Authors: van Zomeren, Martijn¹; Spears, Russell²; Leach, Colin Wayne³

Source: British Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 47, Number 2, June 2008 , pp. 353-372(20)

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• In this Subject: Psychology
• By this author: van Zomeren, Martijn ;  Spears, Russell ;  Leach, Colin Wayne

Abstract:

Two studies examined how the relevance of group identity influences two psychological mechanisms of collective action: Emotion- and problem-focused coping with collective disadvantage. Extending Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, and Leach's (2004) integrative theoretical model of coping with collective disadvantage, we predicted that when group identity is more relevant to disadvantaged group members, it increases their collective action tendencies through their feelings of group-based anger about their group's disadvantage. When group identity is less relevant and hence emotion-focused coping processes are less likely, group-efficacy beliefs become more predictive of disadvantaged group members' collective action tendencies because people focus more instrumentally on whether collective action will be effective (and benefit them) or not. A field study and a follow-up experiment both showed that the relevance of group identity facilitated emotion-focused coping and moderated problem-focused coping with collective disadvantage. We discuss these results in terms of two distinct psychological mechanisms of collective action.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1348/014466607X231091

Affiliations: 1: Department of Social Psychology (FPP), VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2: School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK 3: Department of Social Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

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