Julia C. Becker

Yet another dark side of chivalry: Benevolent sexism undermines and hostile sexism motivates collective action for social change.

The current research tests a model for understanding how benevolent sexism undermines, whereas hostile sexism promotes, social change. Study 1 (N = 99) and Study 2 (N = 92) demonstrate that exposing women to benevolent sexism decreases their engagement in collective action, whereas exposure to hostile sexism increases it. Both effects were mediated by gender-specific system justification and perceived advantages of being a woman. In Study 2, positive and negative affect also mediated these relationships. Results from Studies 3 and 4 (N = 68 and N = 37) support the causal chain described in the mediational models tested in Studies 1 and 2. Manipulations that increased gender-specific system justification (Study 3) and perceived advantages of being a woman (Study 4) reduced intentions to participate in collective action.

Friend or Ally Whether Cross-Group Contact Undermines Collective Action Depends on What Advantaged Group Members Say (or Don’t Say)

Previous research shows that positive contact with members of advantaged groups can undermine collective action among the disadvantaged. The present work provides the first experimental evidence of this effect and introduces a moderator which highlights the fundamental role of communication about perceptions of the legitimacy of intergroup inequality. Study 1 (N = 267) focused on the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered community’s struggle for same-sex marriage in California. In Study 2 (N = 81), cross-group contact was initiated between members of two universities that differ in social status. Results revealed that positive cross-group contact undermined public collective action among the disadvantaged when the advantaged-group partner described their group’s advantaged position as legitimate or when they did not communicate their feelings about intergroup inequality (leaving them ambiguous). In contrast, when the advantaged-group partner clearly described the intergroup inequality as illegitimate, cross-group contact did not undermine participation in public collective action.

Committed Dis(s)idents: Participation in Radical Collective Action Fosters Disidentification With the Broader In-Group But Enhances Political Identification

The present research examined the hypothesis that participation in radical, but not moderate, action results in disidentification from the broader in-group. Study 1 (N = 98) was a longitudinal study conducted in the context of student protests against tuition fees in Germany and confirmed that participation in radical collective action results in disidentification with the broader in-group (students) whereas participation in moderate collective action does not. Both types of action increased politicized identification. Study 2 (N = 175) manipulated the normativeness of different types of imagined collective actions in the same context and replicated this disidentification effect for radical actions, but only when this action mismatched the broader in-group’s norms. This study also indicated that these effects were partially mediated by perceived lack of solidarity and perceived lack of commitment to the cause among the broader in-group. The implications of these findings for understanding radicalization within social movements are discussed.

Emotional Consequences of Collective Action Participation: Differentiating Self-Directed and Outgroup-Directed Emotions

The present research examines the emotional and behavioral consequences of collective action participation. It demonstrates that “positive” and “negative” emotions can be experienced simultaneously as a result of collective action participation, yet it is important to distinguish outgroup-directed from self-directed emotions. Results of two experiments (N = 71 and N = 101) that manipulated participation in collective action illustrate that whereas collective action participants experience more outgroup-directed anger and contempt, they feel more self-directed positive affect. Furthermore, collective action participation predicted willingness to engage in moderate and radical collective actions in the future. These relations were mediated by outgroup-directed, but not by self-directed, emotions, suggesting that outgroup-directed rather than self-directed emotions play a crucial role in the maintenance of protest behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Emotional reactions to success and failure of collective action as predictors of future action intentions: a longitudinal investigation in the context of student protests in Germany.

This research examined how emotional responses to success and failure of collective action relate to willingness to engage in collective action in the future. It was hypothesized that both pride (in relation to a success) and anger (in response to failure) would motivate future collective action. Findings are reported from a two-wave longitudinal study (N= 98) in the context of student protests against tuition fees in Germany, which was conducted before and after collective action had resulted in both a success and a failure. While anger positively predicted action intentions, over and above baseline action intentions, pride exerted a significant indirect effect on action intentions via increased efficacy perceptions, over and above baseline efficacy and action intentions. Politicized identification positively predicted the intensity of both pride and anger and baseline group efficacy positively predicted the intensity of anger. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

