When green turns mean: Understanding support for destructive environmental activism

Although psychologists have extensively studied the predictors of non-destructive forms of environmental activism, there is limited research on when and why environmental actors engage in destructive tactics. The current research investigates destructive environmental activism (DEA), applying von Zomeren et al.’s (2008) Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) as a framework. Across three studies, we used SIMCA-inspired path models to test whether environmentalist identification predicts support for destructive environmental activism through collective efficacy and collective emotions. In Studies 1 and 2 (N = 275; N = 154), a traditional measure of collective efficacy mediated identification’s effect on support for non-destructive activism only, whereas DEA-specific efficacy – especially beliefs that DEA advances environmental goals and punishes environmentally-damaging outgroups – mediated support for DEA. In a preregistered Study 3 (N = 847), DEA-specific efficacy and outgroup-directed collective emotions (anger, contempt) predicted higher support for DEA, whereas ingroup-directed collective emotions (guilt, shame) predicted lower support.