Research has shown limited support for the notion that perceived effectiveness of collective action is a predictor of intentions to engage in collective action. One reason may be that effectiveness has been in terms of whether the action will influence key decision makers. We argue that the effectiveness of collective action might be judged by other criteria, such as whether it influences third parties, builds an oppositional movement, and expresses values. Two hundred and thirty one attendees at a rally rated the effectiveness of the rally and their intentions to engage in future collective action. For those participants who were not members of an organization, intentions were linked to the perceived effectiveness of the rally in expressing values and influencing the public. For those who were members of an organization, intentions were linked only to the effectiveness of the rally in building an oppositional movement.It is well documented that people's concerns about social and economic issues do not necessarily translate into collective action (Klandermans, 2002;Olson, 1968). For example, a 1983 Gallup poll (cited in Fox & Schofield, 1989 revealed that approximately 40% of people in the U.S. believed that it was likely that there would be nuclear war by 1998, and 70% believed that they would not survive a nuclear war. Despite this, surveys in the 1980s showed that only a very small minority of people engaged in collective

The present paper reports a longitudinal study of the psychological antecedents for, and outcomes of, collective action for a community sample of activists. At Time 1, activist identification influenced intentions to engage in collective action behaviours protesting the Iraq war, both directly and indirectly via perceptions of the efficacy of these behaviours for achieving group goals, as well as perceptions of individual-level benefits. At Time 2, identification was associated with differences in the dimensions on which the movement's success was evaluated. In the context of the movement's failure to achieve its stated objectives of troop withdrawal, those with strong activist identity placed less importance on influencing government decision-making. The implications are discussed in terms of models of collective action and social identity, focusing on a dynamic model which relates identification with a group to evaluations of instrumentality at a group and individual level;and to beliefs about strategic responses to achieve group goals.

Recent theorizing on citizenship encourages a broader consideration of the degree to which individuals are able to participate in social life without valued elements of their self-definition being compromised. This paper seeks to illustrate how social psychology can contribute to such an approach through providing an analysis of British Muslims' accounts of how others orient to their religious and national identities. The data are qualitative and derived from interviews with 28 Muslims. The analysis focuses on participants' accounts of how, in everyday interaction, others' assumptions about their religious identity affected their abilities to act on terms that were their own and how this constrained their abilities to speak and be heard in the public sphere. The wider significance of these data for struggles over citizenship and the recognition of identities are discussed.

COVID‐19 mitigating practices such as ‘hand‐washing’, ‘social distancing’, or ‘social isolating’ are constructed as ‘moral imperatives’, required to avert harm to oneself and others. Adherence to COVID‐19 mitigating practices is presently high among the general public, and stringent lockdown measures supported by legal and policy intervention have facilitated this. In the coming months, however, as rules are being relaxed and individuals become less strict, and thus, the ambiguity in policy increases, the maintenance of recommended social distancing norms will rely on more informal social interactional processes. We argue that the moralization of these practices, twinned with relaxations of policy, may likely cause interactional tension between those individuals who do vs. those who do not uphold social distancing in the coming months: that is, derogation of those who adhere strictly to COVID‐19 mitigating practices and group polarization between ‘distancers’ and ‘non‐distancers’. In this paper, we explore how and why these processes might come to pass, their impact on an overall societal response to COVID‐19, and the need to factor such processes into decisions regarding how to lift restrictions.

Two correlational studies of activists examined the association between belonging to community organizations or groups and sustained activism within a particular domain. In Study 1 (N = 45) larger activist networks, controlling for activist identification and greater political knowledge, were associated with stronger activism intentions. In Study 2 (N = 155), larger Time 1 peace activism social networks were associated with more Time 2 peace activism and, via Time 2 activism, with sustained activism at Time 3. In contrast, Time 1 nationalist and party political identities were inhibiting factors of peace activism at Time 2, and indirectly at Time 3. In addition, larger peace activism networks at Time 1 were associated with greater international human rights activism and Christian activism at Time 3, but not as consistently with other forms of cross‐domain activism. The possible organizing principles for these interrelationships are discussed.