Youth activism has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with young people playing an important role in addressing various social issues through political actions, such as racial injustice (the Black Lives Matter movement), women’s rights (#MeToo), global climate change (the Youth Climate Change movement), anti-war (Students for Justice in Palestine movement), and other regional sociopolitical issues. For example, in Hong Kong, many young people were actively involved in the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (hereafter, Anti-ELAB) Movement in 2019 (Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey [CCPOS], 2020), shocking the world. Despite some reports of a declining trend in conventional forms of political participation (e.g., participating in elections and working for political campaigns) among youth (Henn & Foard, 2014; Twenge et al., 2012), the rise in youth activism suggests that the younger generation is not apathetic and disengaged from political issues.

Political engagement is a way for youth to express their opinions and ideas for tackling various social problems, while its social impacts can be constructive or destructive (Wray-Lake, 2019).Footnote 1 Youth is a crucial period of political socialization (Dahl & Van Zalk, 2014). It is thus crucial to inquire into what relates to youth’s formation of political engagement intention. Previous studies have mainly addressed this question by tapping personal (e.g., political interest; Levy & Akiva, 2019) and social factors (e.g., peer influence; Dahl & Van Zalk, 2014). Going beyond that, this study attempted to understand youths’ political engagement intention through the lens of social mobility beliefs– worldviews that reflect one’s assumptions about how the socioeconomic system operates (Day & Fiske, 2019). This study will contribute to the literature by showing how youths’ understanding of the current socioeconomic system might influence their development of political attitudes and behaviors.

We tested this proposition in a diverse sample of college students in Hong Kong, including individuals who are enrolled in bachelor’s degree and sub-degree (i.e., associate degree or higher diploma) programs. We targeted Hong Kong college students for three reasons. First, most past studies are based on Western societies (see Mohd Hed & Grasso, 2020), and research on young people in Asian regions is relatively scarce. The upsurge in large-scale social movements in Asian regions (including Hong Kong) in recent years suggests the need to understand youths’ political participation in non-Western countries. Due to their active involvement in the Anti-ELAB movement, a study of Hong Kong college students can offer insight into why young people become politically active. Additionally, college students are in a critical life stage to build their socioeconomic status (Lin et al., 2022), and they are more sensitive than younger adolescents to the likelihood of society allowing individuals greater upward social mobility.

Youth political engagement

In this research, we define political engagement as actions undertaken to lobby institutions with power for changes in decisions about social issues (Dahl & Van Zalk, 2014; Wray-Lake, 2019). Such actions can be normative (e.g., signing a petition, peaceful demonstrations) or non-normative (e.g., forcibly occupying a government or administrative building, use of violence in a protest), depending on whether the actions are taken against the dominant social system, including laws and regulation (Wright et al., 1990). While normative political actions are usually considered legitimate, non-normative political actions are often radical, which are regarded as illegal and unaccepted by most members of society (Becker & Tausch, 2015; Shuman et al., 2016). Additionally, normative political behavior is usually considered to be developmentally appropriate for youth, while non-normative one is controversial and problematic (Osman et al., 2020). When differentiating normative and non-normative political actions, Becker and Tausch (2015) have also pointed out that they are probably driven by different factors.

Studies have found that youth political engagement is determined by the extent to which individuals are interested in political issues (i.e., political interest; Levy & Akiva, 2019), are confident in their ability to participate (i.e., internal political efficacy) and in the responsiveness of the political system (i.e., external political efficacy) (e.g., Levy & Akiva, 2019; Šerek et al., 2018), or possess a specific dispositional trait (e.g., preference for risk; Oosterhoff & Wray-Lake, 2020) (see also Wray-Lake, 2019). Researchers have also found that internal political efficacy relates to readiness to undertake both normative and non-normative political actions, but lower confidence in traditional institutions relates to a higher preference for non-normative political behavior among youths (e.g., Šerek et al., 2018). Additionally, there are some social influences from family (e.g., perception of interparental conflict; Šerek et al., 2018), school (e.g., open classroom climate; Campbell, 2008), and peers (e.g., peers’ illegal political engagement, Dahl & Van Zalk, 2014), contributing to their development of political attitudes and behaviors.

