Attitude toward protest uniquely predicts (normative and nonnormative) political action by (advantaged and disadvantaged) group members

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available on open access via the DOI in this recordOpen Practices: All data and materials for Studies 1-5 have been made publicly available via Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/emk5j. The plan for Study 4 was preregistered at Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/emk5j). This article has received badges for Open Data, Open Materials, and Preregistration. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/home/.We find evidence that explicit (but not implicit) measures of general attitude towards protest uniquely predict normative and nonnormative political action tendencies, and behavior, over and above extant models of political action. Protest attitude uniquely predicts both the political action tendencies of members of disadvantaged groups and willingness to engage in solidarity-based action on behalf of such groups. Furthermore, we find some evidence that protest attitude is able to account for the effects of mobilization messages over a political issue; these messages increase political action tendencies by making attitude towards protest more positive. The results indicate that overall attitude toward protest reflects a wide array of affective, cognitive, and behavioral factors associated with protest that more specific, established predictors of collective political action do not tap. As such, general protest attitude offers an important addition to extant models of collective political action and efforts to examine the psychological processes underpinning political cognition and action.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC