The many facets of obedience and disobedience and their role in supporting democracy

Social movement studies and political sciences have studied for long ingoing processes among protest groups and activists. However, little empirical research has been addressed to relating movements to the type of social change they endeavour to achieve. In particular, we suggest that different psychosocial processes may distinguish between different types of movements and protest. In this article we cross lines between classical social psychology studies on the individual-authority relationship and studies on protest and social movements. We focused our attention on the psychological processes (such as inclusion/exclusion processes) triggered off in obeying/disobeying. Our results, based on survey data (source: World Values Survey), underscored that when disobedience is associated with attitudes of inclusiveness, it is positively linked to the enhancement of democracy at both the individual and the institutional levels.