The preceding discussion has suggested that personal and social factors influence youths’ political development. According to Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), these factors mainly fall into microsystem. The present research aims to extend the study to macrosystem, by proposing that youths’ worldview (i.e., beliefs or assumptions about the world and how it operates; Lin et al., 2022) plays a crucial role in their political development. Indeed, it is arguable that the social movements organized by youth leaders are related to their awareness and perceptions of social injustices such as racial discrimination, human rights violations, and failure with regard to climate justice. Although social and political psychology studies have demonstrated the influence of lay social beliefs on political attitudes (e.g., Day & Fiske, 2017; Shariff et al., 2016), the study of adolescence has yet to draw on such theoretical perspectives to understand youth political development. The present research focuses on social mobility beliefs, as the deterioration of upward social mobility has been witnessed across the globe, including in developed countries and regions (OECD, 2018). Such beliefs might thus serve to explain the surge in youth activism across countries.

Social mobility beliefs and political engagement

Social mobility refers to the likelihood that a person or household can move between social classes over generations or within one lifetime (Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies [HKIAPS], 2016). Social mobility beliefs are usually centered on upward rather than downward mobility (Browman et al., 2017); thus, the present study focused on upward mobility beliefs. Specifically, we define social mobility beliefs as a person’s beliefs concerning chances of moving up the social ladder through individual merits such as effort and ability rather than social origins (Yoon & Kim, 2017). These beliefs can pertain to individuals’ personal social mobility (i.e., personal social mobility beliefs) or to the social mobility of an average person of society (i.e., societal social mobility beliefs). Regardless of the target, social mobility beliefs represent laypeople’s understanding of how the world, particularly socioeconomic system, functions, which has implications for people’s attitudes and behaviors (for a review, see Day & Fiske, 2019). For example, studies have found that social mobility beliefs are related to individuals’ expectations of and investment in academic, economic, and vocational success, as manifested in higher levels of academic persistence and performance (Browman et al., 2017), and vocational engagement (Shane & Heckhausen, 2016). Although social mobility beliefs might not accurately reflect social reality, studies have revealed that such beliefs exert a greater influence on individuals’ thoughts and actions than objective reality (Day & Fiske, 2019).

The cognitive-social perspective contends that worldviews serve as a cognitive framework through which individuals perceive and interpret information from their environment and guide their behavior (Zedelius et al., 2017). Accordingly, social mobility beliefs, as worldviews about the socioeconomic system, presumably influence people’s understanding of the socioeconomic system and steer their attitudes and behaviors either in favor of or against the existing system (e.g., Day & Fiske, 2017; Shariff et al., 2016). People often rely on their beliefs in making judgments about the fairness of their socioeconomic system, despite the potential for bias (Day & Fiske, 2019). Social mobility beliefs inform individuals about whether such opportunities are available for themselves (personal social mobility beliefs) or people in general (societal social mobility beliefs). Additionally, believing that there is a fair chance for success also makes people likely to attribute success more to personal merits (e.g., effort, ability) than to innate characteristics (e.g., social class origin). People adopting such merit-based attribution tend to consider that economic inequality is justifiable owing to the variation in individual ability and effort (Major & Kaiser, 2017). Prior studies have shown that social mobility beliefs may relate to higher acceptance of economic inequality (Shariff et al., 2016) and less support for wealth redistribution through welfare policies and taxation (Jaime-Castillo & Marques-Perales, 2014). For example, people believing in living in a relatively mobile society demonstrate lower support for government spending on education and the belief that families should take responsibility (Wen & Witteveen, 2021). Considering these findings, researchers have suggested that believing in social mobility would be related to favorable attitudes toward the existing economic system.

