Authors: Elizabeth Zack, Jenny Oser, and Hahrie Han

Key Question: Does the opportunity to act collectively increase feelings of political efficacy, tolerance of outgroups, and support for democratic norms?

Research Products: 

• Journal Article: Forthcoming

Description

Support for democratic norms is eroding in the United States and around the world. Researchers have examined ways to increase support for democratic norms through pro-democracy messaging and experimentally reducing political polarization and prejudice. We propose that when people are given the autonomy to act collectively, their sense of political efficacy increases, which then strengthens their support for pluralistic democratic processes.

This project contains two parts: an online survey experiment and a field experiment. In each, we test whether providing people with the power to act collectively increases their tolerance of partisan outgroups and their support for democratic norms, and whether feelings of political efficacy mediate this effect.

Project Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash