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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1313-4994
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Psychology
Year Degree Awarded
2022
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Brian Lickel
Second Advisor
Ezra Markowitz
Third Advisor
Holly Laws
Fourth Advisor
Linda Tropp
Subject Categories
Social Psychology
Abstract
This dissertation presents three investigations into distinct processes that attempt to explain people’s decision making around social change action in three identity-laden domains. Chapter 1 reviews existing literature and theory on how social identity and social change beliefs can impact social change action. Chapter 2 examines identity-based motivated cognition by showing how identification as a meat-eater leads to biased estimates of meat reduction’s climate change impacts. Chapter 3 examines cisgender student reactions to faculty who use gender pronouns as an inclusion strategy for transgender and gender nonconforming students to examine if this action leads to stereotyping and judgement. Chapter 4 investigates social change beliefs in the climate change domain to examine how people’s beliefs about structural ‘top-down’ and individual ‘bottom-up’ change relate to other social change beliefs, support, and action. Chapter 5 concludes by discussing future empirical directions and implications for researchers and social change actors.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/31036740
Recommended Citation
Ginn, Joel, "The Roles of Identity and Beliefs about Social Change in Decision Making Processes for Identity-Laden Social Change Efforts" (2022). Doctoral Dissertations. 2623.
https://doi.org/10.7275/31036740
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2623
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.