective motivator for high identifiers to address in-group transgressions.
Significance
The effects of recent protests for racial equality, particularly when they included violence, are currently of public and academic interest. To better understand these effects, we combine a dataset of all 2020 BlackLivesMatter protests with survey data containing measures of prejudice and support for police reform. Protests were not associated with reductions in prejudice, but were associated with increases in support for police reform. Specifically, a mix of nonviolent and violent protests was associated with an increase in police-reform support among conservatives living in liberal areas. This study highlights the importance of considering multiple measures of protest effectiveness and suggests that mass protest (including when it mixes nonviolence and violence) can be effective at advancing the movement’s goals.
Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation and black Americans protesting state violence in the United States are examples of historically disadvantaged groups seeking to overcome prolonged oppression and injustice. Both groups sometimes engage in collective action along with allies from the advantaged group. This joint action may have considerable potential to promote social change, but there is a need to understand when the disadvantaged will be willing and motivated to participate in such action. While research has given us rich descriptions of the motivations of disadvantaged group members to act collectively with other members of their group (ingroup action, see Van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2008) and the motivations of advantaged groups to act on behalf of the disadvantaged (solidarity based action, see Saab, Tausch, Spears, & Cheung, 2015; Van Zomeren, Postmes, Spears, & Bettache, 2011), it is unclear if these motivations also apply to joint action. Indeed, joint collective action requires members of the disadvantaged group to negotiate between intergroup tension and harmony, that is, between the orientation to characterize the outgroup as the oppressor and the orientation to soften intergroup disparity and accept outgroup members as allies (see Saguy,
Anger is often seen as a destructive emotion in intergroup conflict, causing aggressive behavior that escalates conflicts (Cheung-Blunden & Blunden, 2008; Huddy, Feldman, & Cassese, 2007). However, a growing body of interpersonal and intergroup psychological research has begun to challenge this view. Drawing from the perspective that emotions can elicit multiple situation-dependent behaviors to achieve identical emotional goals, this research has shown that anger can lead to conciliatory behaviors in specific situations (Fischer &
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