A general heuristic is that social movements benefit from an easy-to-remember and catchy label to operate under. Think of environmentalists and feminists, for instance. In our social media age, if such labels can fit into a hashtag, even better.
Research from the Kellogg School explores whether such labels help causes to recruit new supporters or actively put people off. The researchers conducted a number of online experiments to gauge people’s support for a gender-equity policy within an organization.
Garnering support
The results show that people who identified as feminists were energized when the policy was also labeled as a feminist policy, but the opposite was the case for those who didn’t identify as feminists.
To better appeal to this latter group, the researchers advocate a more generic label, such as one including the name of the organization itself.
While this may seem like selling out the goals and values of the cause, the researchers believe it should not be viewed in such a way. It’s not a case of not being an activist but rather being a smart activist.
Meaningful change
The researchers explain that any kind of meaningful change is going to require that people do things in a different way. As such, support for a policy is not simply a case of what people say but also how they behave.
To test the depth of support for policies with different labels, the researchers conducted a second experiment whereby the volunteers were given the names and departments of a bunch of staff members who apparently wanted to be kept up to date with the gender-equity policy.
The volunteers were given a company directory and asked to pick out the email address for each staff member, with the researchers testing how successful the volunteers were at this straightforward task. The results showed that people who didn’t regard themselves as feminists did better on the task when the policy was unlabeled.
Company pride
Finally, the researchers examined whether labeling the policy using the company name might help tap into any pride employees feel. They first gauged the warmth participants had for their employer before again being presented with the email outlining the gender-equity policy.
This time, however, half received the policy with the name of the company inserted while the other half were introduced to the policy with “feminist” included in the name.
Support for the policy was indeed higher among those who identified highly with the organization even if they weren’t feminists, with their support even higher than those who identified as feminists.
As such, the authors advocate the use of so-called micro-mechanisms if they want to get support for their policies. Too often we can fall into the trap of assuming that social movements are grand endeavors when in reality they’re often a case of recruiting supporters one at a time.
As such, it may pay to avoid the use of labels, as while this may help to rally your existing base, it appears to do little to garner support among those who would not ordinarily be devoted backers.
