When “we” leave “them”: Distinguishing schisms from individual exit

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

Rinella

Barreto

2021

Self Cite

What motivated Trump Supporters to storm the US Capitol in protest of the US Election results? We examined how different dimensions of an identification (Trump, Republican) predicted intentions to engage in activism or radicalism in the wake of the 2020 US Presidential Election. We sampled self‐identified Republicans 3 weeks before (N = 273), and 10 days after (N = 277), the US Capitol Insurrection. We separately measured identification as a Republican and Trump Supporter before assessing people's perception that the 2020 Election was illegitimate. We then assessed two emotions (anger, contempt) and two forms of collective action intentions (activism, radicalism). Both studies showed that stronger Trump identification, but weaker Republican identification, predicted perceptions that the 2020 US Election was illegitimate. Perceptions of illegitimacy predicted feelings of anger and contempt, which differently predicted normative and nonnormative collective action. Results suggest that different dimensions of identification predispose people to different perceptions of events and, consequently, harbor different action intentions.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(4) "How central is being a Trump Supporter to who you are as a person?" Both measures were based on previous research measuring group identification (Wagoner et al, 2019) and used a 9-point Likert scale (1 = not very much/proud/attached/central, 9 = very much/proud/attached/central).…”

Section: Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“It was rigged”: Different types of identification predict activism and radicalism in the U.S. 2020 election

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

Rinella

Barreto

2021

Self Cite

“…To assess national identification, participants completed the same measure of identification but for their nation (B&H). All measures of identification were on 9‐point Likert scales (1 = not very much/central/proud , 9 = very much/central/proud ) and were adapted from previous research measuring group identification (Wagoner et al., 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within the literature of schisms, researchers have recently put forward the proposition that people can exit their group as an individual ( individual exit intentions ) or as a subgroup ( schism ). Wagoner and colleagues (2019) found that people's intentions to exit their group as an individual were distinct from their support of their subgroup exiting its superordinate group. These researchers further distinguished schisms into the components of subgroup exit , which is when people support their subgroup exiting its current superordinate group; and the component of superordinate formation , in which people support their subgroup becoming a separate entity from other superordinate groups.…”

Section: Schismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social psychologists have primarily focused on the psychological mechanisms that lead to a schism (Ditrich et al., 2017; Sani, 2005) and distinguishing the different ways in which people can exit their group (Wagoner et al., 2019). However, there has yet to be an examination of how multiple levels of group identity can impact people's decision to stay or leave a group.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Different domains of identity predict different exit strategies

Rinnela

Barreto

et al. 2022

Euro J Social Psych

Self Cite

Group schisms are ubiquitous, but little is known about what predicts how people will break away from a group. We hypothesized that different domains of identification (national, regional, ethnonational) would predict support for different types of exit.Study 1 focused on Serbs in the Republic of Srpska within Bosnia-and-Herzegovina (N = 188), while Studies 2 (N = 115) and 3 (N = 318) focused on people who identify as Irish in Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. Across all three studies, weaker national identification predicted support for subgroup exit. Stronger ethnonational identification consistently predicted support for the subgroup joining an existing group, while regional identification had differing relationships with support for the subgroup becoming an independent entity across the samples. Individual exit intentions were predicted by different domains of identification across the three samples. These findings suggest that various domains of identification can predict how people will leave a group.

Ideological asymmetries in morality predict schism intentions

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

Rinella

2023

Self Cite

Drawing from the social psychological model of schisms (Sani, 2005) and moral foundations theory (Haidt & Graham, 2007), we hypothesized that liberals would be more likely to schismatize from a group following an individualizing moral violation, whereas conservatives would be more likely to schismatize from a group following a binding moral violation. We additionally hypothesized that perceptions of identity-subversion would mediate the interaction between ideology and moral violation on schism intentions. We conducted four high powered studies (total N = 1,614) using different designs (correlational, experimental) to test our hypotheses across different groups. Results from Studies 1 and 2 partially supported the hypotheses, while results from Studies 3 and 4 fully supported the hypotheses. The results suggest that people’s political ideologies make them more susceptible to perceiving different types of moral violations, and that moral violations can elicit a schism process.