Abstract
Donald J. Trump’s 2016 election campaign has been credited with the process of
This is precisely what we study in the current article. Our point of departure is that identity expression is one of a number of possible aims of
To this end, we conducted a longitudinal survey during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections to test whether and how an individual’s identification with both the group and its identity content predicted their willingness to engage in identity-expressive collective action and frequency of collective action engagement.
1
This context was ideal for testing identity expression in action, given its strong culture of campaigning/recruitment, and the identity politics this evokes (Grant et al., 2010). We expected that identification with specific identity
Predicting Collective Action Through Group Identification and Group Identity Contents
Social identities (i.e., defined as the part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from the knowledge of one’s membership in a social group[s] together with the emotional significance attached to that membership; Tajfel, 1974) are central motivators of collective action (van Zomeren et al., 2008 see also Thomas et al., 2009]. This is because, first, social identities shift an individual’s experience of the self from “I” to “we,” promoting a group-based understanding of the world. As such, social identities are the psychological vehicles that allow people to care about their group and motivate them to protect their group’s interests or act on its behalf. In an election context in which one’s group faces a strong competition, one’s social identity directly predicts engagement in collective action. Second, social identities also indirectly motivate collective action via two other socio-psychological motivators of collective action: group injustice and group efficacy. Thus, social identities sit at the heart of collective action bridging psychological motivators, both directly and indirectly predicting frequency of collective action (van Zomeren et al., 2008).
So far, the role of social identity in collective action has been explored in two key ways. The most popular approach is to operationalize it as identity strength (i.e., group identification). This focuses on the
However, although this research demonstrates that politicized identities predict collective action generally (e.g., van Zomeren et al., 2008), it remains unclear what people want to
Unfortunately, this idea has been often voiced without having been empirically tested. 2 For example, models and definitions of politicization are built around the idea that an individual needs to change not only who they are (e.g., I am an activist), but how they understand their social world (e.g., as structured by powerful groups) and their relation to it (e.g., as systemically disadvantaged; Cross, 1971; Downing & Roush, 1985; Simon & Klandermans, 2001; Subašić et al., 2008). Only more recently, this theory has been tested in empirical research, which has attempted to model qualitative identity content (changes) and statistically test its consequences (Becker & Wagner, 2009; Livingstone & Haslam, 2008; Thomas et al., 2009; Turner-Zwinkels et al., 2017; Turner-Zwinkels, van Zomeren, & Postmes, 2015). The findings of this research supported the idea that (changes in) identity content play a crucial role defining the meaning of groups and informing the likelihood that individuals will engage in different forms of collective action. However, research investigating the identity-expressive function of collective action is rather scarce, despite its important function of helping to achieve group goals (see Hornsey et al., 2006). As such, we do not know yet how the content of an individual’s group identity might motivate identity expression through (collective) action.
Conceptualizing Content Identification and Its Relation With Group Identification
We suggest that both increases in identity strength and (changes in) identity content should be important in motivating collective action: While identity content should inform the type of behavior an individual is likely to engage in (e.g., normative or radical action) and what they seek to express through this action, identity strength informs the likelihood that an individual acts on the basis of these understandings in the first place. However, theoretically, they should also have a
How should this combined influence work in practice? One potential scenario is that identity content
This introduces a two-part conceptualization of identification—(a) identification with the overarching group identity, and (b) identification with specific elements of content that make up the identity (see also Leach et al., 2008; McConnell, 2011).
3
First, broader group identification refers to an individual’s
Taken together, we expect that (a) politicized group identification is a strong predictor of an individual’s tendency to engage in collective action (van Zomeren et al., 2008), and (b) identification with specific identity content is a stronger predictor of what content they seek to
The Present Study
This research applies a longitudinal design in the context of the U.S. 2016 presidential elections to test the idea that group identification and content identification are two distinct forms of identification, with the latter being the strongest predictor of identity-expressive collective action and the former being the strongest predictor of frequency of collection action engagement. We test this in two main hypotheses. First, the
In order to empirically test identity content we use an identity content approach. This approach studies semantic identity content as group definitions, where group meanings are considered to be embodied in traits (e.g., kind, caring) individuals use to describe different groups (e.g., Leach et al., 2007). To access identity content, we ask participants to freely list the words they associate with ingroup (e.g., Democrat) party supporters who actively promote the party during the elections. This allows unique insight into an individual’s subjectively internalized identity content, which can vary freely between individuals and over time. By using an identity content approach this research will elaborate on the detailed process of linking specific units of identity content to identity expression, further developing our understanding of collective action and the role of identity content within it.
