The importance of antiprejudice in protesting and collective action for disadvantaged groups’ rights

In the past decade, collective action advocating for a disadvantaged group’s rights has increased exponentially. However, only a fraction of supporters of a disadvantaged group’s rights takes collective action. What drives some to take collective action for a disadvantaged group’s rights while others do not? We argue that antiprejudice, the belief that one should proactively fight discrimination and injustice faced by a group, is a critical component of promoting collective action for that group and differentiating between those who are engaged and those who are not. Across field and online studies, we examined antiprejudice’s role in driving protesting and intentions to take collective action for a disadvantaged group’s rights among causes associated with liberals (e.g., racial equality) and conservatives (e.g., pro-life rights). Antiprejudice repeatedly emerged as a key construct for differentiating between protestors and non-protestors and for predicting collective action intentions.