Contributions In The Social Identity Model Of Collective Action

Can you name critical points in your life that have changed it dramatically? What about critical points in the world’s history? The concept of a critical point is something that can be seen in various sciences. Critical point is a moment when something radically changes its state or direction. For example, in physics, there are critical points when water changes its state – once it falls below 0 Celsius, it becomes an ice, and once it rises above 100 Celsius, it becomes a gas. An example of the critical point from history could be an invention of the phone. Any person could be reached in a couple of seconds today, whereas it was unthinkable before 1876. A concept of critical points is found in the popular literature as well. As such, a book …show more content…
People of all ages gathered for the fight to achieve independence for their country. This is an example of a turning, critical point in collective action.
Collective action has always been fundamental to the progress of the human society. It action requires the involvement of a group of people, who work together towards a shared interest via common action (Meinzen-Dick, Di Gregorio & McCarthy, 2004). According to Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA), the model that received the most empirical support, subjective factors, as opposed to objective factors, play a major role in one’s decision to engage in a social protest (van Zomeren et al, 2008). According to this theory, there are three most important factors that contribute to one’s willingness to engage in collective action. The first factor is the perception of injustice, that is, the perception of unfair treatment or outcomes. Engaging in a group-based comparison may result in feeling deprived, and that feeling may foster collective action. Focusing on the group’s progress may negatively affect one’s willingness to engage in collective action. For example, Spoor and Schmitt (2011) found that when …show more content…
60 participants will take part in the control condition of the study, while other 60 participants will take part in the manipulation condition of the study. They would be the students of the University of Exeter and of 18-30 years old. There is likely to be an equal number of females and males and the average age roughly 20 years. Participants will take part in the study as a favour to experimenters. We will collect the demographic data.
Participants who do not perceive the example of social progress as positive would be excluded from the study, as it will bias the results of the experiment.
Design: We will use a between-subject design for all the variables. We will pre-measure two independent variables, both of which has two levels: perception of progress as stable versus reversible, and perception of progress as continuous versus one that moves by discrete and separate