INTRODUCING OUR FIRST RESEARCH NETWORK ✨
The Collective Action Network
Led by Maja Kutlaca, Özden Melis Uluğ, and Helena Radke
Read more about the Network below or via the dedicated page on our website: www.isjr.org/can
#justice #collectiveaction #research #researchnetwork #ISJR #CAN
A 3-wave study of 1427 climate-action supporters tests predictors of conventional versus radical climate activism. Radical intentions were rare and linked most strongly to youth, personality and collective victimhood rather than ideology or efficacy.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Support for moderate climate activists' benefits from the rise of radicals as moderates are perceived reasonable in comparison — but only when they clearly distance themselves. These 'radical flank effects' are attenuated if moderates endorse radicals.
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Environmental scientists’ activism – especially civil disobedience – leads to modest declines in their perceived competence and a subtle withdrawal from the scientists’ cause.
@lukasthuermer.bsky.social
@jeremiasbraid.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
MEDIA RELEASE: New analysis reveals Australian oil and gas company, Santos, is contributing to nearly quadrupled gas prices on the East Coast of the country by prioritising the sale of its fossil fuels overseas, adding to cost of living pressures.
www.marketforces.org.au/new-analysis...
Suggests that backlash to extreme climate activism isn’t just about the extremity of tactics, but the perceived deservingness of who those tactics disrupt.
It was a pleasure to work on this paper with Matthew Hornsey, Michael Thai, and Maja Kutlaca. 🙏
Across two preregistered studies (US & UK), we find:
🎯 The exact same disruptive tactic is judged very differently depending on the target of disruption.
🎯 Targeting “undeserving” entities → perceived as more immoral, unjust, and anger-inducing.
🎯 Leads to lower support for activists.
An image of the front cover of “Disrupting the ‘wrong’ target? Climate protest tactics affecting entities deemed undeserving are perceived as immoral, unjust, and reduce activist support” by Jarren L. Nylund, Matthew Hornsey, Michael Thai, and Maja Kutlaca.
Do some climate protests backfire because they’re disruptive, or because they target the “wrong” people?
A preprint of my latest project has just been uploaded to PsyArXiv:
📄 doi.org/10.31234/osf...
👉 Points to the need to update prevailing theories of collective action, especially within the climate context.
doi.org/10.1038/s442...
We found that support for radical climate activism is not well explained by existing models of collective action, nor by political ideology or outgroup hostility. Instead, it is most strongly associated with collective victimhood, as well as age and personality factors.
The cover page of the “Youth, personality and collective victimhood distinguish support for radical climate action” article published in Communications Psychology. Hornsey, M. J., Pearson, S., Wibisono, S., Thomas, E. F., Bird, L. H., Nylund, J. L., Bretter, C., Acevedo, J. D., Fielding, K. S., Amiot, C., Moghaddam, F. M., & Louis, W. R. (2026). Youth, personality and collective victimhood distinguish support for radical climate action. Communications Psychology, 4(1), 54. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-026-00420-z
Excited to share a new paper lead by Matthew Hornsey and co-authored by @winnifredlouis.bsky.social, myself, and others. Now published in @commspsychol.nature.com.
📄 Read the open access article here: doi.org/10.1038/s442...
This is huge! New greenfield coal mines will no longer be allowed in New South Wales
The New South Wales Government has announced it will no longer allow new greenfield #coal mines - though it will allow expansions. It's time for all banks and super funds to end support for new coal! #nswpol
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
So… how fast can we electrify everything? #energy #renewables #batteries #auspol
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...
Journal of Environmental Psychology Certificate of Reviewing awarded for 1 review in March 2026 presented to Jarren Nylund in recognition of the review contributed to the journal. The Editors of Journal of Environmental Psychology.
I recently had the opportunity to complete my very first peer review for the Journal of Environmental Psychology.
Peer review is one of the ways our field collectively improves the quality of research.
Grateful for the opportunity to contribute—however modestly—to that process.
And the award for fracking and f**king our future goes to… #APA GROUP! #UASolutionsSummit
Spoiler alert: making #climate change worse is not a solution for Australia’s future. 🙃 #auspol
Example conversation between participant and AI about climate change.
We conclude that, when supported by appropriate safeguards, LLMs have substantial potential to complement existing science-communication efforts.
The article is open access: doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
Spread showing a table and figure from the article.
...science skepticism around issues such as climate change and vaccination.
Across studies, there is little evidence that large language models spontaneously produce conspiracy theories—but there is evidence that interacting with them can reduce science skepticism and misinformation beliefs.
Mistrust of the scientific consensus around issues such as climate change and vaccination is mainstream, compromising our ability to respond to existential global threats. In the wrong hands, Generative AI can spread misinformation with unprecedented scale and psychological sophistication. However, large language models (LLMs) have also shown considerable promise for reducing misinformation and conspiracy theories, potentially revolutionizing science communication. This review summarizes the rapidly evolving frontier of empirical research on how conversational AI such as ChatGPT can be used to defuse mistrust of science around hot-button scientific issues. These studies find negligible evidence that LLM responds to human queries by reproducing conspiracy theories or misinformation about scientific topics. Rather, conversations with LLMs typically reduce participants’ levels of science skepticism and misinformation endorsement. We conclude that LLMs (in their current form) have potential to complement existing science communication strategies, provided their use is accompanied by safeguards that preserve informational integrity and public trust.
