Group (Mis)Perception and Strategic Behavior in Protests: Evidence from Women’s March in Chile

Abstract

We investigate how beliefs about different groups influence protest participation. Using a field experiment during the Women’s March in Chile, we randomly provide undergraduate students with information on the participation of groups based on their family income. With this experiment, we characterize: (i) heterogeneity in perceptions about other groups’ participation, and (ii) heterogeneity in strategic incentives with respect to the in-group and the out-group. Students are randomly assigned to six treatments, receiving information about participation intentions from their in-group, out-group, the entire sample, or a combination of these. Our results suggest that participation of higher-income students is highly underestimated, whereas participation of the lower-income group seems to be predicted more accurately. Both groups display strategic complementarity. However, they react to different reference groups: the higher-income group shows in-group and out-group complementarity, while the lower-income group displays only out-group complementarity. We explore potential mechanisms driving these findings.