Associations between perceived societal polarisation and (extreme) non-normative attitudes and behavior

Perceptions of societal polarisation in a country may influence individuals’ willingness to engage in non(normative) collective action. In the present research, we test the hypothesis that perceived societal polarisation reduces trust in the government, particularly when the government is perceived as posing a threat to the own social group. In turn, we expect increased willingness to engage in collective action on behalf of the ingroup. To test our predictions, we used a 2 (no threat versus threat) × 2 (no polarisation versus polarisation) experimental design. In the paradigm, participants are citizens in a fictitious country called “Bovenland.” Participants read three newspaper articles about political issues targeted at their ingroup “the Southerners.” After each newspaper article, participants indicated their intention to engage in collective action as well as their trust in the Bovenland government. A pilot study (𝑁 = 42) suggested that our
experimental manipulation of perceived threat and perception of polarisation was effective. Our (preregistered) main study (𝑁 = 982) gathered through Prolific, found that perceived threat, but not polarisation, resulted in significantly more collective action intentions (normative, non‐normative, and extreme non‐normative). Under threat (but not under polarisation) significantly more (non)normative action intentions emerged. Bootstrapping analyses supported our finding that there was no direct effect of polarisation on collective action intentions. However, in the no‐threat condition, polarisation increased trust
in the Bovenland government, which predicted less collective action intentions (normative, non‐normative, and extreme non‐normative). The implications of these findings will be discussed.