Pleased to share a new paper led by Matthew Hornsey and co-authored with Aimee Smith, Samuel Pearson, Christian Bretter, and myself, now published in Current Opinion in Psychology.
In this review, we synthesise emerging evidence on how conversational AI tools like ChatGPT can be used to reduce...
I’m thrilled to share that our paper “Effort and time costs influence motivational asymmetries in self-benefitting vs. pro-environmental decisions” is now published in Communications Psychology! 🌿
OA link: www.nature.com/articles/s44...
1/6
Happening next Monday!
Remember to register to go beyond the conceptual binaries of protests as normative vs non-normative, conventional vs radical and to dig in why and how individuals shift protest tactics with Mete Sefa presenting, Yasemin & Carmen acting as reviewers.
tinyurl.com/disruptive-p...
Our new book [Psych of System Change & Resistance to Change] is out! Woot! @winnifredlouis.bsky.social @susilowibisono.bsky.social Kiara Minto & Gi Chonu doi.org/10.1017/9781...
Save the date! Next September we work on integrating social psychology and prefigurative politics, in a beautiful location :)
@fmsmallfield.bsky.social @metesefauysal.bsky.social @daclarkecruz.bsky.social @eddieclarke.bsky.social @helenlandmann.bsky.social
CfP for the workshop ""From Harm to Hope: Slow Violence, Collective Memory and Everyday Resistance" (submission deadline: 5 November)
The workshop will take place on March 25–26, 2026 at the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, ZRC SAZU, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
ikss.zrc-sazu.si/sites/defaul...
Psychological Research on Resistance and Repression: A Research Method Bazaar Interactive Workshop (90 mins) Led by Aya Adra, Fouad Bou Zeineddine, canan coşkan, Ali Teymoori, and Johanna Ray Vollhardt) Monday, Oct 13, 2025 Many questions in social psychological research on resistance and repression have not been systematically addressed– in part because of the methodological limitations and rigidities in the field, in addition to practical and ethical considerations. For example, how does one examine covert resistance under conditions of surveillance and risk, how does one access forms of everyday resistance that may not be articulated as such, how does one conduct research on resistance that is under repression without creating further risk or harm to the participant and/or to the research team, how does one access information about resistance under extremely violent and most repressive conditions, such as genocide? This session is an interactive methods workshop, a bazaar of ideas and research experience, where participants will share and swap knowledge about underutilized methods that have been or could be used to examine different forms of resistance (above all those forms of resistance that are understudied) in various contexts of violence and repression. The organizers will bring examples of a relevant, underutilized research method and share it with participants in a brief (5 min) blitz presentation. We also invite participants (optional, not required for participation) to bring along their methods, ideas, suggestions, questions and dilemmas, and experiences to share (5 mins max), with or without a slide or two. We will also discuss more general, overarching questions related to methodological limitations in research on resistance and repression and ways to address these. 7.00 am NYC, 8.00 Santiago (Chile), 12 (noon) London, 13.00 Barcelona, 14.00 Ramallah & Istanbul, 16.30 New Delhi, 19.00 Manila, 21.00 Brisbane. Registration link in the original post.
The 1st session of this year's Psychology of Resistance Virtual Meetings is next Monday, October 13:
We start with an interactive workshop to diversify our methodological toolbox to better investigate forms of resistance and repression in different contexts.
To register: tinyurl.com/resistancere...
Join the Methods in Social Change and Inertia series on Oct 20 at 2pm UK time for a workshop on the Social Change Algorithm by Roxane de la Sablonniere, Diana Cardenas, and Jean-Marc Lina! Register: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/25bb20...
#psychology #socialsciences #socialpsych #socialchange
I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss this work with such an engaged group of scholars working on collective action research.
For those who are interested in the full paper, it’s available as an open access article in the Journal of Environmental Psychology: doi.org/10.1016/j.je...
Our findings show that while extreme climate protests can reduce support for the activist group carrying them out, they can also increase public concern about climate change and spur intentions to act—a tension that many activists and organisers face.
The climate activist's dilemma: Extreme climate protests reduce movement support but raise climate concern and intentions. Jarren L. Nylund, Michael Thai, Matthew J. Hornsey. Net Zero Observatory, Business School, The University of Queensland. School of Psychology, The University of Queensland.
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at the 2025 Collective Action Network (CAN) Meeting on my recent research into the climate activist’s dilemma.
We should have another article coming out in the not too distant future summarising the various research we and others have done using this paradigm on these kinds of topics if you'd like me to share it with you when it is published.
Thanks for sharing these links, Ketan. I imagine that each subsequent version is generally getting better, but will never be perfect (pictured is how it was explained to us). But yeah, definitely share your concern about the corporate aspect of the technology.
