What Motivates Us to Go on Strike? Social and Moral Norms and their Impact on Strike Participation in Individualist and Collectivist Situations in Western Cultures

Abstract

Collective action such as strikes is important for sociopolitical expression. The current study explored cross-cultural differences in the psychology of strikes through an adapted version of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model. Our model incorporates personal and social-level psychological processes that motivate strike participation and we explored how cultural values and normative nudges moderate these processes. French and American participants received social or moral nudge messages and indicated their intentions to participate in a hypothetical strike. We successfully replicated parts of the TPB model and found that culture and nudge type moderated the relationship between personal attitudes and strike intentions. Our findings highlight the multi-level motivation for and contextsensitive cultural influence on collective action.