Testing the expanded dual chamber model of collective action to help socially disadvantaged groups

Current Psychology. 2025. Vol. 44. No. 10. P. 8304–8321.

Prusova I., Ananyeva O. A.

Prosocial behavior research is usually based on emotional and cognitive approaches that shed light on factors that facilitate the readiness to help. Encountering groups that need help, e.g., socially disadvantaged, might cause dissonance among people who perceive themselves as part of the social system that induced such problems. To deal with this conflict, people might endorse system-justifying beliefs that might affect the readiness to help. The aim of the research was to test the Expanded Dual Chamber Model of Collective Action that incorporates system-justifying beliefs as the moral dimension of the model and personal responsibility as an additional key predictor of prosocial collective actions (e.g., donations, signing petitions, conversations, social movements) to help socially disadvantaged groups, namely, men suffering from domestic violence, the unemployed, migrants, people with physical disabilities, alcohol addiction, mental disorders, and drug addiction. In total, 2029 individuals (962 men and 1067 women) took part in online surveys, completing questionnaires on system-justifying beliefs, identity of a helping group, anger, personal and collective efficacy, personal responsibility, and intentions to participate in prosocial collective action. The results of partial least squares structural equation modeling demonstrated that identity enhances the intentions to participate in prosocial collective action, whereas the contributions of responsibility and efficacy differentiated across target groups. System-justifying beliefs directly mitigated only the intention to help men suffering from domestic violence but were positively indirectly associated with helping other social groups through efficacy and responsibility. The findings are discussed in line with social identity models of collective action and system justification theory.

Keywords: эффективность, identity, ответственность, коллективные действия, responsibility, несправедливость, collective action, injustice, efficacy, оправдание системы, system justification, просоциальная идентичность