CAREER: SBP: Relations within Diverse Coalitions Allied toward Social Change

The population of the United States is increasingly diverse. Americans belong to many different social groups, many of which strive toward achieving common goals. Individuals can hold many different social identities and identify with multiple social groups at the same time.

These group identities serve an important role in social life. They help to satisfy a sense of belonging and help people to organize and motivate action around common goals. For example, people from many different groups share a strong interest in reducing discrimination and societal inequality.

Despite their shared goals, people from different groups may differ in how they think about and pursue solutions. Little is known about how belonging to multiple groups influences how people respond to social challenges such as inequality and how they might want to act to reduce it. This project examines how people from diverse backgrounds seek to pursue a common goal, identifies potential roadblocks to building effective diverse coalitions, and tests for a method to intervene to facilitate smooth group functioning.

The specific context of the research is social inequality. Understanding how social identities may affect how people react when perceiving inequality is vital for understanding group functioning when individuals from diverse backgrounds try to work together to tackle such pressing societal issues. The project aims to offer insight into how coalitions may function and find ways to facilitate effective coalition-building among groups with diverse members.

This project seeks to collect data on and identify discrepancies in the preferred action of different coalition partners as well as the motivations underlying the discrepancies. The primary aims of the research are to 1) identify what types of action are supported by members of different social groups in the context of inequality, 2) identify the motivational processes that underlie discrepancies in preferred action among ostensibly-allied individuals, 3) consider how individuals’ multiple identities influence these motives and, subsequently, preferred action to reduce inequality, and 4) test whether assuaging identity-based motives and considering multiple identities reduces misalignment and enhance cohesion among a diverse coalition.

Several experiments, including a final translational experimental study, examine these research questions in the context of several forms of social inequality. The broader objectives are to better understand potential conflicts within a diverse group of individuals who share the same goal and to identify methods to reduce conflict and support group cohesion. The project contributes to the science of broadening participation.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.