“We Shall Overcome”: First-Person Plural Pronouns From Search Volume Data Predict Protest Mobilization Across the United States

Adam-Troian, Jais; Bonetto, Eric; Arciszewski, Thomas

Abstract

Collective action is a key driver of social and political change within societies. So far, the main factor mobilizing individuals into collective action remains the extent to which they feel identified with a protesting group (i.e., social identification). Although the link between social identification and collective action is well-established, current evidence relies mostly on self-report data. To tackle this issue, we combined real-life protest counts in the US (2017-2020) with online search data (Google Trends) for pronouns indicating a ‘group’ mindset (first-person plural pronouns; e.g. ‘we’, ‘us’). Time series analyses indicated that weekly fluctuations in searches (N = 164) predict both protest and protester counts over time. Confirmatory mixed-models then showed that a 1% increase in pronoun searches was linked with +13.67% protests 95%CI[4.02,23.32] and +47.45% protesters 95%CI[26.54, 68.36] the following week. These original results have important implications for the ecological study and quantification of collective action dynamics in psychology.

Citation

Adam-Troian, J., Bonetto, E., & Arciszewski, T. (2021). “We Shall Overcome”: First-Person Plural Pronouns From Search Volume Data Predict Protest Mobilization Across the United States. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(8), https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620987672

• Acceptance Date: Jul 6, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Feb 17, 2021
• Publication Date: Feb 17, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: May 30, 2023
• Journal: Social Psychological and Personality Science
• Print ISSN: 1948-5506
• Electronic ISSN: 1948-5514
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 8
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620987672
• Keywords: social identification, first-person plural pronouns, collective action, protests, search volume data
• Related Public URLs: 10.31234/osf.io/73uea; https://psyarxiv.com/73uea/