Aligning identities, emotions, and beliefs to create commitment to sustainable social and political action.
In this article the authors explore the social psychological processes underpinning sustainable commitment to a social or political cause. Drawing on recent developments in the collective action, identity formation, and social norm literatures, they advance a new model to understand sustainable commitment to action. The normative alignment model suggests that one solution to promoting ongoing commitment to collective action lies in crafting a social identity with a relevant pattern of norms for emotion, efficacy, and action. Rather than viewing group emotion, collective efficacy, and action as group products, the authors conceptualize norms about these as contributing to a dynamic system of meaning, which can shape ongoing commitment to a cause. By exploring emotion, efficacy, and action as group norms, it allows scholars to reenergize the theoretical connections between collective identification and subjective meaning but also allows for a fresh perspective on complex questions of causality.
Thomas
Emma F
EF
Australian National University, Canberra. emma.thomas@anu.edu.au.
McGarty
Craig
C
Mavor
Kenneth I
KI
D003469:Culture; D004644:Emotions; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D011057:Politics; D011209:Power, Psychological; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012922:Social Change; D012925:Social Conformity; D012933:Social Identification; D012935:Social Justice