Change, yes ‘we’ can: Protesting for (ingroup) and against (outgroup) change under conditions of threatened personal control

Abstract

Personal control loss and crisis have been proposed to affect people's attitudes towards social change, but there is controversy about how. From an uncertainty reduction perspective (i.e., Compensatory Control Theory), people should typically reject social change under conditions of threatened personal control. From the perspective of Group-Based Control Theory, however, social change can serve as a means to restore people's sense of control through their social self (i.e., on a collective identity level). Thus, people should welcome ingroup-initiated change following threat. Integrating these perspectives, the Integrated Stage Model of Extended and Secondary Control (INSMESC) proposes that individuals initially attempt to restore control through group-based strategies – such as supporting ingroup-led change – as a form of extended primary control. Only when such group-based approaches are unavailable or appear ineffective do individuals resort to uncertainty-reducing strategies as a secondary control approach. Across three studies (N = 260, 431, 510), manipulated control threat reduced support for outrgroup-initiated change. However, the studies provided strong evidence that this effect was absent when change was driven by an ingroup. Further corroborating the primacy of group-based control, in Studies 4 and 5 (N = 219, 616), control threat even increased attitudinal support for ingroup-initiated change, but not for ingroup-led efforts to preserve the status quo. This suggests that social change is only perceived as threatening when it is not an ingroup initiative, and that it can even buffer feelings of personal control loss by highlighting the collective efficacy of a relevant social ingroup.