Breathe Together, Act Together: Shared Identity and Common Fate Drive Prosocial Collective Action

When crises strike…

The study, published in Current Psychology by Xinwei Hong, Haiyan Lv, Zhaoli Qu, Hang Fan, and Lin Zhang, draws on three well-established theoretical frameworks from social psychology: the common ingroup identity model, the social identity model of collective action, and the social identity model of collective resilience. Each of these traditions addresses a different piece of the puzzle. The common ingroup identity model, developed originally by Samuel Gaertner and John Dovidio, proposes that recasting memberships in separate groups as membership in a single, more inclusive superordinate group can reduce intergroup bias and foster cooperation. The social identity model of collective action, associated with researchers such as Martijn van Zomeren and colleagues, identifies identity, efficacy, and moral outrage as core drivers of people’s willingness to act collectively. The social identity model of collective resilience, advanced by John Drury and colleagues, explains how shared identification within emergent groups helps people cope with disasters and emergencies. By combining these perspectives, the authors sought to explain not only whether a shared sense of “we” promotes prosocial collective action, but also the psychological pathway through which that influence travels.

The research program consisted of two studies with a combined sample of 933 participants. Study 1 used a correlational design, measuring participants’ perceptions of common ingroup identity, hope, group efficacy, common fate, and their tendencies toward prosocial collective action. The results showed that common ingroup identity positively predicted prosocial collective action, and that this relationship was carried along a sequential pathway: a shared identity first fostered hope, hope in turn strengthened beliefs in the group’s collective efficacy, and those efficacy beliefs then translated into a readiness to act for the common good. Importantly, the strength of this indirect pathway depended on how much participants perceived a common fate binding their group together. When common fate was perceived as strong, the motivational chain from identity through hope and efficacy to action was amplified.

Study 2 moved beyond correlation by experimentally manipulating both the type of group identity that participants were led to adopt and the valence of the common fate they were told their group faced. The findings replicated the pattern observed in the first study, providing stronger grounds for causal inference. In addition, Study 2 revealed a further layer of nuance: the valence of common fate moderated the link between hope and group efficacy, as well as the link between group efficacy and prosocial collective action. In other words, whether the shared future people anticipated was positive or negative changed how hope and efficacy interacted to fuel action. These findings clarify the mechanisms underlying prosocial collective action and extend the social identity model of collective action by embedding hope, efficacy, and common fate into a single moderated serial mediation framework.

The emphasis on hope as a group-based emotion deserves particular attention. Hope has traditionally been studied at the individual level, but a growing body of work treats it as an experience people hold on behalf of their groups. Research by Smadar Cohen-Chen and colleagues on intergroup conflict has shown that hope about the possibility of change can loosen entrenched attitudes and open the door to support for conciliatory action. Cohen-Chen and Martijn van Zomeren further demonstrated that group efficacy beliefs predict collective action most strongly when hope is high, suggesting that the two constructs operate as a motivational system rather than in isolation. The present study’s serial mediation design is consistent with this view: hope does not merely accompany efficacy beliefs, it appears to build them, in line with Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build account of positive emotions, which holds that positive emotional states widen people’s thought-action repertoires and help them accumulate durable psychological resources over time.

Common fate is a concept with a long pedigree in social psychology. Classic work on entitativity, the perception that a collection of people forms a coherent group, identified shared fate as one of the strongest cues leading observers to see an aggregate of individuals as a genuine entity. When people believe that they will succeed or suffer together, whether because of a pandemic, a flood, or a changing climate, the psychological boundary between “us” and “them” becomes less consequential. Prior research on global social identity has shown that inducing a shared human identity can increase cooperation in economic games across national boundaries, and studies of disaster response have documented how emergencies can dissolve preexisting social divisions as people come to see themselves as survivors facing a common threat. The present findings add that the valence of that shared future matters: a common fate framed in positive terms appears to sustain the hope-efficacy pathway differently than one framed in negative terms, a distinction with practical implications for how crises are communicated.

