Acting for whom, against what? Group membership and multiple paths to engagement in social change.

In a connected and politically engaged world, it is essential to understand how, why, and when people from diverse backgrounds may support social action. Integrating findings from the collective action, solidarity, and allyship literatures, we present working models of how the lenses through which individuals possessing different group memberships may psychologically identify (as part of the targeted group, an inclusive stigmatized identity, or the societally dominant group) and perceive injustice (as exclusively affecting the targeted group, inclusively affecting the target group and one's ingroup, or perceiving ingroup privileges) may shape social change efforts. We highlight disparate effects of positive (and negative) contact between groups on the mobilization of socially dominant and stigmatized groups that may provide challenges to diverse coalitions seeking social change.

Duke Scholars

Author Maureen Alyson Craig Psychology & Neuroscience