News about world events, as well as a look at recent history, often show: Passionate protests are important drivers of social change and undertaken for a wide variety of causes. This type of joint action, directed toward a shared goal, is known as collective action. But what exactly motivates people to participate in demonstrations, sign petitions, and otherwise engage in collective action?

Numerous studies suggest that protests occur in response to collective discrepancies, that is, when an observed situation deviates from the ideals of one or more individuals. To date, research has focused primarily on situations in which members of a particular group evaluate the current or past treatment of that group as unfair. What has been neglected, however, is that individuals confronted with a discrepancy may not only focus on its causes, but also speculate about how the situation will develop in the future. In doing so, they may conclude: Things could get much worse. While a focus on past injustices is associated with anger (which encourages protest), a focus on potential negative future developments is associated with anxiety, an emotion that has received little attention in research on collective action.

Therefore, this project aims to extend existing models of what drives collective action by considering anxiety. In a first step, we conduct experiments to investigate which information triggers which emotions in the context of a discrepancy. In doing so, we, for example, use materials based on media reports or content from social networks. Subsequently, we examine how anger and anxiety affect the willingness to participate in various forms of collective action. Longitudinal field studies complement these experimental studies. Overall, the project provides important building blocks for a better understanding of social change processes and their motivating factors. Through its focus on emotions, it also helps assess whether emotions are more influential than facts for protests, as suggested by the designation of the current era as a "post-factual age."