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The importance of protesters' morals: moral obligation as a key variable to understand collective action
Open accessAbstract
Collective action and protest have become a normalised political behaviour that in many cases defines the political agenda. The reasons why people take to the streets constitutes a central subject within the study of Social Psychology. In the literature, three precedents of protest that have been established as central to the study of this phenomenon are: injustice, efficacy and identity. But political action is also deeply related to moral values. This explains why in recent years some moral constructs have also been pointed out as predictors of collective action. Moral variables have been introduced into the literature with little consideration to how they relate to each other. Thus, work in this direction is needed. The general aim of this research is to differentiate moral obligation from moral norms and moral conviction, as well as to compare their ability to predict collective action. In order to do so, the research objectives are: a) conceptualise and operationalise moral obligation (Study 1, N= 171); b) test its predictive power for intention to participate in protests (Study 2, N= 622); and c) test moral obligation in a real context (Study 3, N= 407). Results are encouraging, showing not only that moral obligation is different to moral conviction and moral norm, but also that it is a more effective predictor working both for intention and real participation. This work therefore presents moral obligation as a key precedent of protest participation, prompting its future use as a variable that can enhance existing predictive models of collective action. Results regarding other variables are also discussed.
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“agreement with self-trascendence values, that could reinforce moral conviction supportive of collective action (Sabucedo et al., 2018; Agostini and van Zomeren, 2021)”
From Emotional processes, collective behavior, and social movements: A meta-analytic review of collective effervescence outcomes during collective gatherings and demonstrations (2022) · cites this paper as Sabucedo et al., 2018
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Metadata
- Authors
- Sabucedo, J.-M., Dono, M., Alzate, M., & Seoane, G.
- Affiliations
- Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Dono, Marcos
- ORCID
- Dono, Marcos
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2018-03-27
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 418-418
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5881521
- OpenAlex
- W2795179140
- Cited by
- 149
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 19.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Hispana (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Repositorio institucional da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (University of Santiago de Compostela) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (BDNS (Identif.): 316231, PSI2015-66608- P)
- Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia (2016-PG055)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Keywords
- moral obligation, collective action, protest participation, moral conviction, moral norms, moral values, injustice, perceived efficacy, political identity
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