Little is known about how activists and non-activists perceive and evaluate each other. This is important because activists often depend on societal support to achieve their goals. We examined these perceptions and evaluations in three field experiments set in different contexts, i.e., student protests in the Netherlands 2014/2015 (Study 1, activist sample N = 190; Study 2, non-activist sample N = 145), and environmental protests in Paris in 2015 (Study 3, activist sample N = 112). Through a scenario method, we manipulated the motivations expressed for (in)action by a member of the other group (i.e., an activist or non-activist) and measured individuals’ perceptions and evaluations. Findings showed that activists perceived a non-activist as selfish and felt personally distant to them, especially when a non-activist dismissed moral obligation for action (Study 1 and 3). By contrast, non-activists had a rather positive view of activists, especially in response to an activist communicating collective concerns for action (Study 2). Study 4 (N = 103) further supported this pattern of findings by showing that activists perceived larger intergroup differences than non-activists. We conclude that mutual perceptions and evaluations of activists and non-activists are asymmetrical, which may have (negative) consequences for mobilization for social change.

Introduction

In order to maximize chances of achieving social change, activists need to mobilize their fellow disadvantaged group members and gain broader societal support for their cause. Indeed, the political struggle between those who seek social change and those who oppose it, often entails a competition over support from the broader society [1, 2]. Against this backdrop, one of the main goals of demonstrations and protests is to reach out to and win the “hearts and minds” of those within the broader ingroup, as well as third parties [3, 4], because the potential success of social movements depends on a strong and positive bond between activists and their potential followers.

However, the literature suggests that activists and non-activists differ in their concerns and motivations. Activists are often seen as ‘idealists’, who are highly committed to the group’s cause; by contrast, the non-activists may be sympathetic to the activists’ cause, but do not engage in collective action [5]. This implies that activists may not share a common ground with non-activists, which may even make them reluctant to rely on non-activists to achieve their goals.

Little is known however, about how activists and non-activists perceive each other—as friends or foes. Importantly, the few pointers available in the literature hint in different directions. Activists sometimes see non-activists as potential allies and resources to be mobilized [6]. At the same time, they may also perceive non-activists as those who do not demonstrate sufficient solidarity with the group [7]. From the point of view of non-activists, some work suggests that activists may be perceived as ‘heroes’ or, quite differently, as ‘complainers’ [8, 9]. It is of both theoretical and practical relevance to examine how these groups perceive and evaluate each other—after all, negative relations between these groups may stand in the way of the change activists want to see in the world. We therefore conducted four studies that aimed to map the potentially different perceptions that members of these groups may have of each other.

Defining activists and non-activists Collective action is commonly defined as any action undertaken by individuals on behalf of a group to achieve group goals [10]. The social-psychological literature on collective action identifies four key motivations to engage in collective action: individuals’ psychological ties with the group (i.e., group identification), perceptions of group-based injustice and the resulting feelings of anger, perceived violations of individual and/or group-based moral beliefs, and group efficacy beliefs [10, 11]. We use participation in collective action and membership in a social movement as the criterion to define activists and non-activists. Accordingly, activists are individuals who engage in various forms of collective action, such as protests, demonstrations, building occupation, etc. Moreover, some activists are formal members of political movements and they may also be involved in organizing and mobilizing others to take part in them [12, 3]. We thus consider both inexperienced, first-time protesters and long term, committed members of social movements as activists. Our definition circumvents the problem with the ‘activist’ label, because some activists may not necessarily endorse it prior to participation in collective action [13], or may even explicitly reject it [14]. Similarly, by defining non-activists as those who do not participate in collective action and/or are not members of political movements, we include those who may belong to the same social group as activists (e.g., ethnic, gender, religious group), as well as to third parties and/or general public. In the literature on political solidarity, they are referred to as the silent majority [2]. Importantly, we do not assume that non-activists are not necessarily uninvolved or passive, as they may still engage in individual actions that align with the activists’ cause (e.g., individual pro-environmental behavior), but they do not take part in collective action. Moreover, prior research suggests that activists and non-activists have different motivational profiles. For instance, activists feel stronger psychological ties with their group and more so with their activist subgroup [15, 10]. In addition, they often feel morally obliged to address injustice [16, 17]. In contrast to activists, non-activists are more concerned with individual rather than collective goals, and focused on “rational” calculations of individual benefits and costs of participation [18, 6], than on moral reasons to act [19]. In general, activists are more likely to be driven by collective and moral motivations [16, 19, 11], whereas non-activists are more likely to be driven by individual and instrumental concerns [18, 5]. We opted against a motivational definition of activism, because activists’ and non-activists’ motivations may vary greatly depending on the context of collective action [20]. Additionally, our definition allows for the possibility that both activist and non-activists may communicate different motivations for their behavior, which may affect how they perceive and evaluate each other.

