“Return of the repressed”: Exposure to police violence increases protest and self-sacrifice intentions for the Yellow Vests

Abstract

Worldwide, it is not uncommon to observe violent police reactions against social movements. These are often rationalized by decision makers as efficient ways to contain violence from protesters. In France for instance, the ongoing Yellow Vests protests have generated an unprecedented number of casualties, injuries, and convictions among protesters. But was this response efficient in diminishing violence stemming from the Yellow Vests? To this day, little is known about the psychological consequences of police violence in the context of protests. Combining insights from Significance Quest Theory and the Social Identity perspective on collective action, we predicted that exposure to police violence could “backfire” and lead to increased radicalization of protesters. A cross-sectional investigation of 523 Yellow Vests yielded evidence for this hypothesis. We found positive direct effects of exposure to police violence on intentions to attend future demonstrations and to self-sacrifice for the Yellow Vests. Moreover, these effects were serially mediated by perceived Loss of Significance and Identification with the Yellow Vests. Paradoxically, these results highlight for the first time the mechanism through which political repression may contribute to the formation of radical politicized identities. Thus, we recommend that decision makers privilege the use of de-escalation techniques in protest policing whenever possible.

Consequences of Economic Inequality for the Social and Political Vitality of Society: A Social Identity Analysis

“…Second, there was evidence that rising levels of economic inequality were viewed as a violation of core national values built around egalitarianism, thereby promoting a sense of identity threat and discontinuity from the country's glorious past (Jetten & Wohl, 2012; Liu & Hilton, 2005; Sani et al, 2008). These group‐based perceptions, combined with an aggressive police response to the protesters, further fueled perceptions that actions by those in power were illegitimate, increasing group divides and fueling the mobilization of the Yellow Vest movement (see also Adam‐Troian et al, 2020; Drury & Reicher, 2000).…”

The role of social identity in the explanation of collective action: An intergroup perspective on the Yellow Vests movement

“…While Becker and Tausch (2015) subsequently suggested that contrary to group‐based emotions and group efficacy, social identity may be equally important for both normative and nonnormative collective action, preliminary evidence suggests that social identity is a stronger predictor of normative collective action than nonnormative (Stathi et al., 2019). Related work also shows that identification with Yellow Vest can be related to nonnormative collective action, but this research considered only general behaviors and not those pertinent to Yellow Vests (Adam‐Troian et al, 2020). Nevertheless, little research has been conducted on this question and there are divergent theoretical positions with regards to the role of social identity in the explanation of more radical forms of actions.…”

“Consumed by Creed”: Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms Underpin Ideological Obsession and Support for Political Violence

“…Specifically, the survey contained other measures tapping into known co-morbidities or antecedents of OCD (anxiety, depression, substance abuse, adverse childhood experiences) and violent activism (loss of significance, see Adam-Troian et al, 2020;Jasko et al, 2017).…”