Unity within diversity: a social psychological analysis of the internal diversity of the Indignados movement

This article examines the relationships between four categories of motivational characteristics among social movement activists: grievances, identification, beliefs about social problems and group-based emotions. Using data from the Spanish Indignados movement (<italic>N</italic> = 230), a typology was constructed based on the dimensions of subjective material insecurity and identification with the protests, yielding three different activist profiles (insecure identifiers, secure identifiers and non-identifiers). In linear and typological analyses grievances and identification had independent and additive effects on beliefs about social problems and group-based emotions. Interactive effects also showed that high levels of identification may at times render grievances redundant in predicting concern for social problems and group emotions. Overall, the findings demonstrate a pattern of diversity in terms of grievances and identification coupled with unity regarding social identity content. The implications of different motivational patterns for collective action are discussed.