Mutual perceptions and communication of motivations for action Examining mutual perceptions between activists and non-activists is an important question, because one of the key goals of collective action is to mobilize public support for the activists’ cause [3]. Furthermore, positive relations between activists and their potential followers are perceived to be the key to a movement’s success [21, 1, 2]. However, the existing work suggests that activists and non-activists may not always see eye to eye. For example, research on confrontation of discrimination suggests that those who address injustice are appreciated and receive support, at least from their own group [22]. Nonetheless, more often the confronters run the risk of being perceived as ‘complainers’, with their actions being evaluated as inappropriate [23, 8]. Moreover, members of the general public endorsing negative stereotypes of activists (e.g., perceive them as militant or eccentric) are less likely to adopt the behaviors they promote [24]. At the same time, activists may judge harshly and/or disidentify from their broader ingroup, if they perceive them as lacking commitment to the group cause [25, 26], or failing to show solidarity [27, 7]. This suggests that activists may perceive non-activists as too selfish (i.e., focusing too much on their individual interests, as opposed to group interests), whereas non-activists may see activists as complainers. We propose that how activists and non-activists perceive each other depends not only on what they do (or not do), but also on the reasons they communicate for their behavior. Below we elaborate on the hypotheses for activists and non-activists separately. First, non-activists may explain their decision not to participate by denying that the protest will have any effect on the power holders (i.e., instrumental motivation), or by denying the moral obligation to fight for social change (i.e., moral motivation). Previous research found that highly politicized individuals (e.g., feminists) identify less with other members of their group (e.g., women), if they do not moralize the activists’ cause [26], because denying moral basis for action goes directly against what activists believe in [16, 17, 19]. Faith in the effectiveness of collective action in affecting social change facilitates participation, however, even activists do not always believe in it [3]. Thus, we expect that activists will have a more negative view of a non-activist who communicates moral rather than instrumental reasons for inaction (Hypothesis 1). Moreover, non-activists can justify lack of participation by communicating individual or collective reasons for inaction. Concretely, they may emphasize that their individual vs. collective presence will not have any effect or that they do not feel personally vs. collectively morally obliged to act. Framing inaction as a collective decision rather than an individual decision, should be judged more negatively by activists (Hypothesis 2), because it threatens more strongly the beliefs of activists who see themselves as acting for and on behalf of the broader group [5]. However, we also acknowledge the possibility that both framings may not be received well at all by activists. Indeed, in the context of pro-environmental behavior, for example, some environmental activist groups believe individual engagement and responsibility are essential in achieving social change [28, 29]. As a consequence, it is possible that individualized framing of inaction could be seen as equally opposed to activists’ beliefs as a collective framing of inaction. When it comes to non-activists’ views of activists, we propose that non-activists will have a more positive view of an activist who communicates moral motivation for collective action in comparison to an activist who communicates instrumental motivation for collective action (Hypothesis 3). For example, prior work on confrontation of discrimination suggests that confronters who act out of self-interest are more likely to be perceived as complainers by perceivers than those who act out of altruistic or moral reasons [30]. Moreover, sociological research on mobilization and framing suggests that moral communication from social movements is more persuasive and successful [31]. Consequently, communicating moral rather than instrumental motivation for action should match better the expectations of who the activists are and lead to evaluations that are more positive. Moreover, activists who emphasize collective rather than individual reasons (irrespective of whether they are instrumental or moral) for participation may be liked more by non-activists (Hypothesis 4). This is because activists are “entrepreneurs of identity” [32, 33], whose task is to define the audience as part of the common identity. Communicating shared identities signals inclusion, and can help activists define the non-activists as part of their group [21, 4, 1], which in turn should make them more popular among non-activists. Finally, prior literature on the negative relations between strikers and strike-breakers [27, 7], suggests that activists may be more likely to glorify their group and conversely disparage those who fail to act. Thus, we expect activists to perceive greater differences between themselves and the non-activists, by evaluating their own group more positively and the non-activists more negatively, whereas we expect non-activists to feel equally positive about both groups (Hypothesis 5).