Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology最新文献

In a religiously diverse world, understanding how young children perceive and interact with peers from other religious groups is pivotal for promoting harmony from an early age. The study examines how children's understanding of an outgroup religion is associated with their prosocial behaviours towards children from that religion. Conducted with 210 children aged 3–6 years (mean = 4.19 years; 50.7% boys) from the majority religion (Catholic) in state schools in Malta, we assessed children's religious understanding through identification of ingroup religious symbols, and prayer. Additionally, we measured children's outgroup (i.e., Muslim) religious understanding through outgroup prayer. Children's prosocial behaviours were assessed through their costly giving of stickers to outgroup children. Findings indicate that outgroup religious understanding moderated the link between children's religious understanding and outgroup giving. Specifically, outgroup religious understanding dampened the association between ingroup religious understanding and outgroup giving for children with higher ingroup religious understanding. Implications of children's outgroup religious understanding on prosocial behaviours are discussed.

Through their design, museums can craft specific experiences for their visitors, ranging from more hedonic to more eudaimonic well-being experiences. Little is known, however, about whether potential visitors anticipate eudaimonic or hedonic well-being experiences depending on how the museum design is described. To answer this question, we conducted three social-psychological experiments with Croatian (Study 1, N = 128 and Study 3, N = 213) and American (Study 2, N = 289) participants. Participants in Study 1 and 2 read about either one of the two different hedonically designed museums or one eudaimonically designed museum which was the same across the studies, and then reported their anticipated well-being and emotional experience. Particularly for Studies 1 and 3, our findings revealed strong support for the differentiation of eudaimonic and hedonic well-being in the anticipation of different museum visits. Moreover, the anticipated eudaimonic experience moved beyond the typical positive hedonic experience by uniquely including both positive and negative emotions such as compassion, awe, sadness and guilt. We discuss the implications of our findings for modern psychological theorising on well-being and emotions, and, in a more applied sense, the relevance of describing the design of museums to potential visitors to guide their anticipation of the museum experience.

Communities possess various resources, such as sporting organisations, that establish positive relationships with young people whom statutory services may struggle to engage. Boxing has been shown to attract individuals from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, offering proven benefits in areas such as physical health and engagement. When taking into consideration mental and physical well-being, there is limited knowledge regarding the overall well-being benefits of boxing for young people. This study adopts an ethnographic approach within an Inner London community boxing gym to investigate the well-being benefits of boxing for young people. Qualitative interviews, field notes and observations were employed with young people, staff and volunteers. The community identified that boxing provided young people with a changed sense of self, engaged them in a recursive learning process and instilled a sense of belonging, like that of a new family. These factors can all be associated with well-being. The study highlights the significance of community-based resources, such as boxing gyms, in providing support for improving well-being for a diverse cohort of young people. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement

Growing empirical evidence demonstrates that intergroup contact has the potential to reap effects that go beyond prejudice reduction. Much of this evidence, however, is based on findings from cross-sectional surveys. Building on the relatively smaller body of longitudinal intergroup contact research, we conduct a three-time point survey amongst youth in Northern Ireland to determine whether frequent and good-quality interactions with ethnic minority groups are associated with later reports on: (1) attitudes towards ethnic minorities, (2) prosocial behaviour towards ethnic minorities, and (3) civic engagement. Data were collected over the period of a school year amongst youth living in Belfast (n = 420, M_{age; T1} = 14.9 years) and analysed using longitudinal path analyses and structural equation models in Mplus. Results demonstrate a lagged effect of higher-quality contact on more positive attitudes towards ethnic minorities over the school year. There was also a lagged effect of more frequent contact on self-reported prosocial behaviour in support of ethnic minorities. No lagged effects were observed of intergroup contact on civic engagement. Findings highlight the potential longitudinal effects of intergroup contact on attitudes and behaviours towards ethnic minorities.

The organisational environment and work design dramatically influence employees' performance, wellbeing and identity. However, little is known about how organisational normative structure – that is, the set of general values and shared norms that regulate individuals' behaviours in a community or an organisation – influences employees experiences and wellbeing. We apply the concept of anomie to explore how Norwegian homecare workers (HCWs) experience their working environment, the normative structure of their organisation and its influence on their performance, wellbeing and identity. We examine organisational anomie in terms of perceptions of a discrepancy between job demands, various expectations and job resources as well as a discrepancy between one's normative ideals of care and the organisational work design to fulfil the caring duties and obligations. We conducted a qualitative interview study, recruiting 10 HCWs in Norway. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we developed the following five major themes to describe HCWs' understanding of their working environment and its influence: (1) The only sure thing is that anything can happen, (2) Multiple affordances of home as a context for care, (3) Conflict between normative beliefs and the organisational working environment, (4) Time pressure affects presence and (5) Did I do a good enough job? We discuss these themes with regard to their practical implications for the homecare institution and the theoretical implications for extending anomie theories to the organisational context.

