Preaching to, or Beyond, the Choir : The Politicizing Effects of Fitting Value-Identity Communication in Ideologically Heterogeneous Groups

Abstract

Abstract. Although values motivate participation in collective action, little is known about whether their communication by a social movement motivates identification with it. In the context of student protests against budget cuts, we tested whether and how fitting a value (right to free education) to two relevant group identities (i.e., student vs. national identity) influenced politicized identification among individuals in ideologically different student subgroups ( N = 168). Specifically, for students who shared the movement’s ideological background, we found that communicating values increased the predictive power of affective predictors of politicized identification over instrumental ones. However, for students who did not share the movement’s ideological background, fitting values to student (but not national) identity decreased politicized identification. These findings imply that value-identity fit must be taken into account if one wants to motivate a broad audience of potential followers with diverse ideological backgrounds for collective action.