Social Influence and Collective Action: An Experiment of a Simulated Social Protest

• In Event: 272 - Regular Session. Rational Choice

Abstract

Many theories in the social sciences suggest that an individual’s decisions are a function of their observations and perceptions of others, and that this social influence has the power to affect various collective outcomes including social protests and strikes. Empirical support for these models, however, largely consists of observational studies and laboratory experiments that either lack internal or external validity. To address these empirical shortcomings, we administered a web-based experiment of a simulated social protest to a large random sample of undergraduate students. Multilevel mixed-effects mediation models showed that behavioral intentions to participate in a social protest formed a sigmoidal relationship with the total number of other participants, and that subjective probability of success fully mediated this relationship. The findings support social influence models of collective action, invite new research directions, and yield important implications for collective action research and theory.

Authors

• Blaine G. Robbins, University of Washington

• Steven Pfaff, University of Washington

• Ross L. Matsueda, University of Washington

• Richard J. Callahan, University of Washington