Despite the concern for economic prospects, the influence of social mobility beliefs might not be limited to the economic system. Indeed, such beliefs could influence people’s general appraisal of the social system. Day and Fiske (2017) found that Americans primed with moderate societal social mobility beliefs considered society to be fairer and more just than those primed with low societal social mobility beliefs. Based on the 2005–2019 Gallup World Poll, Chan et al. (2021) found that the belief that hard work leads to a better life– a well-acknowledged proxy indicator of social mobility belief declined the most in the regions with social unrest. Together, it is possible that social mobility beliefs would influence young people’s engagement in political actions that entail lobbying for a social change (e.g., voting, protesting) that goes beyond economic issues. Given that political engagement is a way for young people to change unfair and unjust social situations, we believed that perceiving more opportunities to move up the social ladder (i.e., stronger social mobility beliefs) would be related to weaker intention to undertake political actions.

We also aim to elucidate why social mobility beliefs relate to political engagement intention. First, as discussed earlier, individuals evaluate the social and political system based on their social mobility beliefs. People usually show positive appraisal toward a system that can offer sufficient upward opportunities. Previous studies have found that people endorsing social mobility beliefs are inclined to consider the current system just and legitimate (Day & Fiske, 2017) and to trust the ruling government (Su et al., 2015). Accordingly, they likely also perceive the government as highly accessible and responsive to the citizens’ needs and concerns (Wu et al., 2012), a concept referred to as external political efficacy (Wolak, 2018).

Furthermore, previous research has provided insights into understanding why these perceptions and evaluations on the social and political systems are linked to political engagement. Jost et al. (2017) proposed that high justice appraisal toward the overall system (i.e., the belief that society is fair and just) confers palliative benefits, minimizing people’s intentions to take political actions. The Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA; van Zomeren et al., 2008) pointed out that collective actions, including political actions, are primarily driven by three group factors– group identification, group injustice perception, and internal efficacy. Osborne et al. (2019) incorporated this system-based justice appraisal with the SIMCA, and contended that high system-based justice appraisal would reduce one’s perception of unfair treatment toward the disadvantaged group (i.e., group injustice perception) and enhance one’s efficacy beliefs regarding the political actions, thus, relating to fewer political actions that challenge the system. In other words, perceiving an unjust social system will motivate individuals to fight against the existing system. Meanwhile, Becker and Tausch (2015) contended that injustice appraisal and efficacy beliefs probably relate to different types of political actions. Injustice appraisal might evoke different emotions (i.e., anger or contempt), which motivate normative or non-normative actions. In contrast, when people believe their actions can bring about desired change (i.e., internal efficacy), they are more likely to participate in political actions undertaken within the existing legal boundaries of the system (i.e., normative political engagement). As higher external political efficacy also indicates a higher likelihood of reaching the desired goal (due to government’s high responsiveness), it should also be related to normative political engagement. Altogether, we expected perceived social injustice to be positively related to both normative and non-normative political engagement intentions, whereas external political efficacy to be positively related to normative political engagement intentions. Overall, we expected social mobility beliefs to be negatively related to perceived social injustice and positively associated with external political efficacy, which in turn related to political engagement intention.

Overview of the present research

In this research, we inquired into youth political engagement through the lens of social mobility beliefs. We expected that social mobility beliefs would be negatively related to political engagement intention (Hypothesis 1). We further proposed a parallel mediation model to explain this association (see Fig. 1). Specifically, we expected that social mobility beliefs would relate to lower levels of perceived social injustice, which would relate to stronger normative and non-normative political engagement intentions (Hypothesis 2a & 2b). Additionally, we expected social mobility beliefs to relate to higher levels of external political efficacy, which in turn relate to stronger normative political engagement intention (Hypothesis 3). To rule out alternative explanations, we included post-materialistic values and political interest as the covariates in our model, given that these two factors related to social mobility beliefs and political engagement (e.g., HKIAPS, 2016; Lee, 2018; Osborne et al., 2019). Additionally, as past studies usually measured either personal or societal social mobility beliefs, no study has yet explored which of these two beliefs plays a more important role in determining youths’ political engagement. These two types of beliefs concern different targets of perceived mobility chance (Day & Fiske, 2019). While the two social mobility beliefs are certainly correlated, they may play a distinct role in people’s evaluation of social fairness and efficacy and in their political engagement intention. The present study explores this possibility by studying personal and societal social mobility beliefs simultaneously.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Hypothesized indirect effects of social mobility beliefs on the intentions of political engagement

