Essay Example: The Psychology of Protest and Activism With Lauren Duncan, PhD

URL Link: https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/protest-activism

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Human beings like acting and reacting to emotional situations that happen in their lives. In a scenario whereby a group of people experiences the same emotional, psychological effect – there can be a sudden outburst of protest or violence as a reaction to an event. An emotional response is psychology that influences human behavior to engage in protest. This essay is going to summarize a podcast and two articles discussing the psychology of protest and activism. Furthermore, the essay concludes by analyzing and linking the elements presented in the podcast and the two summarized articles.

Description

Dr. Lauren Duncan and Kim Mills comprehensively discuss the psychology that led to a massive demonstration after the death of George Floyd (Duncan, 2020). Duncan states that even though there have been cases of injustice committed to Blacks in the United States, this was the tipping point where the silent majority gets engaged in the protest (2020). The tipping point has contributed to significant poll results of 74% of Americans supporting this kind of demonstration as compared to 51% that got recorded in 2014. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has made people stay indoors with no jobs - hence finding time to spend online and sharing the video of the event, thus eliciting anger emotions.

Staying at home has made people reevaluate right and wrong in life – hence George Floyd's murder is seen as a gross violation of human rights. Duncan also argues that free access to social media platforms gave people a lot of free time and a standard mode of organizing the protests (2020). As a result, the protests were spread all over the United States and some parts of the world. There is identification of how this is a global issue.

Psychologists argue that people respond in either an emotional or conscience reaction when planning for a demonstration. In Floyd's case, people were reacting as a result of an event that led to his death. The anger emotions drove people to the streets without prior planning of the demonstration. The frustration of the Black people made them push for change in the way the police handled them. However, people can push for changes even though their fundamental human rights are met – like the women's movement. Duncan points out that the demonstration witnessed recently in the United States is a result of a combination of emotional and efficacy reaction (2020). The demonstration after Trump got elected another example of an emotional and efficacy response to an event. However, the rally died out since everybody joined while fighting for immigrant rights and anti-racist groups – making it impossible to sustain such a movement.

The podcast also discusses the three conditions necessary for the collective action of a group to take place. The first condition is the identification of the social group and linking their fate to the fate of other members. The distinct group that shares a shared destiny, in this case, are the Blacks (Duncan, 2020). On the other hand, the Whites who are demonstrating right now might identify themselves with anti-racist identity. The second condition necessary for collective action is injustice. The injustice idea points to the unfair treatment of members of a particular society. The ideas that apply to George Floyd include, unfairly depriving African-Americans of power, resources, and discriminated against in the community. The last condition is efficacy - which is a belief that you need to work together as a group to change things and that you have to believe that your actions will make a difference.

The conclusion of the podcasts focusses on factors that make specific protest movements more or less successful. One of the factors includes identifying a tipping point so that the demonstrators get the sympathy of the silent majority. Furthermore, if demonstrators use a crucial figure in society, their demonstration can significantly impact. Also, kids who participate in protests while young end up engaging in protests when they grow up as a way of expressing themselves. If any demonstration decides to take an Us versus Them position, it is bound to fail due to resistance from the adversaries. Thus, it is imperative for people who start participating in activism to get connected to a community and make friends since it is tough to be angry all the time. They need to find ways to connect in with an organization or a group that has learned how to manage the emotional toll of protests.

Related Research

In addition to the podcast audio discussed above, this section discusses the two articles; the social Psychology of the Black Live Matter Meme and Movement and activating the past in the Ferguson protests: Memory work, digital activism, and the politics of platforms. In the first article, Leach and Allen point out that there have been systemic injustices and biases committed by the police towards people of African-American descent. The cases of police brutality towards unarmed Black men have been on the rise in the United States. Research shows that Black people experience police brutality compared to their white counterparts (Leach & Allen, 2017). The cruelty usually sparks violence to stop the racial bias against the minority Black-American. One of the notable groups that have gained a lot of popularity in the United States is the Black Lives Matter Movement.