Method
Participants and Design
The design of the study was a three-wave, longitudinal survey. Data was collected on Amazon’s M-Turk at three time points: mid-October 2016 (T1), the start of November 2016 (T2; immediately before the elections), and mid-November 2016 (T3). A community sample of 494 participants was recruited, with 74.49% of participants returning at T2. We expected this sample size to yield sufficient power to detect small effects, with an expected attrition rate of 60%. Participants were paid 75 cents at T1, US$1.75 at T2. Main analyses focus on these first two time points. T3 was voluntary follow-up collected from 255 returning participants (a completion rate of 51.62%).
We selected a total sample of 426 participants (137 = male, 284 = female, 5 = na;
Measures
The questionnaire was programmed on Qualtrics and completed online. The questionnaire was entitled “You, the U.S. and the Presidential Elections” and was composed of four sections: about the individual, their party preference, party supporters, and action. All questions were scored on a seven-point Likert-type scale unless otherwise stated. Finally participants were thanked and paid.
Identity
a group of people who aim to promote [party preference] in the 2016 Presidential elections. Importantly, active party supporters seek to influence the decisions of others and persuade them to vote for this party. The ultimate purpose of this is to . . . win votes for this party.
As such, this definition aligns with the definition of politicized identities as identification (Simon & Klandermans, 2001). Next, participants completed ART. This task asks individuals to freely list up to 20 words that they associate with active party supporters who support their party preference in the 2016 presidential elections. Participants were encouraged to think widely about “the traits, values, principles, attributes, roles, relations, goals, activities, lifestyle characteristics, and qualities that you consider to define an active party supporter or distinguishes them from other people,” and to answer relatively quickly as if for themselves (range 1–20,
Most Frequently Occurring Identity Content Listed for Democrats, Republicans, and Others (Libertarian, Green, Other) at T1 and T2.
Action
Demographic and control variables
Results
Descriptives
Means, standard deviations, and correlations between key identity variables are presented in Table 2. First, means were inspected. It can be noted that the mean level of identity expression shows a high level of agreement with the aim to express identity content through collective action—therefore supporting the instrumental side of identity expression. Second, the relation between the different levels of identification was inspected. This shows that politicized group identification was moderately correlated with identification with specific identity content units. Indeed, a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that politicized group identification and content identification were two related but separate factors (see Online Supplement 1). However, politicized group and content identification appeared similar in the stability of the scales from T1 and T2, where both were similarly strong, indeed, 95% bootstrapped confidence intervals overlapped substantially between politicized group identification (95% CI = [.68, .81]), content-2 identification (95% CI = [.69, .83]), and fairly strongly with content-1 identification (95% CI = [.56, .76]). Together, this suggests that although politicized group identification and content identification are distinct factors, they may share some similar properties. Furthermore, a visual inspection of the relation between identification and the action variables already hints at a pattern in line with our hypotheses: Politicized group identification was more strongly related to the frequency of action engagement, while identification with content was more strongly correlated with the expression of (the specific content of) identity through action (notably a factor analysis revealed that content identification and identity expression were correlated but separate factors; see Online Supplement 2). 5
Means, Standard Deviations, and Bivariate Correlations Between Identity and Action Variables.
Table 1 presents the most frequently listed content for Democratic, Republican, and a combined group of other party supporters across T1 and T2. Lists comprise 34.24%–50.79% of all content written on each respective set of lists—suggesting a reasonable consensus around group definition, but also substantial outstanding variation (e.g., Democrat party supporters associate 264 different units of content with their group). Lists highlight differences between groups: The content that uniquely distinguished Democrats from Republicans included open-minded, progressive and fair. The content that uniquely distinguished Republicans includes patriotic, American, pro-life. However there is also a lot of content shared across lists (e.g., loyal, passionate, motivated, honest). Thus, Table 1 emphasizes the diverse identity content that individuals associate with their groups, the expression of which will be modeled in subsequent analyses.
