Aligning Identities, Emotions, and Beliefs to Create Commitment to Sustainable Social and Political Action

Abstract

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.

National identification as a function of perceived social control: A subjective group dynamics analysis

“…They indicate that punishment of ingroup deviants does restore a positive social identity (e.g., Abrams, Marques, Randsley de Moura, Hutchinson, & Bown, 2004;Pinto et al, 2010), and that this occurs because it spurs trust in and commitment to the ingroup's normative system, leading to optimistic expectations about the group (cf. also Bar-Tal et al, 2007;Swann et al, 2009;Thomas, McGarthy, & Mavor, 2009). Our studies strongly suggest that by inducing the idea that the group is or is not effective in detecting and punishing ingroup offenders one may boost or sap, respectively, group members' commitment to the standards that underlie their social identity.…”

Learning behaviour and learning outcomes: the roles for social influence and field of study

“…McGarty, Reynolds, & Muntele, 2006;McGarty, Bliuc, Thomas, & Bongiorno, 2009;Musgrove & McGarty, 2008;Postmes, Haslam, & Swaab, 2005;Postmes, Spears, Sakhel, & deGroot, 2001;Thomas, McGarty, & Mavor, 2009a, 2009bTurner, 1991;White, Smith, Terry, Greenslade, & McKimmie, 2009). With the inclusion of social identification and norms in our understanding of the learning process, we can then draw on this social influence literature to improve the effectiveness of the ways in which we attempt to shape student approaches to learning and educational outcomes.…”

Legitimating Practices: Revisiting the Predicates of Police Legitimacy

“…This normative alignment model suggests that an ongoing commitment to collective action can be secured by crafting a social identity characterized by a dynamic system of norms that can shape individual members' ongoing commitments (Thomas et al 2009). And while the concept of normative alignment was initially developed in studies of adult populations in England and Wales, it has also been fielded throughout Europe (Jackson et al 2011;Hough et al 2013) and in the United States (Tyler and Jackson 2014).…”