# When neoliberals become activists: social crisis threats motivate ingroup and outgroup prosociality among neoliberals

## TL;DR

This paper shows that when social crises like economic downturns or wars become prominent, even people who support neoliberal values may become more prosocial and supportive of collective action.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that social threats can override neoliberal ideology, increasing solidarity and prosocial behavior.

## Key findings

- Raising awareness of a social crisis increased prosociality and collective action despite neoliberal beliefs.
- Salient threats like economic crises or wars increased solidarity with affected groups, such as Ukrainian refugees.
- Threat effects were linked to outgroup identification and were independent of political conservatism or social dominance orientation.

## Abstract

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.

We conducted two experimental studies. Study 1 (N = 175) made an economic crisis salient. Study 2 (N = 205), conducted four weeks after the outbreak of the Ukrainian war, made the associated humanitarian crisis salient.

We found raising people's awareness of a social crisis (compared to a non-threatening control condition) increased prosociality and solidarity-based collective action, even when this conflicted with participants' neoliberal beliefs. In Study 1, a salient economic threat (compared to prosperity) buffered the negative effect of neoliberalism on prosociality and system change. In Study 2, the salient (vs. not salient) consequences of the Ukrainian war, increased solidarity with Ukrainian refugees, thereby overruling the negative effects of neoliberalism. Mediational analysis suggested that the threat effects on solidarity with Ukrainians were due to increased outgroup identification following threat. In both studies, the effects of neoliberalism were independent of related constructs, such as political conservatism or social dominance orientation.

The results show that social crisis threats can make neoliberalists more flexible in applying their ideological beliefs. The findings are discussed in the context of group-based processes in response to threats.