While physical activity generally declines in middle-aged adults, group exercise participation among 40-64-year-old is increasing. This rise may be due to the accessibility of online group exercise formats and their ability to reflect members' identities. This research explores how social identification processes facilitate participation in Zwift, an online group exercise platform. Seventeen Zwift participants aged 40–64 were recruited for three data collection stages: (1) an initial semi-structured interview on exercise history and Zwift usage; (2) a two-week post-exercise diary capturing social identification experiences; and (3) a follow-up interview to discuss topics from the first two stages. Data were analysed using abductive thematic analysis. Zwift supports three levels of social identity abstraction: (1) Identity Continuity, maintaining a cyclist identity through online cycling; (2) A Compatible New Identity as a Zwifter, formed through group interaction and social support; and (3) New Group Membership, developed through in-team belonging, recognition, and social status. Mid-life is a period of transition and identity change. Findings in this study suggest four ways that online platforms could facilitate social identification within online exercise platforms, namely (a) empower selection via perceived life-stage similarity and age, (b) enable ‘digital proximity’ via text chat and participant on-screen avatars, (c) enable the common fate of shared real-time exercise experiences, and (d) facilitate interaction and belonging via a pre and post-exercise ‘digital clubhouse’ via a social media page.

Long-term imprisonment often results in negative psychological and behavioural effects that hinder effective reintegration into society, exacerbating antisocial behaviour and increasing recidivism rates. In response to a Supreme Court mandate, California, the state with the second-largest prison population in the United States, embarked on a significant prison downsizing initiative. Designed to help violent offenders develop emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and understanding of victim impact, Guiding Rage into Power (GRIP) is an example of a rehabilitation program expanding within California's state prison system in part because it has generated promising results. Building on previous investigations of the same program, this study evaluates the effectiveness of GRIP in altering incarcerated men's self-perceptions and observed behaviours, with a focus on trust and self-control. Employing a mixed-methods approach, including a qualitative photo elicitation task and psychological scales, data were collected from GRIP and non-GRIP participants in two California prisons. GRIP participants demonstrated a profound commitment to self-awareness and transformation, as evidenced by their narratives and photo choices. Differential levels of trust between the two groups also predicted distinct outcomes in the photo elicitation task. While this study has limitations, it underscores GRIP's potential to challenge entrenched identities and foster positive internal changes, paving the way for future research to assess broader program impacts. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

As harmful conspiracy beliefs against transgender people are becoming increasingly popular, three experiments examined how cisgender people's contact with transgender individuals might reduce these beliefs. In Study 1a (N = 222), positive parasocial contact with transgender creators on TikTok (vs. no contact) was found to increase perspective-taking, which was associated with lower transgender conspiracy beliefs when controlling for frequency of contact and prejudice. Study 1b (N = 302) replicated this effect when controlling for frequency of contact. Study 2 (N = 220) aimed to manipulate perspective-taking. Contrary to predictions, asking participants to actively perspective-take (vs. no perspective-taking) did not increase perspective-taking (manipulation check) or reduce conspiracy beliefs. However, as all the studies measured participants’ frequency of positive and negative contact with transgender people, we pooled the data to explore whether these forms of contact were also linked with perspective-taking and conspiracy beliefs (combined N = 743). A positive relationship between frequency of positive contact with transgender people and perspective-taking was found, which was then associated with lower transgender conspiracy beliefs when controlling for prejudice and experimental conditions. Our findings underscore the potential of positive contact, including via TikTok, to foster perspective-taking, which may mitigate conspiracy beliefs against transgender people.

Substance addiction can be considered a form of social injustice grounded in interactions between individual, family and community-level risk factors. Although prevention and treatment of substance use disorder is a key target of the United Nations sustainable development goal Good Health and Well-Being, many low-and-middle-income countries lack a culturally validated approach for its management. We contend that a resilience approach may provide a sound basis from which to develop such an approach in non-western, low-resource settings. Hence, the aim of this study is to identify factors supporting resilience for recovery from substance addiction in the lived experience of young adults in Assam, India. We used photo-led interviews to centre the lived experience of young adult addicts-in-recovery (11 men, 5 women; 19–24 years) recruited through two rehabilitation services and their networks. Reflexive thematic analysis of the data produced three clusters of themes: (i) precursors to recovery; (ii) repairing relationships; and, (iii) structuring a life of recovery. Findings are discussed and potential areas for intervention are identified to support a multi-level, culturally informed, community-driven approach to recovery from substance addiction.