Motivation for Collective Action: Group Consciousness as Mediator of Personality, Life Experiences, and Women’s Rights Activism
Author(s)
Duncan, Lauren E.
Abstract
Prior research on political activism focused on direct predictors of collective action (e.g., life experiences), with little attention paid to what psychologically motivates individuals to act. The group consciousness literature provides an obvious psychological motive for activism, but ignores individual difference variables that differentiate people who develop group consciousness from those who do not. This article integrates the two literatures on activism and group consciousness, and presents a model whereby group consciousness mediates relationships between collective action and personality and life experiences.