The distinction between prosocial collective action and other forms of collective behavior is also relevant here. Much of the collective action literature has focused on protest and contestation, often by disadvantaged groups challenging the status quo. Prosocial collective action, by contrast, refers to cooperative efforts to benefit others or the broader community, such as volunteering, mutual aid, resource sharing, and coordinated helping during emergencies. Research during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated this form of action vividly: studies found that people who identified more strongly with their local communities were more likely to engage in coordinated helping, and that this helping was associated with mental health benefits for both givers and receivers. Work on social identification and risk perception similarly showed that shared identity shaped how people appraised personal and collective risk and whether they adopted preventive behaviors. The present study situates prosocial collective action within the same motivational architecture that has been used to explain protest, suggesting that identity, hope, and efficacy operate across both domains.

The findings also speak to a long-standing debate about the costs and benefits of promoting superordinate identities. Critics have argued that emphasizing a common identity can defuse the grievances of disadvantaged groups and undermine support for structural change, a concern captured in critiques of prejudice-reduction approaches that prioritize harmony over justice. Research among historically disadvantaged communities has shown that intergroup contact and common identity do not necessarily dampen collective action and can, under some conditions, support solidarity-based action on behalf of other groups. Studies of indigenous activism in Latin America have found that common ingroup identity can coexist with, and even strengthen, willingness to act. The present research adds a constructive note to this debate by showing that a common ingroup identity, particularly when paired with a salient common fate, can mobilize prosocial action rather than merely pacify conflict.

Methodologically, the combination of a large correlational study and a follow-up experiment strengthens the evidential basis of the conclusions. Correlational designs can establish that the measured variables covary as theory predicts, but they cannot rule out all alternative explanations, such as reverse causation or the influence of unmeasured third variables. The experimental manipulation of identity type and common fate valence in Study 2 addresses this limitation directly, allowing the authors to make stronger causal claims about the roles of these constructs. The moderated serial mediation model itself represents a methodological advance over simpler mediation tests, because it captures a chain of influence in which one mediator feeds into another, and simultaneously tests how a moderator changes the strength of links within that chain.

For practitioners, the results suggest several actionable levers. Public health campaigns, climate communication, and disaster preparedness programs often struggle to motivate action across group boundaries, whether those boundaries are national, ethnic, political, or generational. The findings imply that messages emphasizing a shared identity and a shared future may be more effective than messages that target individuals in isolation. Framing a crisis in terms of common fate, particularly when that framing highlights achievable positive outcomes, may cultivate the hope that in turn builds collective efficacy. Communicators should be attentive to valence: while threat-based messaging can capture attention, the present results indicate that the emotional and motivational consequences of a shared future depend on whether it is framed as hopeful or foreboding. Community organizations seeking to coordinate volunteers, mutual aid networks, or collective adaptation efforts may benefit from practices that reinforce a superordinate “we,” such as inclusive language, shared rituals, and joint planning across group lines.

The study’s limitations point toward future research directions. The samples were drawn from a single cultural context, and norms around collective action, hope, and group identification vary considerably across societies, so cross-cultural replication remains an open question. The measurement of prosocial collective action relied on self-report tendencies rather than observed behavior, and longitudinal designs would be needed to establish how identity, hope, efficacy, and common fate influence one another over time as a crisis unfolds. Future work might also examine whether the serial pathway holds for other emotions, such as anger or despair, which prior research has linked to collective action in different ways, and whether interventions that experimentally strengthen common fate perceptions can produce durable increases in prosocial behavior. As climate change and other transboundary crises continue to test the capacity of diverse societies to act together, understanding the psychological conditions under which people come to see themselves as sharing one fate, and one capacity to respond, becomes an increasingly urgent scientific and practical task.

Subject of Research: How common ingroup identity and common fate influence prosocial collective action through hope and group efficacy

Article Title: Breathe together and share a common fate: the effect of common ingroup identity on prosocial collective action

Article References: Hong, X., Lv, H., Qu, Z., Fan, H., & Zhang, L. (2026). Breathe together and share a common fate: the effect of common ingroup identity on prosocial collective action. Current Psychology, 45(17), Article 1428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-026-09977-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12144-026-09977-8

Keywords: common ingroup identity, prosocial collective action, common fate, hope, group efficacy, social identity, collective resilience, intergroup relations, climate change, pandemics, social psychology, Current Psychology