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AbstractWe aim to explain the dynamics enabling spikes in hate crimes by examining the underlying social‐psychological processes behind it. We see these as captured in empowerment processes among racists who see themselves as "victims" and their position strengthened by majority support from the public for their actions. Building on previous research, we investigated the role social norm misperception (false consensus and pluralistic ignorance), following elections plays as a possible, generally occurring mechanism, with particular focus on Republican Party supporters. In a two‐wave panel study, we surveyed Democrat and Republican supporters on social norms misperception, as well as collective empowerment, and xenophobic behavioral intentions. While we could replicate and strengthen our arguments and establish robust group‐dependent effects for social norms misperception and illustrate that an unexpected outcome of the election led to disempowerment among Republicans, we found null effects for changes in social norms misperception, and behavioral intentions. Our study contributes to understanding social norms misperception as associated with group membership. Deriving from that, the study results indicate that the perception of a majority agreeing with one's approval is potentially less influenced by external factors, in contrast to feelings of joy and group efficacy—collective empowerment. Practical implications of group differences regarding post‐election collective actions are discussed.

Sociological and Political Science research has argued that political conditions affect both the occurrence of protests and the actions protesters choose. However, an approach that considers people's perceptions on these conditions is still absent in the social psychological literature. Subjective Political Openness (SPO) is a new construct which fills this gap by incorporating features of political context into the psychological analysis of protests. We propose that SPO comprises perceptions relating to three dimensions: government actions to allow/restrict protests, police measures to actively prevent them, and the extent that public opinion legitimizes protests. We conducted two studies in the UK and Chile to validate scales created for each proposed dimension, test their measurement invariance, establish SPO's configuration, and demonstrate its convergent validity. Participants in Study 1 were university students (n UK = 203; n Chile = 237), whereas in Study 2 a general population sample from both countries was included (n UK = 377; n Chile = 309) with the purpose of generalizing the results. Both studies consistently showed that SPO is a multidimensional construct configured as a bifactor model comprising the dimensions associated with perceptions of the government and police actions to confront protests. Although we tested two different measurement scales for the perceived legitimacy given by public opinion to protests, results demonstrated this dimension is not part of SPO. The SPO configuration has implications for both our understanding of collective action and how we study it. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

Sociological and Political Science research has argued that political conditions affect both the occurrence of protests and the actions protesters choose. However, an approach that considers people's perceptions on these conditions is still absent in the social psychological literature. Subjective Political Openness (SPO) is a new construct which fills this gap by incorporating features of political context into the psychological analysis of protests. We propose that SPO comprises perceptions relating to three dimensions: government actions to allow/restrict protests, police measures to actively prevent them, and the extent that public opinion legitimizes protests. We conducted two studies in the UK and Chile to validate scales created for each proposed dimension, test their measurement invariance, establish SPO's configuration, and demonstrate its convergent validity. Participants in Study 1 were university students (n UK = 203; n Chile = 237), whereas in Study 2 a general population sample from both countries was included (n UK = 377; n Chile = 309) with the purpose of generalizing the results. Both studies consistently showed that SPO is a multidimensional construct configured as a bifactor model comprising the dimensions associated with perceptions of the government and police actions to confront protests. Although we tested two different measurement scales for the perceived legitimacy given by public opinion to protests, results demonstrated this dimension is not part of SPO. The SPO configuration has implications for both our understanding of collective action and how we study it.

Sociological and Political Science research has argued that political conditions affect both the occurrence of protests and the actions protesters choose. However, an approach that considers people's perceptions on these conditions is still absent in the social psychological literature. Subjective Political Openness (SPO) is a new construct which fills this gap by incorporating features of political context into the psychological analysis of protests. We propose that SPO comprises perceptions relating to three dimensions: government actions to allow/restrict protests, police measures to actively prevent them, and the extent that public opinion legitimizes protests. We conducted two studies in the UK and Chile to validate scales created for each proposed dimension, test their measurement invariance, establish SPO's configuration, and demonstrate its convergent validity. Participants in Study 1 were university students (n UK = 203; n Chile = 237), whereas in Study 2 a general population sample from both countries was included (n UK = 377; n Chile = 309) with the purpose of generalizing the results. Both studies consistently showed that SPO is a multidimensional construct configured as a bifactor model comprising the dimensions associated with perceptions of the government and police actions to confront protests. Although we tested two different measurement scales for the perceived legitimacy given by public opinion to protests, results demonstrated this dimension is not part of SPO. The SPO configuration has implications for both our understanding of collective action and how we study it.

Reicher has recently developed the social identity model of crowd behaviour based on self-categorization theory (SCT). This model begins to tackle the thorny theoretical problems posed by the dynamic nature of crowd action (Reicher, 1996b). The present paper describes an ethnographic study of a crowd event in which there were changes in the inter-group relationships over time. It is suggested that the laboratory evidence in support of SCT is complemented by ethnographic research of this type. By exploring situations in which definitions of context and/or categories are not purposefully manipulated, we can demonstrate the explanatory power of a dynamic and interactive approach to social categorization.