B_06 Collective Responses to Socioeconomic Status Threat
Projects
- Sections:
- Leipzig
- Disciplines:
- Psychology
Abstract
In this work package, we examine collective responses to socioeconomic status threats in the context of social groups. The aim is to understand how people respond to status loss and which social groups they turn to as a result. Experimental social psychology provides the methodological foundation for this research.
We investigate group processes that are closely linked to social cohesion. For example, engagement in populist groups can reduce perceived social cohesion at the societal level. In addition, we analyze how collective agency promotes or constrains cohesion within diverse groups.
Our project builds on the assumption that threats to individuals’ need for control lead people to seek out groups perceived as agentic. Individuals strive to restore personal control and may find it in groups that signal collective agency. Levels of agency and control functions vary across different social groups. This raises the question of whether populist groups are particularly attractive to individuals with a high need for personal control because they promise belonging and agency.
Conversely, social groups oriented toward reducing social inequality may be perceived as less agentic and therefore as less attractive for restoring personal control. Neutral groups, such as sports clubs, may also satisfy control needs if they are perceived as agentic. Our research draws on social psychological experiments and surveys that demonstrate the relationships between perceived threat and the attractiveness of different types of groups.
Transfer Activities
We present our findings in the media and offer professional training programs. In doing so, we collaborate with partners such as the Netzwerk für Demokratie und Courage. Our results aim to strengthen problem-focused groups and counter populist narratives, thereby contributing to social cohesion.
This work package (WP) is situated within Research Focus 2 of Research Area B and aims to investigate responses to socioeconomic status threats at the level of social groups. It seeks to develop a deeper understanding of which social groups individuals turn to in response to perceived threat.
Socioeconomic threat, understood as anticipated status loss, can undermine the need for control among underprivileged individuals. To (re)establish subjective control, people may draw on membership in groups perceived as agentic. In response to socioeconomic threat, individuals therefore align their behavior with group goals and norms, thereby demonstrating control. This psychological mechanism of group-based control helps explain why socioeconomically threatened individuals may turn to antidemocratic and populist groups, particularly when these groups suggest belonging and agency and thus potentially satisfy personal control needs. Belonging to an agentic group is expressed, for example, in the populist antagonism between the “true” people and the corrupt elites to be fought.
A lack of orientation toward problem-focused groups (for example, initiatives of precariously employed workers) may be related to the fact that such groups are typically attributed low levels of collective agency. Other social groups that neither act populistically nor directly address socioeconomic problems—so-called “neutral” groups, such as sports clubs—may also satisfy personal control needs, provided they are perceived as agentic.
With regard to social groups, responses to socioeconomic threat thus depend crucially on perceived collective agency—that is, whether a group is attributed autonomous collective goals, coordinated goal-directed action, and tangible effects on its environment. In this research project, we examine in greater detail how these group characteristics shape which types of social groups (populist, problem-focused, neutral) individuals turn to in response to socioeconomic threat, and how this helps explain different general response patterns to socioeconomic threat (for example, collective voice).
Collective responses to socioeconomic threat affect both intragroup cohesion and social cohesion more broadly. For instance, engagement in a populist group may increase perceived cohesion within that group while reducing perceived cohesion in society as a whole (Guiding Question 2 of Research Area B).
The project also addresses Guiding Question 3, which analyzes the relationship between diversity and social cohesion. Existing studies show both negative and positive associations between diversity within groups and cohesion. We assume that cohesion in diverse groups is more likely to emerge when the group itself is perceived as agentic.
