The Impact of Group Power and Its Perceived Stability on Hope and Collective Action: Applying the Concept of Hopelessness at the Collective Level of Analysis.

The goal of this study was to test how group power and its perceived stability affect group members' individual feelings of collective hopelessness. Specifically, we applied postulates from the hopelessness literature to examine individual responses to grouplevel issues. We verified if perceiving that a disadvantaging intergroup (low power) situation is stable produces higher feelings of collective hopelessness. This feeling of hopelessness should then flow on to lower intentions to engage in collective actions to change this situation. Results of an experimental study (N = 251) confirmed that among participants who had low power over their ingroup's situation, the more they perceived this situation as stable, the more they were also likely to report feelings of collective hopelessness. Mediated moderation analyses further revealed that these feelings of collective hopelessness, in turn, predicted lower intentions to engage in collective action to redress the group's situation. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]