Hypothesis Testing
Analyses aimed to test if politicized group identification and content identification were differently related to expression of action. To do so, longitudinal, multiple regression models were run predicting frequency of action engagement (see Table 3) and desired expression of identity content through action (see Table 4) from politicized group identification and identity content-1 identification, and their interaction. Controls of age, gender, income, education, and religiosity were added, and removed if non-significant unrelated. Because our theory applies to all party supporters regardless of their specific party preference, the data for all parties was analyzed together. But, we also checked if party preference impacted results by adding party preference as a control and testing if party preference interacted with any parameters in the model (see Online Supplement 3). As expected, party preference did not change conclusions drawn. So, the original models with pooled samples are presented. As a robustness check, cross-sectional models were also run. Models were robust, with consistent parameters (also checked with residuals greater than 2 removed). Variance inflation factors revealed that predictors across all models were moderately correlated (range = 1.02–4.28), so multicollinearity was not a strong concern. Longitudinal models were run on a slightly reduced sample (
Identification With Politicized Group and Content Predicting Frequency of Collective Action Engagement Longitudinally and Cross-Sectionally.
Identification With Politicized Group and Content Predicting Identity Expression of Action Engagement Longitudinally and Cross-Sectionally.
First, we tested the

Dot and whisker plot of standardized beta coefficient estimates and corresponding 95% confidence intervals predicting desired expression of identity content-1 through collective action (Model 1) and frequency of action engagement (Model 2) in longitudinal regression models.
Results generally replicated when tested in
Next, we tested the
Two longitudinal models were run, one predicting the expression of content-1 at T2 (see Figure 1) and the second predicting the expression of content-2 at T2 (controlling for T1 identity expression). Results showed that politicized group identification was not a substantive predictor of identity expression through collective action at T2 in either model. This suggests that, in contrast to H2c, in the long term, identification with the group may have a smaller impact on action expression than expected. Instead, as predicted by H2a, identity content identification remained a strong, positive longitudinal predictor. Moreover, in support of H2b, when predicting expression of content-1, only identification with content-1 predicts the desire to express this content, and identification with content-2 was unrelated. When predicting expression of content-2, both identification with content-2 and identification with content-1 were positively predictive. This suggests that content-2 doesn’t imply content-1, but content-1 does imply content-2. Importantly, however, a comparison of standardized betas shows that, as expected, identification with content-2 was a stronger predictor of expression of content-2 than identification with content-1 was. No substantive interaction emerged.
Cross-sectional regressions largely converged with the longitudinal model. In support of H2b, expression of content-1 was associated most strongly and positively by identification with content-1. Similarly, when we predicted the expression of content-2, this was associated most strongly and positively by identification with content-2. Furthermore, although politicized group identification was positively and significantly associated with action expression in both cases (supporting H2c), this effect was significantly smaller than that of identification with the specific content units, as can be seen by the non-overlapping confidence intervals. Moreover, when the model is built stepwise entering identification with content more than halves the
Together results present strong support for the
Overall, results present strong support for both
Sensitivity Power Analysis
A sensitivity power analysis in G*Power (Faul et al., 2009) determined that in our cross-sectional (longitudinal) sample of
Discussion
Results present strong support for the idea that identity expression through collective action is most strongly predicted by identification with specific units of identity content. This was supported by longitudinal analyses and converging evidence was also presented in cross-sectional analyses. First, in strong support of the
Theoretical Implications
First, this research indicates that identity expression is a crucial part of collective action. Although the spotlight in collective action research so far has generally been on predicting frequency of collective action engagement from politicized group identification (van Zomeren et al., 2008), this research suggests that by presenting one’s identity to the public, people with politicized identities can show who they are and what they stand for. With this information members of the public can decide whether to support the group or not. As such, identity expression represents a key mode through which activists could seek to influence their social world and political context. Indeed, our assumptions check (see Online Supplement 5) suggests that identity-expressive action is seen as an effective way of achieving social change (above and beyond simply acting more often). In other words, identity-expressive collective action is about undertaking the “right” form of collective action for one’s group (e.g., peaceful protests for mainstream movements, or more non-conventional or aggressive action for radical movements). This fits well with growing evidence that collective action participants may strategically deploy different modes of expression in the pursuit of third-party support (Klein et al., 2007; Kutlaca et al., 2016; Sasse et al., 2018).