The movement has gotten a lot of traction, especially from the minority groups who have suffered in the hand of police brutality. The movement thrives on utilizing social networking platforms like Twitter. Through its hashtags, the campaign brings together people who identify with police brutality and tries to show the world that whatever the police are doing is wrong. The move provides a platform in which victims of brutality can cope with social stressors like racial biases. Furthermore, the campaign also depicts African-American people as the target of police violence hence making them the vulnerable group.

In the recent past, the movement has received white followers, especially those who are thirty years old. However, the small groups of whites, like the republic, can remain adamant to the blacks' plight. The Black lives matter movement uses visual images, which makes people respond by holding protests. People respond well to visual images as compared to verbal communication. The articles differ from podcast presented above since it does not show how the silent majority are brought on board to support the movement. Perhaps the reason why the action does not have a lot of strength to date has us versus them a point of view.

Another related article is that of movement and activating the past in the Ferguson protests: Memory work, digital activism, and the politics of platforms. The article shows a research done on the Facebook page set up in honor of Mike Brown, who got killed in 2014 by the police force in the United States (Smit et al., 2018). The primary purpose of the page is to call for justice for the victim as a result of police brutality – recalling racial bias's memory in the advent of digital activism. The Facebook platform became a social networking tool to connect people who have suffered years of injustice in the hands of the police. Moreover, it is used as a platform to plan and mobilize people to protests.

For instance, the death of Mike Brown saw people organizing themselves and protesting locally in the local town; he got killed. Additionally, the same demonstrations spontaneously broke out after people got outraged by the acquittal of the police officer who killed Mike Brown (Smit et al., 2018). The demonstration was a reaction to the emotions elicited when the police who murdered Brown got acquitted, hence defeating the purpose of the Facebook page - which sought justice.

The article mainly analyzes the Facebook post of people, which serves as a tool of remembering the death of Mike Brown as a death orchestrated by systemic injustices to the African-American people. Furthermore, it is through the interaction between the page administrator, Facebook logic, and user that the past serves as a tool for justifying immediate action using the past (Smit et al., 2018). The past injustices will also help the purpose of shaping the events of the future. The above goals got achieved by sharing visual images, which included Brown's father holding a cardboard with a writing stating that Ferguson police killed his son. Some of the pictures shared like that of the body of Mike Brown lying on the road only served a political reason.

The two articles above show a reaction action of the protestors as a result of a particular event. Moreover, the materials also explore the conscious reaction whereby people are pushing for their rights due to structural oppression that has existed for ages. Although not planned for, the events in the two articles probably give a leeway to the kind of demonstration discussed in the podcast above.

Discussion

The podcast and the two articles above show that an emotional event on people's minds is what influences protests and activism - as witnessed in the case of George Floyd and Michael Brown. The emotions trigger a reaction to an oppressing situation resulting in a concerted effort to fight against the injustice. Furthermore, the efficacy need also drives the behavior of engaging in a demonstration. The case of George Floyd sheds light on how leaders of protests ought to plan for successful events. Modern demonstrators must work in a smart way to get the silent majority's attention since they are the power to a successful protest. For instance, the mechanics surrounding the demonstrations related to Brown's death differ from Floyd's since the latter did not meet the tipping point of the silent majority.

The social media platform is tremendously influencing social behavior. Nearly all aspects of life can get expressed on social media platforms. The two articles above expose the way social media plays a crucial role in influencing the planning, mobilizing, and execution of protests. Visual images are among the top factors that influence emotions in people. Perhaps it is high time for researchers to study the psychological effects of social media platforms on human behavior. One of the research areas could be the motive behind posting specific visual images on social media. Since people operate on emotions, there is a high possibility the person who posted Brown's picture lying on the ground wanted people to react violently.

Although the events of protests as a result of Floyd's death seem like a collaborative effort between Whites and Blacks to fight racism – it can also be a false belief. Racism has existed for a long time; hence, all individuals can not agree to fight it suddenly. There is a possibility Whites came out in big numbers not to fight racism, but instead put on an act that would appease the Black people. They could as well come out because of the psychology of fear of what the Blacks might do. Therefore, it is only a research finding that can conclusively determine the motive of Whites engaging in anti-racism demonstrations. All in all, I could encourage protestors to reach out to the other party for an amicable resolution of contentious issues.