Synchronized Minds

Abstract

The first of the book’s four empirical chapters use the survey data to examine three issues empirically: first, we show that activists rely on a specific understanding of common good and politics that departs from that held by the general population. Second, we consider how their inclusion in a specific commitment community provides them with a particular understanding of common good and politics. Activists of a specific commitment community hence see both common good and politics through particular cognitive lenses. Third, we show that activists who evolve in the same commitment site but are members of different organizations, as well as active and passive members involved in the same organization, rely on similar views about common good and politics. From these primary analyses, we demonstrate that activists rely on socially shared meanings that are distinct from one commitment community to another. Their minds are synchronized with that of their peers and enable them to perform and sustain joint action.