This brings the issue of group definition (Subašić et al., 2008) and identity performativity (Klein et al., 2007) in collective action to the fore. Social movements should not only take a stance, but should present what it
Second, but equally important, this research illuminates a key motivator of identity expression in collective action: identification with specific identity content. This qualifies previous findings that an individual’s identity content was not very strongly related to action (Turner-Zwinkels et al., 2017), by demonstrating that content predicts a specific form of action strongly—its expression. Indeed, although politicized group identification was positively related to identity expression, this relation did not persist over time, once content identification was modeled. This has consequences for our understanding of the role of politicized group identification and identity content in collective action. It reinforces what we might already infer from the broad applicability of politicized group identification measure in the field—that it is a general predictor of tendencies to act on behalf of one’s group. As such, it taps into an individual’s commitment to the group, and most likely, their tendencies to stick with the group (and support its goals). Although politicized group identification depends in some part on its meaning, it does not tell us much about what the group identity means to the individual, nor what should follow from such identification (which depends on group norms). These content-based understandings are often inferred from context, but not from theory or empirical data. Instead, our results indicate that it is identification with the group’s identity content which offers insight into how an individual sees the group and what they want to express about their identity to others in public. As such, this serves as a way to empirically back up what is often assumed in the literature, that identity content is the “active ingredient” in group identity when it comes to collective action, motivating people not only to see themselves as politicized (Turner-Zwinkels, van Zomeren, & Postmes, 2015, p. 21) but to express and perform their politicized identity.
This joins with previous research which has highlighted how the transformation of identity content is central in politicization (Turner-Zwinkels, van Zomeren, & Postmes, 2015, p. 21). Our results suggest that the transformation of identity content in politicization might involve not only changing an individual’s understanding of their own identity but also gaining an understanding of how others might react to it. Indeed, we are not the first to argue that the position of a group identity in the wider social system might be of particular importance for political identities (van Breen et al., 2017). By extension, this also hints at a process through which the identity might develop functionally over time—a feedback cycle between identity content, its expression, and the reaction it gains from the public, among others. Based on the assumption that participants in collective action expresses elements of their identity content with the aim of gathering support, it is possible that the content which persists over time and becomes most central to the meaning of the group are those which are functional for the group’s survival (e.g., moral content; Turner-Zwinkels et al., 2017). In other words, the content which is most successful bolsters the support of the public. This could be seen as a sort of “natural selection”
More generally, results also further develop our understanding of the construct of identification. This research is novel in arguing that identification is a construct that not only applies to one’s general relationship with the group (as a whole), but can also be applied to assess an individual’s more specific understandings of what the group means to them. Findings presented evidence of the diverging roles of group and content identification motivating different forms of (frequency and expression of) collective action. We observed that politicized group identification captured the general tendency to act on behalf of one’s group, while specific content identification predicted the specific expression of content through collective action. This is reminiscent of the “correspondence principle” from the theory of planned behavior (e.g., Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005), which argues that specific behaviors are predicted more strongly from specific behavioral intentions and beliefs than general attitudes. Although in our case, we do not simply predict a more specific measure of collective action from more specific attitudes (Kelly & Breinlinger, 1995), we draw a distinction between the meaning people take from a group and their desire to
Finally, results highlight the multidimensional nature of group identities. Our finding that identification with one unit of identity content might not be a particularly strong predictor of the desire to express another unit of identity content moves beyond preexisting conceptualizations of the multifaceted nature of group identities (e.g., Kervyn et al., 2010) in at least two key ways. First, it suggests that people can manage their image of the group through the content they
Practical Implications
This research highlights the methodological value of measuring identity content using an associative-recall paradigm (see also Turner-Zwinkels, Postmes, & van Zomeren, 2015, p. 23). This circumvents at least two of weaknesses of methods which present individuals with specific content. First, our method minimizes the likelihood that participants’ self-reported behavior can be explained as an uncertainty reduction tool (Hogg, 2000) or via the priming of identity content by the researcher. According to uncertainty reduction research (e.g., Hogg, 2000), a key motivation for self-categorizing as a group member is to provide more certainty about one’s place in their social world. As such, a person should identify more strongly with content presented to them, and act in line with this content (especially if they are uncertain in the first place; Grieve & Hogg, 1999). Although this does not question the relation observed, it does question its strength. As such, the present results demonstrate that content identification remains a strong predictor of identity expression across diverse content listed and cannot be explained by uncertainty reduction alone. Second, measuring the content participants truly see as part of the identity increases ecological validity, and steps closer to a clearer understanding of how individuals apply their own personal understandings of their group memberships in the real world (Huddy, 2001).
