When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors
Using the Act Frequency Approach, we drew on majority White, U.S. samples to create a new measure of social justice behavior and examine its correlates. Although existing measures of social justice behavior focus on engagement in collective action, participants in Study 1 (n = 137) were encouraged t...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for Psychology
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Journal of Social and Political Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.8161 |
| _version_ | 1797320614422249472 |
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| author | Samantha A. Montgomery Benjamin T. Blankenship Abigail J. Stewart |
| author_facet | Samantha A. Montgomery Benjamin T. Blankenship Abigail J. Stewart |
| author_sort | Samantha A. Montgomery |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Using the Act Frequency Approach, we drew on majority White, U.S. samples to create a new measure of social justice behavior and examine its correlates. Although existing measures of social justice behavior focus on engagement in collective action, participants in Study 1 (n = 137) were encouraged to nominate and evaluate a broad set of acts relevant to their daily lives. The final 17-item Everyday Social Justice Behavior (ESJB) scale reflects a range of global and domain-specific actions rated as prototypical by both 53 undergraduate novices and 20 social justice experts in Study 2. Participants in studies 3 (n = 388) and 4 (n = 613) were then asked to rate how frequently they perform the items. As expected, women and sexual minorities, and those with left political orientation, engaged in more everyday social justice behavior. Moreover, those reporting more everyday social justice behavior also scored higher in structural attributions of social change, intersectional awareness, ratings of the importance of and confidence in taking action, openness to experience, extraversion, and empathy, while being lower in social dominance orientation, system justification, and the need for cognitive closure. In addition, those high in ESJB also reported more progressive activist engagement and intentions. Relations with activism were modest, suggesting social justice activism and ESJB are somewhat distinct forms of social justice behavior. This measure should be of broader use in similar (majority White) samples; the measure development process can also be used to assess such behaviors in other samples and contexts. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T04:45:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3596d523f0ad438d99cfe97afac0ba1d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2195-3325 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T04:45:35Z |
| publishDate | 2023-12-01 |
| publisher | PsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for Psychology |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Social and Political Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-3596d523f0ad438d99cfe97afac0ba1d2024-02-08T10:55:07ZengPsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for PsychologyJournal of Social and Political Psychology2195-33252023-12-0111264065610.5964/jspp.8161jspp.8161When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice BehaviorsSamantha A. Montgomery0Benjamin T. Blankenship1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5296-9302Abigail J. Stewart2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4736-0815Professional Employees Association, Victoria, BC, CanadaDepartment of Psychology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USAUsing the Act Frequency Approach, we drew on majority White, U.S. samples to create a new measure of social justice behavior and examine its correlates. Although existing measures of social justice behavior focus on engagement in collective action, participants in Study 1 (n = 137) were encouraged to nominate and evaluate a broad set of acts relevant to their daily lives. The final 17-item Everyday Social Justice Behavior (ESJB) scale reflects a range of global and domain-specific actions rated as prototypical by both 53 undergraduate novices and 20 social justice experts in Study 2. Participants in studies 3 (n = 388) and 4 (n = 613) were then asked to rate how frequently they perform the items. As expected, women and sexual minorities, and those with left political orientation, engaged in more everyday social justice behavior. Moreover, those reporting more everyday social justice behavior also scored higher in structural attributions of social change, intersectional awareness, ratings of the importance of and confidence in taking action, openness to experience, extraversion, and empathy, while being lower in social dominance orientation, system justification, and the need for cognitive closure. In addition, those high in ESJB also reported more progressive activist engagement and intentions. Relations with activism were modest, suggesting social justice activism and ESJB are somewhat distinct forms of social justice behavior. This measure should be of broader use in similar (majority White) samples; the measure development process can also be used to assess such behaviors in other samples and contexts.https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.8161social justiceactivismeveryday actionssocial justice behaviorsact frequency approach |
| spellingShingle | Samantha A. Montgomery Benjamin T. Blankenship Abigail J. Stewart When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors Journal of Social and Political Psychology social justice activism everyday actions social justice behaviors act frequency approach |
| title | When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors |
| title_full | When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors |
| title_fullStr | When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors |
| title_full_unstemmed | When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors |
| title_short | When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors |
| title_sort | when small acts are multiplied assessing everyday social justice behaviors |
| topic | social justice activism everyday actions social justice behaviors act frequency approach |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.8161 |
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