A dynamic model of engagement in normative and non-normative collective action: Psychological antecedents, consequences, and barriers

This review addresses three recent developments in the collective action literature. First, we demonstrate that normative and non-normative collective action participation can be predicted by different psychological variables. Second, we show that collective action participation has emotional and identity-related consequences for activists that shape their motivation to engage in future action. Third, we illustrate that members of disadvantaged groups are faced with two dilemmas—the dilemma of alternative ways of identity management and the dilemma of affective loyalties towards the outgroup—both of which present barriers to social change by undermining protest intentions. In the final part of the review, we outline an integrative framework that maps out the dynamic processes between antecedents of, barriers to and outcomes of collective action participation and highlight a number of directions for future research.

When Group Memberships are Negative: The Concept, Measurement, and Behavioral Implications of Psychological Disidentification

This research introduces a multi-component model of ingroup disidentification that distinguishes three disidentification components (detachment, dissatisfaction, and dissimilarity). In Studies 1a (N = 168) and 1b (N = 215), the authors developed a measurement scale that assesses these components, and examined alternative factorial structures. Study 2 (N = 115) provides evidence that the disidentification scale performs better at distinguishing between disidentification and nonidentification than an established identification scale. Using additional data from Studies 1b and 2, Studies 3a and 3b examined emotions and behavioral intentions as correlates of disidentification and revealed that the disidentification components predict negative ingroup-directed behavioral intentions (active harm, passive harm, and passive facilitation) and identity concealment over and above measures of identification. Theoretical implications for research on social stigma and social change are discussed.

Intergroup Contact and Social Change: Implications of Negative and Positive Contact for Collective Action in Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups

Previous research has shown that (a) positive intergroup contact with an advantaged group can discourage collective action among disadvantaged-group members and (b) positive intergroup contact can encourage advantaged-group members to take action on behalf of disadvantaged outgroups. Two studies investigated the effects of negative as well as positive intergroup contact. Study 1 (n = 482) found that negative but not positive contact with heterosexual people was associated with sexual-minority students’ engagement in collective action (via group identification and perceived discrimination). Among heterosexual students, positive and negative contacts were associated with, respectively, more and less LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) activism. Study 2 (N = 1,469) found that only negative contact (via perceived discrimination) predicted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students’ collective action intentions longitudinally while only positive contact predicted heterosexual/cisgender students’ LGBT activism. Implications for the relationship between intergroup contact, collective action, and social change are discussed.

Consequences of the 2008 financial crisis for intergroup relations The role of perceived threat and causal attributions

Why do societal crises often lead to intergroup conflict? We propose that the interplay of unspecific threat and causal attributions differentially predicts increases in ethnic prejudice and anti-Semitism. We tested this hypothesis in the context of the 2008 financial crisis. The results of Study 1 (N = 890) demonstrated on the basis of representative survey data that threat elicited by the financial crisis was related with ethnic prejudice once the cause was attributed to immigrants, whereas it was related with anti-Semitism once the cause of the crisis was attributed to bankers and speculators. In Study 2 (N = 157), we experimentally manipulated threat and type of causal attributions and replicated the results of Study 1. Moreover, we found that regardless of the threat manipulation, participants did not respond with increased prejudice against out-groups if a system-level explanation for the crisis, namely the economic system, was salient.

Missing in (Collective) Action: Ideology, System Justification, and the Motivational Antecedents of Two Types of Protest Behavior

Social-psychological models of collective action emphasize three antecedents of protest: (a) anger at perceived injustice, (b) social identification, and (c) beliefs about group efficacy. These models are extremely useful but have rarely incorporated ideological factors—despite the fact that protests occur in societal contexts in which some people are motivated to defend and bolster the status quo whereas others are motivated to challenge and oppose it. We adopt a system-justification perspective to specify when individuals and groups will—and will not—experience moral outrage and whether such outrage will be directed at defenders versus critics of the status quo. We describe evidence that epistemic, existential, and relational needs for certainty, security, and affiliation undermine support for system-challenging protests by increasing system-defensive motivation. We also discuss system-based emotions and backlash against protestors and propose an integrated model of collective action that paves the way for more comprehensive research on the psychological antecedents of social change.