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Method

Participants

We targeted college students who were permanent Hong Kong residents. We predetermined our sample to detect a small to medium indirect effect (ab = 0.02) with a statistical power of 0.80 at the 0.05 alpha level. We estimated our sample size using Monte Carlo simulation (Schoemann et al., 2017). A sample size of 880 was deemed sufficient. In total, 1,141 college students participated in our study. We excluded participants that were not enrolled in local institutions (N = 47), above 25 years old (N = 33), and failed in two attention check questions (N = 59). To pass the attention check, participants should choose an option as instructed (e.g., Curran, 2016). As a result, 1,033 participants were retained (mean age = 19.69, SD = 1.47; females: 63.9%). This study was not pre-registered.

Procedure

This study was derived from a large-scale online survey that examined youth social-political attitudes in the first half year of 2020 (Lin & Shek, 2021). By then, the political actions to fight against Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill have not fully ceased. Students completed the survey in a self-administrated manner. Each participant provided informed consent before the start of the survey. Upon completion of the online survey, each participant received a $50 HKD (approximately $6.41 USD) supermarket coupon as a token of appreciation.

Measures

Participants answered questions capturing their social mobility beliefs (both personal and societal), perceived social injustice, external political efficacy, political interest, post-materialistic values, and political engagement intention. Additionally, the participants provided demographic information, including their gender, age, subjective socioeconomic class (see Adler et al., 2000), monthly household income, and father’s and mother’s education levels and whether they were enrolled in a bachelor’s degree or sub-degree program. The questionnaires were presented in traditional Chinese. Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviation, and reliability (McDonald’s omega) values for the key variables.

Table 1 Summary of descriptive statistics and reliability of key constructs
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Societal social mobility beliefs

We adopted the eight-item Perceived Economic Mobility Scale from past studies (Yoon & Kim, 2017). Participants indicated the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with general statements about people’s opportunity to obtain socioeconomic success (e.g., “Society provides enough opportunities to get ahead for those who are motivated”). They reported their responses on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). The Chinese version of the scale has been reliably used in previous studies (e.g., Lin et al., 2022). We computed an average score based on the eight items, with higher scores indicating stronger beliefs in upward social mobility in Hong Kong.

Personal social mobility beliefs

We created a four-item measure to assess individuals’ perceptions of their upward mobility in Hong Kong, which included two items from the study of Cheng et al. (2019) in Hong Kong and two items created by the authors for this project. Participants reported on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) the extent to which they consider themselves to have opportunities for obtaining socioeconomic success (e.g., “I think that I can improve my economic condition based on my abilities and hard work”). We computed an average score based on the four items, with higher scores indicating higher levels of personal upward social mobility beliefs.

Perceived social injustice

We adopted a well-established measure of perceived social justice from a past study (Kay & Jost, 2003) and asked the participants to make a judgment with reference to Hong Kong society. Participants indicated the extent to which they agreed with eight statements regarding the justness and fairness of Hong Kong society on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) (e.g., “In general, I find Hong Kong society to be fair”). This scale was originally developed to measure individuals’ system justification, with an assumption that people who believe that the existing system is just and legitimate tend to rationalize and defend the status quo (Kay & Jost, 2003; Osborne et al., 2019). It has been widely used in Chinese samples with good psychometric properties (e.g., Li et al., 2020). However, we are only interested in young people’s social justice perception rather than their motives to “justify” the existing system. Similar to previous studies (e.g., Ramos & Moriconi, 2018), we used this scale to measure one’s perceived injustice. We computed an average score based on the eight items, with higher scores indicating stronger disagreement with items suggesting that Hong Kong society is just and fair. That is, a higher score indicated a higher level of perceived social injustice.

