Conforming to Collective Action: The Impact of Rejection, Personality and Norms on Participation in Protest Activity
Author(s) / Creator(s)
Renström, Emma A.
Bäck, Hanna
Knapton, Holly M.
Abstract / Description
Social norms guide humans’ everyday behavior, and previous research has shown that social norms consistently predict some forms of political participation. Failure to conform to norms may lead to deviation and possible rejection, which humans innately seek to avoid since it threatens their need for belongingness. Following an episode of rejection, individuals are therefore likely to become increasingly willing to conform to norms in order to re-establish a position in their social group. In an experiment, we show that 1) individuals conform to a perceived political engagement norm, and that 2) when rejection associations are made salient, they become increasingly willing to conform to a political engagement norm. We also show 3) that this effect is moderated by individual-level need for belongingness, such that rejection primed participants with a high need to belong, showed the highest levels of conformity to the perceived political engagement norm. The results imply that social pressure is a strong motivating factor in political engagement, which is an important result suggesting that basic social affiliation needs may in fact have an impact on politics and political outcomes.
Keyword(s)
social norms rejection need to belong collective actionPersistent Identifier
Date of first publication
2018-12-28
Journal title
Social Psychological Bulletin
Volume
13
Issue
4
Article number
Article e26427
Publisher
PsychOpen GOLD
Publication status
publishedVersion
Review status
peerReviewed
Is version of
Citation
Renström, E. A., Bäck, H., & Knapton, H. M. (2018). Conforming to collective action: The impact of rejection, personality and norms on participation in protest activity. Social Psychological Bulletin, 13(4), Article e26427. https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.v13i4.26427
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spb.v13i4.26427.pdfAdobe PDF - 333.65KBMD5: afbcacb7ee09d14feef3805c0a654f58
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Renström, Emma A.
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Bäck, Hanna
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Author(s) / Creator(s)Knapton, Holly M.
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PsychArchives acquisition timestamp2022-04-14T11:26:30Z
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Made available on2022-04-14T11:26:30Z
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Date of first publication2018-12-28
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Abstract / DescriptionSocial norms guide humans’ everyday behavior, and previous research has shown that social norms consistently predict some forms of political participation. Failure to conform to norms may lead to deviation and possible rejection, which humans innately seek to avoid since it threatens their need for belongingness. Following an episode of rejection, individuals are therefore likely to become increasingly willing to conform to norms in order to re-establish a position in their social group. In an experiment, we show that 1) individuals conform to a perceived political engagement norm, and that 2) when rejection associations are made salient, they become increasingly willing to conform to a political engagement norm. We also show 3) that this effect is moderated by individual-level need for belongingness, such that rejection primed participants with a high need to belong, showed the highest levels of conformity to the perceived political engagement norm. The results imply that social pressure is a strong motivating factor in political engagement, which is an important result suggesting that basic social affiliation needs may in fact have an impact on politics and political outcomes.en_US
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Publication statuspublishedVersion
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Review statuspeerReviewed
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CitationRenström, E. A., Bäck, H., & Knapton, H. M. (2018). Conforming to collective action: The impact of rejection, personality and norms on participation in protest activity. Social Psychological Bulletin, 13(4), Article e26427. https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.v13i4.26427en_US
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ISSN2569-653X
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Persistent Identifierhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12034/5801
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Persistent Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.6405
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Language of contenteng
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PublisherPsychOpen GOLD
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Is version ofhttps://doi.org/10.32872/spb.v13i4.26427
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Is related to10.23668/psycharchives.2342
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Keyword(s)social normsen_US
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Keyword(s)rejectionen_US
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Keyword(s)need to belongen_US
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Keyword(s)collective actionen_US
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Dewey Decimal Classification number(s)150
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TitleConforming to Collective Action: The Impact of Rejection, Personality and Norms on Participation in Protest Activityen_US
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DRO typearticle
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Article numberArticle e26427
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Issue4
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Journal titleSocial Psychological Bulletin
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Volume13
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Visible tag(s)Version of Recorden_US