ABSTRACT
The thesis of this chapter is that the decision to protest requires not only that people experience outrage but that they also feel entitled to act on their outrage. The authors call this feeling of entitlement psychological standing. One important determinant of a person’s standing to protest an injustice is the extent to which he or she is materially affected by it. The more one is materially affected by the source of outrage, the more standing one has to protest it. When people lack a material stake in an issue, they can nonetheless feel that they have the standing to protest if they observe other nonvested individuals protesting or if they perceive themselves as having a moral stake in the issue. Having a personal characteristic or history that justifies to others why one feels such outrage can also provide one with standing. Not just any connection to an issue will suffice, however. Having committed a particular transgression in the past or simply being a member of a group that has committed (or continues to commit) that transgression deprives one of the standing to protest that particular transgression. Finally, having a material stake in an issue’s outcome is not always sufficient to license protest. Victims lack the standing to retaliate against a transgressor when others who have been more victimized by the transgression choose to turn the other cheek. The authors conclude the chapter by showing that the concept of standing, in addition to permitting unique predictions, offers an alternative frame for viewing previous findings.
