From imagination to activism: Cognitive alternatives motivate commitment to activism through identification with social movements and collective efficacy

IF 3.2 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

British Journal of Social Psychology Pub Date : 2024-11-16 DOI:10.1111/bjso.12811

Julian Bleh, Torsten Masson, Sabrina Köhler, Immo Fritsche

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Having a vision and being able to imagine socially and ecologically just alternatives can motivate people for societal transformation. However, which psychological processes drive this link between the mental accessibility of societal alternatives and collective action? We hypothesized that collective efficacy beliefs and politicized identification form two pathways mediating the effects of cognitive alternatives on high‐cost activist behaviour. Two studies and a pooled analysis tested these hypotheses longitudinally. Data were collected in two field settings: a climate camp and an online conference on socio‐ecological visions. In line with our assumptions, and across three of the four analysed timeframes, latent change score modelling showed that changes in cognitive alternatives predicted changes in collective efficacy beliefs and social movement identification, which in turn, predicted changes in collective action intentions. We found clear evidence for our hypotheses in the short term and mixed evidence in the long term. Additional analyses including participative efficacy showed no relevant effects. We concluded that the ability to envision social change may foster a sense of agency as members of social movements. These processes linking imagination to activism are less about individual efficacy than about realizing the collective possibilities for change and identifying with the groups enacting it.

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从想象到行动主义：认知替代方案通过认同社会运动和集体效能激发对行动主义的承诺

拥有远见并能够想象出社会和生态公正的替代方案，可以激励人们进行社会变革。然而，社会替代方案的心理可及性与集体行动之间的联系是由哪些心理过程驱动的呢？我们假设，集体效能信念和政治化认同是认知替代方案对高成本行动主义行为产生影响的两个中介途径。两项研究和一项汇总分析对这些假设进行了纵向测试。数据是在两个实地环境中收集的：一个气候营地和一个关于社会生态愿景的在线会议。与我们的假设一致，在四个分析时间段中的三个时间段，潜在变化得分建模显示，认知替代品的变化预测了集体效能信念和社会运动认同的变化，而集体效能信念和社会运动认同反过来又预测了集体行动意向的变化。我们发现，在短期内，我们的假设有明确的证据，而在长期内，则证据不一。包括参与效能在内的其他分析表明没有相关影响。我们的结论是，设想社会变革的能力可能会促进社会运动成员的代入感。这些将想象力与行动主义联系起来的过程，与其说是关于个人效能，不如说是关于实现变革的集体可能性，以及对实施变革的团体的认同。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

British Journal of Social Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL-

CiteScore

9.50

自引率

7.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.