Past event
Roberto Gonzalez: "Towards Understanding the Dynamics of Collective Action Participation" School of Psychology and Neuroscience Seminar
In an addition to our regular seminar programme, Nicole Tausch will be hosting Roberto Gonzřlez, Professor of Social Psychology at the School of Psychology, P. Universidad Católica de Chile, in a hybrid seminar at 1pm in the Old Library.
Title
Towards Understanding the Dynamics of Collective Action Participation: Insights from two longitudinal panel studies in Chile
Abstract
This talk analyzes participation in collective action as a dynamic phenomenon that emerges and unfolds due to several socio-psychosocial factors. It brings together three studies that examine (1) the conditions under which people who legitimize social protest are likely to engage in conventional collective action; (2) why those who actively participate in conventional collective action get radicalized; and (3) what factors predict support for conservative vs. progressive social change. The studies address three key issues: (1) the importance of the perceived legitimacy of social protest and political self-efficacy; (2) the role of anger and “nothing to lose” beliefs in the process of radicalization of collective action; and (3) the role of individuals' ideological predispositions (SDO, RWA), political orientations, and other factors in predicting their support for conservative (as opposed to progressive) social change. All these studies involved analyses of two unique, independent longitudinal panel studies conducted in Chile, a country facing significant social and political transformations in the past decade. The studies tested their main predictions using random intercept cross-lagged and multilevel models, which decompose the within- and between-subject effects. Studies 1 and 2 report analyses of data from a five-wave panel study spanning 2.5 years with a sample of young people involved in collective action. Study 3 reports analysis from a four-wave longitudinal study with an urban national representative sample of Chilean adults. Conceptual and practical implications are addressed in the panel discussion.