External political efficacy

We adopted a single-item measure of external political efficacy belief from past studies (e.g., Paulhus & Van Selst, 1990). We translated this item into Chinese by using the standard translation and back translation procedure. Participants reported on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) the extent to which they consider that Hong Kong citizens can influence the Hong Kong government’s policy decisions. A higher score indicated a higher level of external political efficacy.

Political engagement intention

We identified a list of 11 political behaviors based on past studies (Dahl & Van Zalk, 2014; Šerek et al., 2018). In particular, seven of the behaviors are normative political actions (e.g., vote in an election, volunteer for a political party, sign a petition), and four of the behaviors are non-normative actions (e.g., together with others, forcibly occupy a government or administrative building; participate in political activity where property is damaged). We created a Chinese version of the scale by following the standard translation and back translation procedure. Participants indicated their intention to engage in each of the behaviors on a 6-point scale (1 = definitely will not to 6 = definitely will). We computed an average score for the two types of political behavior separately, with higher scores indicating a stronger intention to participate in normative or non-normative political action.

Covariates

We included two covariates in the mediation analyses. The first was political interest, which was captured by a single item (Oosterhoff & Wray-Lake, 2020). We translated this item into Chinese by using the standard translation and back translation procedure. Participants reported on a five-point scale (1 = not interested at all to 5 = very interested) the extent to which they were interested in political issues. The second was post-materialistic values. We adopted the measure of post-materialistic values from the Chinese-version World Values Survey (Inglehart et al., 2014). This measure contains three sets of items. In each set, participants first read four societal development goals and then select the most important and the second most important goals that they consider Hong Kong should achieve in the next 10 years. Among the four goals, two are post-materialistic goals and two are materialistic goals. A score of 1 represents post-materialistic goal, and a score of -1 represents a materialistic goal. The sum score of the three sets of items was calculated. A positive value indicated a post-materialistic orientation, and a negative value indicated a materialistic orientation (see Lee, 2018).

Data analysis plan

To test our hypotheses, we first conducted a zero-order correlation analysis to examine the bivariate relationship between the key constructs. Next, we conducted a series of multiple regression analyses to examine the hypothesized relationship among the two types of social mobility beliefs, perceived social injustice, external political efficacy, and the two types of political engagement intention. To test the parallel mediation model, we used the lavaan package in the R program (Rosseel, 2012). We estimated one mediation model that included both normative and non-normative political engagement intentions, and allowed them to be correlated. We evaluated the model fit with the reference to the Comparative Fit Index (CFI > 0.90 acceptable, CFI > 0.95 good), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI > 0.90 acceptable, TLI > 0.95 good), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA < 0.08 acceptable, RMSEA < 0.05 good) (Kline, 2015). We estimated the indirect effect via the bootstrapping method (subsample N = 5,000). An indirect effect was considered to be significant if the bootstrapped 95% confidence interval did not include zero. For all regression analyses, we included demographic variables as the covariates. In the mediation models, we also controlled for the effects of political interest and post-materialistic values. The dataset of this study and the program codes used for the mediation analyses are available in the open science framework (see online supplementary materials).

Results

We first examined the zero-order correlation between the key variables. Table 2 shows the results. As expected, societal and personal social mobility beliefs were negatively related to perceived social injustice and positively related to external political efficacy. These two mobility beliefs were also negatively related to normative and non-normative type of political engagement intentions, except that there was no correlation between personal social mobility belief and intention to engage in normative political actions. Additionally, perceived social injustice was positively related to both types of political engagement intention. However, external political efficacy was negatively related to both types of political engagement intention.

Table 2 Zero-order correlations among the key construct
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Next, we conducted a series of multiple regression analyses to test our hypotheses (see Table 3). Societal social mobility beliefs, but not personal social mobility beliefs, are negatively and significantly related to the intention to engage in normative political actions. However, we did not find evidence supporting a direct relationship between the two types of social mobility beliefs and intention to engage in non-normative political actions. These findings offered partial support for Hypothesis 1. Additionally, societal and personal social mobility beliefs were negatively related to perceived social injustice. Furthermore, the two types of social mobility beliefs were positively related to external political efficacy.