This research also has practical implications for social movements, emphasizing the importance of forming a consensual image of what the group stands for. The benefits of this are twofold. First, it should bolster ingroup solidarity, as a consensual group image minimizes tensions within the group, reducing conflicts over competing ingroup meanings (Wenzel et al., 2008). Second, it should help third-party mobilization, as it ensures that a consistent (non-conflicting) message is expressed to the public. This suggests that clear leadership (Steffens et al., 2014) may be important for political movements. Group leaders can help sculpt a clear and meaningful social identity through phases of storming, forming, and norming (Tuckman, 1965), before
Limitations
First, the generalizability of the present results is limited given that we focused on one context: the U.S. presidential elections. We did so for two reasons: (a) to build on prior research (Turner-Zwinkels, van Zomeren, & Postmes, 2015, p. 24); (b) it allows a diverse community sample with different political (Liberal-Conservative) backgrounds to be tested in a comparable social context. Furthermore, we have reason to expect that findings should apply to other contexts too. Specifically, psychological processes present in election contexts may not be so different from those present in other protest contexts (van Zomeren, Saguy, et al., 2018). Despite this, it is imaginable that the applicability of such psychological processes could vary among different types of movements. For example, processes of identity expression might be more central to movements of affluence (Kerbo, 1982), who have the time and resources to be concerned with identity politics than movements of crisis, which are more strongly motivated by anger and immediate risk of harm to the ingroup.
Second, we did not test the specific aim of expressing the content through action. Given that the identity expression tested was measured as the expression through one’s collective action engagement, we think that the assumption that action was instrumental is fair (Simon & Klandermans, 2001). However, a more detailed investigation of the aims and consequences of identity expression would be valuable.
Notably, alternative models than that tested are both possible and plausible. From a social identity perspective, one may argue that identity content mediates the relation between group identification and collective action. This is because group identification implies self-stereotyping in terms of typical ingroup identity content, which in turn results in an inner obligation to engage in collective action (Stürmer & Simon, 2004b). Alternatively, ingroup projection might predict the reverse mediation. Given the observational nature of our current research we cannot firmly establish causation or causal ordering. Thus, future research would be valuable to dissect the different processes motivating action engagement and identity expression. Perhaps the most interesting context to study this in may be groups approaching a subgroup schism. Although we expect processes of differential content identification will be present in almost all groups (e.g., even groups with relatively clear identities show variation in identity content associated with their group; see Table 5 in Turner-Zwinkels, Postmes & van Zomeren, 2015), they may be most accessible in groups who are about to split.
Conclusion
This research presents new evidence supporting the instrumental nature of identity expression in collective action, and the crucial role of identification with identity content in motivating this. Results demonstrate that although politicized group identification is a key motivator of frequency of collective action engagement, identity content is the active ingredient motivating aims of identity expression through such action. Thus, the pivotal role of identity content in collective action is emphasized: Not only transforming identity content (Turner-Zwinkels, van Zomeren, & Postmes, 2015, p. 26) but also performing identity content is crucial in political activism.
Supplemental Material
Online_Supplement_1 – Supplemental material for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections
Supplemental material, Online_Supplement_1 for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections by Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels and Martijn van Zomeren in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental Material
Online_supplement_2 – Supplemental material for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections
Supplemental material, Online_supplement_2 for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections by Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels and Martijn van Zomeren in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental Material
Online_supplement_3 – Supplemental material for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections
Supplemental material, Online_supplement_3 for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections by Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels and Martijn van Zomeren in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental Material
Online_supplement_4 – Supplemental material for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections
Supplemental material, Online_supplement_4 for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections by Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels and Martijn van Zomeren in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental Material
Online_Supplement_5 – Supplemental material for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections
Supplemental material, Online_Supplement_5 for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections by Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels and Martijn van Zomeren in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Supplemental Material
Turner-Zwinkels_Online_Appendix – Supplemental material for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections
Supplemental material, Turner-Zwinkels_Online_Appendix for Identity Expression Through Collective Action: How Identification With a Politicized Group and Its Identity Contents Differently Motivated Identity-Expressive Collective Action in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Elections by Felicity M. Turner-Zwinkels and Martijn van Zomeren in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
Funding
Supplemental Material
References
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