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What they think of us: Meta‐beliefs and solidarity‐based collective action among the advantaged
Author(s) -
Adra Aya,
Li Mengyao,
Baumert Anna
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2675
Subject(s) - collective action , solidarity , outgroup , social psychology , collective responsibility , action (physics) , context (archaeology) , obligation , psychology , ingroups and outgroups , white (mutation) , political science , paleontology , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , politics , gene , law , biology
Abstract Collective action researchers have recently started investigating solidarity‐based collective action by advantaged groups. This literature, however, has overlooked intergroup meta‐beliefs (MBs, i.e., beliefs about the outgroup's beliefs), which we argue are crucial, since solidarity inherently involves protesting for the outgroup. In the context of racial inequality in the U.S., we focused on three MBs White Americans could hold: responsibility, inactivity, and allyship. In two studies ( N total = 648), we found that inactive and responsible MBs predicted higher collective action tendencies among low White identifiers via guilt and obligation to act. Conversely, we found that both predicted lower collective action tendencies among high White identifiers, via perceived unfairness. Finally, we found that ally MB was positively associated with collective action tendencies, regardless of identification. We highlight the importance of the meta‐perspective in understanding solidarity‐based collective action, and discuss conceptual and practical implications of these findings.