Table 3 Results of the linear regression analyses with political engagement intention, perceived social injustice, and external efficacy belief as the outcome variables
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Finally, we conducted the parallel mediation analysis to examine the indirect effects of societal and personal social mobility beliefs via the two mediator variables (i.e., perceived social injustice and external political efficacy) on the two types of political engagement intention (i.e., intention to engage in normative and non-normative political actions) simultaneously. The model fitted the data well (CFI = 0.997, TLI = 0.975, RMSEA = 0.031). Table 4; Fig. 2 show the results. As predicted, the indirect effects of the societal social mobility beliefs and personal social mobility beliefs on normative political engagement via perceived social injustice were negative and significant (partial standardized estimates = − 0.22, − 0.08). Similarly, the indirect effects of the societal social mobility beliefs and personal social mobility beliefs on non-normative political engagement via perceived social injustice were negative and significant (partial standardized estimates = − 0.27, − 0.10). The indirect effects of the two types of social mobility beliefs via external political efficacy on normative political engagement intention were positive and significant (partial standardized estimates = 0.01, 0.01). However, we did not find significant indirect effects of the two types of social mobility beliefs on non-normative political engagement via political efficacy. The partial standardized indirect effect may serve as an indicator of the effect size of the indirect effect (Preacher & Kelley, 2011). Accordingly, the current results showed seemingly larger indirect effects via perceived social injustice (vs. indirect effects via external political efficacy). These findings support Hypotheses 2a, 2b and 3. As a robustness check, we repeated the analysis while controlling the effects of political interest and post-materialistic values. The model fitted the data well (CFI = 0.994, TLI = 0.955, RMSEA = 0.041). All findings remained consistent. Specifically, societal and personal social mobility beliefs were negatively related to perceived social injustice, which was, in turn, positively related to the intention to engage in normative (partial standardized estimates of indirect effects = − 0.11, − 0.04) or non-normative political actions (partial standardized estimates of indirect effects = − 0.15, − 0.05). Additionally, societal social mobility belief was positively related to external political efficacy, which was, in turn, positively related to the intention to engage in normative political actions (partial standardized estimates of indirect effects = 0.01, 0.01).

Table 4 Results of the indirect effects of social mobility beliefs via perceived injustice and external political efficacy
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Fig. 2
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Indirect effects of social mobility beliefs on the intentions of political engagement. Note. The figure shows the standardized estimates. We controlled demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, income, parents’ education levels, and subjective socioeconomic status) in this model. The correlation between societal and personal social mobility belief was 0.45 (p < .001). *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001

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Discussion

The present research examines the relationship between social mobility beliefs and political engagement intention among Hong Kong college students. Our findings suggest that youths’ understanding of the social world might translate into political engagement intention through two pathways: perceived social injustice and external political efficacy. Political participation is considered important in youths’ identity formation– a core developmental task in adolescence (Erikson, 1968) and emerging adulthood (Schwartz et al., 2005). By taking action to address social problems, youth are able to explore their position in society and understand what they can contribute to the larger world, though it carries both benefits and costs to individuals and society. Our study contributes to the literature by revealing what might enhance youths’ intention to take normative and non-normative forms of political action.

The findings show that social mobility beliefs, particularly beliefs about average people’s social mobility in society, are negatively related to normative political engagement intention. Consistent with previous studies on adults (e.g., Schneider, 2012; Shariff et al., 2016), this study reveals that social mobility beliefs influence youths’ political attitudes. Importantly, when the two types of social mobility beliefs are considered simultaneously, societal social mobility beliefs are found to play a more significant role in political engagement intention. Social mobility beliefs are individuals’ assumptions and expectations about the socioeconomic system and how it operates. Such beliefs vary according to their self or society-focus (Day, 2019). It is likely that society-focused beliefs have a greater impact on collective action, while self-focused beliefs have a greater impact on individual action. People are more motivated to change the societal system through political actions when they identify a societal problem (i.e., low social mobility for society at large) rather than a personal problem (i.e., lower personal mobility). Unexpectedly, we do not find significant associations between social mobility beliefs and non-normative political engagement intention. Nevertheless, further mediation analyses reveal the indirect relationship between these two constructs.

