From Activism to the Ballot Box: Mediating Role of Social Change Beliefs Over Time

Víctor Jiménez-Benítez^1*Roberto Gonzalez¹Huseyin Cakal²

• ¹Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
• ²Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom

aligns closely with the mission and scope of Frontiers in Social Psychology. This study contributes to the debate on activism, voting behavior, and underlying psychological motivations in the context of a widespread social protests, the 2019 protests in Chile and the political referendum on the new constitution. Accordingly, the focus falls within the scope of Social Justice and Political Psychology. By examining the longitudinal dynamics between collective action, beliefs, emotions, voting behaviour and preferences during the Chilean social upheaval and electoral processes, our research offers important insights into the complexities of political mobilization and its associated psychological processes in a nonWEIRD context. Moreover, by longitudinally analyzing the consequences of participation in collective actions on voting behaviour and the preference to vote for substantial political change in a representative sample we address a methodological gap in the literature. In sum, the present research provides rigorous empirical research with social relevance and advances our knowledge in social and political psychology in general and offers insights into political activism and democratic processes. Frontiers in Social Psychology is an ideal platform for disseminating our findings and engaging with a diverse audience of researchers and practitioners interested in understanding social and political phenomena.