When Neoliberals Become Activists: Social Crisis Threats Motivate Ingroup and Outgroup Prosociality among Neoliberals

Janine Stollberg^*Franziska KochEva Jonas

• University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

People who support neoliberal beliefs (i.e., who believe in individual responsibility and meritocracy) are less motivated to collectively act against social inequality or help those in need. At the same time, economic and humanitarian crises put a spotlight on injustice and harm. They represent an existential threat to people and should thus motivate prosocial behavior in line with salient humanitarian values. In two experimental studies (Ntotal = 380), we found that increasing people's awareness of a social crisis (compared to a non-threatening control condition) increases prosociality and solidarity-based collective action, even if this stands in contrast to their neoliberal beliefs. Study 1 (N = 175) showed that a salient economic threat (compared to prosperity) increased the willingness to donate to global aid agencies among high neoliberals, making them as prosocial as low neoliberals. Study 2 (N = 205) was conducted four weeks after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Making the consequences of this humanitarian crisis salient (vs. not salient), increased solidarity with Ukrainian refugees, thereby overruling the negative eƯects of neoliberalism. Mediational analysis suggested that the threat eƯects on solidarity with Ukrainians were due to increased outgroup identification following threat. In both studies, the eƯects of neoliberalism were independent of related constructs, such as political conservatism or social dominance orientation. Together, the results show that social crisis threats can make neoliberalists more flexible in applying their ideological beliefs.