We observe two parallel indirect effects in this study. First, perceived social injustice is a factor that possibly links social mobility beliefs to both normative and non-normative political actions. In line with previous research (Day & Fiske, 2017), we found that the belief in social mobility related to a more favorable perception on the whole system. It suggests that the global problem of social mobility probably impairs young people’s appraisal of the whole system. Furthermore, consistent with prior research indicating a potential association between injustice appraisal and political actions (e.g., Osborne et al., 2019), this study provides support for the role of perceived social injustice as a motivator for youth political actions. It is worth noting that youth perceiving more societal injustice would be more likely to engage in various forms of political actions, despite the potential risks associated with such engagement. Considering these potential indirect effects, further studies are needed to investigate what makes youth choose an illegal and radical approach to addressing a social problem rather than a legal and moderate approach when they perceive injustice in society. According to the 3Ns (Needs, Network, Narratives) model that explains radicalization (Webber & Kruglanski, 2017), the primary motivation for engagement in radical actions is the individual need for significance. Perceived injustice is often a triggering event that dampen one’s significance or mattering, which activates the quest for significance. Meanwhile, such need can be validated and amplified by the social network (e.g., peer pressure) and ideological narratives (e.g., honor culture) they encounter. Future studies will benefits by incorporating factors of 3Ns in understanding the formation of non-normative political actions. Additionally, emotional responses to injustice may account for differences in the type of political engagement pursued. A previous study has suggested that people who feel anger tend to engage in normative actions or moderate non-normative actions, while people who feel contempt tend to adopt extreme and non-normative actions (Becker & Tausch, 2015).

In addition to perceived social injustice, political efficacy seems to link social mobility beliefs to normative political engagement, although the effect size looks small. In line with previous study (Becker & Tausch, 2015) that found a positive (negative) link between internal efficacy and normative (non-normative and extreme) actions, this study supports external political efficacy as a motive of political action. It represents a divergent path that may explain why some young people take political action even when considering the current system to offer mobility and abundant opportunities for upward movement. This belief may be associated with an increased likelihood of perceiving that the existing government will be responsive to their voice, which is related to an increased chance to use the ways prescribed by the system to help improve society. However, the positive relationship between political efficacy and political engagement appeared only in the parallel mediation model (when perceived injustice was controlled) but not in the zero-order correlation. The effect of political efficacy on political engagement is probably context-dependent. A previous study has found that external political efficacy is negatively related to Hong Kong citizens’ willingness to protest and participate in rallies and elections (Lee, 2006). Future studies are needed to examine the factors accounting for the complex and nuanced relationship between external political efficacy and political engagement in other non-Western contexts. The goal system theory (Kruglanski et al., 2015) offers a theoretical framework to understand multiple factors that motivate political actions. Similar to other behaviors, political action is goal-directed, driven by goals and perceived importance, expectancy of success, and instrumentality in achieving desired outcomes (Jaśko, 2023). While political efficacy denotes expectancy of success, it probably interacts with goal importance and instrumentality to shape the likelihood and nature of political engagement, which deserves future scrutiny.

In addition, the positive direct effect of societal social mobility belief on non-normative political engagement found after adjusting for the indirect effect requires further scrutiny. It is unclear what makes young people more willing to engage in actions when they consider social mobility to be high. Believing in social mobility might entail a sense of personal control (Yoon & Kim, 2017), and thus future studies might examine whether perceiving high social mobility makes young people feel that they can manage the external world even though there are risks, thus giving them a sense of efficaciousness in undertaking non-normative political actions.

