Angry allies and fearful protesters: communicating the right emotion during non-normative non-violent protests increases support for concessions among resistant high-status group members

Abstract

Shuman et al. (2021) previously illustrated the effectiveness of non-normative non-violent protest tactics in gaining resistant high-status group members' support for concessions. However, their focus on low-status groups' tactics overlooks the real-world complexities of protests, including emotional appeals and the presence of high-status allies. Our research addressed this gap by examining emotion strategies in LGBTQ+ protests in the United States. Drawing on the concept of power-congruent emotions (Kamans et al., 2014), two preregistered studies examined the impacts of anger and fear communication by heterosexual allies and LGBTQ+ protesters on resistant heterosexual audiences' support for concessions during non-normative non-violent protests. Study 1 (N = 1039) focused on how emotion communication by low-status LGBTQ+ protesters influences support for concessions, while Study 2 (N = 1047) investigated the impacts of emotion communication by high-status heterosexual allies. Our findings suggested that communicating actions out of fear by LGBTQ+ protesters increased support for concessions more than anger communication and the absence of emotion communication. Conversely, communicating actions out of anger by heterosexual allies increased support for concessions more than fear communication and the absence of emotion communication. These effects were evident among high-status audiences resistant to change, but not among the progressive ones. Implications were discussed.