Altogether, this study contributes to the literature by providing a new interpretative framework of social mobility beliefs for understanding youth political development. The existing models (e.g., van Zomeren, 2013; Becker & Tausch, 2015) primarily explain the collective actions from group-level factors and emphasize that the perceptions and emotions toward unfair treatment toward the disadvantaged group drive people to take up collective actions. However, some societal problems might not only target certain marginalized or under-representative groups, and social mobility is one of them. Such a system-based belief could enhance young people’s intentions to take up political actions. The contemporary youth are growing up in a world where stagnant social mobility has become a global problem, particularly in developed regions (HKIAPS, 2016; OECD, 2018). Their understanding of the socioeconomic system and awareness of declining social mobility deserve further consideration in the research on youth development of political attitudes and behaviors. Importantly, this study points out that perceived social injustice and external political efficacy link young people’s lay beliefs about the socioeconomic system to general political intention (not limited to economic issue). Social mobility beliefs may provide cues for overall judgment about the whole system, which further influences youths’ readiness for political participation. These findings echo the literature on critical consciousness (Heberle et al., 2020) that links youths’ critical understanding of social issues to political action. This line of research points out that critical reflection on social issues, such as recognizing the structural reasons for inequality and racism, together with a sense of self-efficacy, can make marginalized youth more likely to engage in political actions that combat oppression (Diemer et al., 2019). Accordingly, future studies might consider specifying youths’ critical reflection on social mobility and examining how such a “critical” understanding of social mobility leads to political engagement.

We believe that this interpretative framework can be applied to describe and explain the political engagement process for people of different age groups. Our primary focus is on younger individuals, as they are arguably more susceptible to the influence of social mobility beliefs compared to their middle-aged and older counterparts. This is particularly true for college students, who are in a critical phase of forming their worldviews and aspirations. Simultaneously, they are navigating their educational path and have yet to fully immerse themselves in the workforce, unlike middle-aged and older adults who may have already finalized their education and established their careers. Therefore, younger individuals may place more importance on societal opportunities for upward mobility. Future studies will benefit from inquiries into people of different ages.

Limitations and future directions

This study should be considered in light of three limitations, which could be addressed in future research. The first concerns the cross-sectional design. The absence of longitudinal or experimental data prevents us from identifying the temporal ordering of the variables and making causal claims accordingly (see Kline, 2015). To extend the understanding of the causal effects of social mobility beliefs, experimental studies that can manipulate such beliefs are recommended (for example, see Yoon & Kim, 2017). Moreover, longitudinal studies are needed to understand how social mobility beliefs influence the formation of youths’ political attitudes over time, as this process is dynamic. Meanwhile, as explicitly addressing the causal assumptions underlying hypothesized linkages in nonexperimental studies could be advantageous for theory development (see Grosz et al., 2020), our mediation analyses can still provide valuable insights into the associations and indirect pathways among the study variables, which serve as initial evidence upon which new hypotheses can be generated. The second limitation concerns the generalizability of the findings. Although we have tried to ensure the diversity of the sample, this study has excluded the youth who are not receiving tertiary education, such as working youth. College students are situated in a relatively higher status, which might make them perceive a higher chance of SES change for themselves (i.e., a stronger personal social mobility belief). Future studies might target a broader population to extend our understanding of the roles of personal (vs. societal) social mobility beliefs in political engagement. Finally, as this study focuses on behavioral intention, future studies could examine actual political participation. A previous study has shown that emerging adults with higher political engagement intentions also report higher actual political participation (Eckstein et al., 2013), but the gap between the intentions and behavior of human beings should be noted (see Sheeran & Webb, 2016). Therefore, it is important for future studies to determine whether social mobility beliefs lead to a change in youths’ experience of political participation.

Conclusion

Through the lens of social mobility beliefs, this study sought to understand what influences youth’s intentions to engage in normative and forms of political action. These findings point out two distinct pathways to explain youths’ readiness for normative and non-normative political engagement. While perceived social injustice and external political efficacy may translate youths’ social mobility beliefs into a willingness to engage in normative political actions, only perceived social injustice can translate social mobility beliefs into the intention to engage in non-normative political actions. We thus call for future studies to incorporate youth’s worldviews into the theorization of youth political development.