Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology最新文献

Research into the phenomenon of happiness is often approached from the perspective of adults, yet the sense-making practice around happiness may not be the same for all age groups. This paper explores the conceptions of happiness and its opposite, unhappiness, among children in Finland—ranked ‘the happiest country in the world’ for 7 consecutive years. Drawing from Social Representations Theory, we analyse how children (10–12 years old) understand happiness and unhappiness and how these conceptions are socially constructed in relation to each other. The research material consists of drawings and written narratives by 254 children. The results show that symmetry exists between the concepts of happiness and unhappiness. The social representations are constructed around five distinct themes, namely: Social relationships, the Environment, Material possessions, Well-being and Performance. The underlying structure, thema, which guides meaning-making around happiness, is based on meaning-producing tension between feeling safe, supported and protected versus feeling unsafe due to lack of support and protection. The results suggest the importance of ‘positive safety’ as a ground for happiness, rather than an understanding of the concept based on the mere absence of threat. In other words, happiness can be experienced even in the face of challenges and hardships, when a sense of safety deriving from feeling supported and protected is being developed.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to far-reaching detrimental impacts, with challenges weighted toward women, who experience a double-burden of paid work and care/domestic work. Professional lives were enacted in new spaces, as many were ordered to work from home. This was particularly testing for women, who found themselves servicing additional expectations each day, such as complex relational work and home-schooling. For many, this caused stress, damage to career, and strained relationships. Yet, as women academics, we were surprised to see that some of our peers were reporting they had positive experiences during lockdowns. Drawing on interview data from 23 women academics based in the United Kingdom, we found that participants did not report damage to their professional identities; indeed, in some cases the pandemic provided new ways to expand academic identities, for example through skill development and international networking. Furthermore, participants reported the pandemic as a chance to choose how to focus their energies, withdrawing from relationships and activities that did not contribute to the achievement of the selves they sought to become and capitalising on those that did. This paper is therefore valuable in revealing the techniques and resources (narrative and otherwise) that can enable women to report positive experiences, even when facing adversity.

Atypical political candidates, such as those from ethnic, racial and immigration (ERI) minorities (vs. majority), are more likely to be chosen for hard-to-win seats than easy-to-win seats, a phenomenon known as the political glass cliff. This research aimed to uncover how the ERI status of decision makers played a role in this process. We hypothesised the emergence of a glass cliff pattern, that is, the preference for an ERI minority candidate over an ERI majority candidate for a hard-to-win seat, particularly among ERI minority participants, which are likely to perceive greater electoral potential in the ERI minority candidate compared to majority participants. Across two scenario-based experiments (Study 1: N = 264; Study 2: N = 375), ERI minority and majority participants played the role of political party leaders and made decisions regarding candidate nominations either in easy-to-win or in hard-to-win electoral districts. In Study 1, ERI minority participants, but not ERI majority participants, were more likely to choose an ERI minority (vs. majority) candidate for hard-to-win seats. Moreover, ERI minority participants made stronger attributions of change potential, competence and communion to ERI minority (vs. majority) candidates, suggesting that intra-minority solidarity could play a role in their choice. Although this result did not replicate in Study 2, exploratory analyses revealed a consistent glass cliff pattern among ERI minority men in both studies. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

The sibling relationship is complex, unique and important. When one sibling has a developmental disability, siblings can be important sources of care, support, advocacy and friendship for one another. We drew on online survey data from 456 UK adult siblings of people with DD. Siblings provided written responses to a prompt about their sibling experiences (> 80,000 words). These data were analysed using qualitative content analysis and organised using the Siblings Embedded Systems Framework (SESF). The SESF helps us to consider how complex interacting mechanisms and factors surrounding siblings, families and wider systems at a local, national and international level, can influence siblings' outcomes, experiences and relationships. Overall, siblings shared a range of experiences related to their: mental health and wellbeing; personal characteristics; sibling relationships; intra-familial experiences; caring experiences; experiences accessing support services; community experiences; and views on the discrimination and ableism that their disabled siblings experienced. Siblings reflected on the interconnected and dynamic nature of their experiences. We found the SESF to be a useful way of presenting an account of the data overall, as well as to explore the impact of societal factors on siblings' experiences. Siblings' structural, political and social contexts impacted their personal lives. Please refer to the Supporting Information section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Intergroup contact is considered one of the most effective ways to reduce prejudice. An extension of contact theory, the secondary transfer effect (STE), stipulates that contact with a primary outgroup can impact attitudes toward a second, uninvolved outgroup. Here, we test the direct and indirect effects of contact with the primary outgroup on attitudes toward the secondary outgroup through outgroup humanisation, assessing White, heterosexual Americans' contact with both Black and gay people (N = 471; 52.7% men; M_age = 44.90, SD = 14.75). Path analyses were conducted on four fully saturated models that included intergroup contact (quantity, quality), humanisation of each group, and intergroup outcomes (attitudes, collective action intentions). Direct generalisation consistently occurred from gay contact (quantity or quality) to Black attitudes or Black collective action. Only one indirect generalisation pathway consistently occurred: a greater quantity of gay contact humanised Black people, which itself was associated with more positive attitudes and stronger collective action intentions toward Black people. However, the converse generalisation was not found: Black contact was rarely associated with direct or indirect intergroup outcomes toward gay people. The present study is the first to find indirect humanisation pathways for the STE, but from gay-to-Black contact only. Implications for future research are discussed. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

The current study investigated how contact experiences may be associated with attitudes towards the ingroup and the outgroup using a three-wave longitudinal study. We assessed Turkish native children's contact with Syrian refugees (N = 487, Mage = 10.60, SDage = 0.90) and explored relationships between initial contact and later ingroup and outgroup attitudes testing alternative mediation models. We also examined whether negative contact with outgroup members may directly or indirectly predict more positive ingroup attitudes. Findings demonstrated that positive contact was associated with both reduced ingroup positivity and increased outgroup positivity over time. However, unlike the traditionally suggested mediational pathway in contact-deprovincialization literature, initial positive contact (T1) was associated with less positive ingroup attitudes (T3) through more positive outgroup attitudes at T2. There was no evidence for the role of negative intergroup contact on ingroup or outgroup attitudes. Findings are discussed within the broader scope of contact theory and the recently growing deprovincialization literature. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Women experience gender violence more than men, in the digital world as well as offline. To understand and prevent this phenomenon, we must consider the continuum between the virtual and the real world and highlight that cyberviolence and offline violence follow the same patterns. Therefore, to comprehend cyberviolence against women, the present study aimed to examine the feelings and emotions of those who have had direct and indirect experiences with it. The research involved 43 young Italians, aged 20–35 and used a narrative approach with a stimulus composed of six questions. The textual material was analysed using reflexive thematic analysis and four main themes emerged: Emotional experiences of cyberviolence; the amplification of cyberviolence in the offline world; the role of bystanders; and actions to prevent cyberviolence. The results highlighted the importance of approaching cyberviolence against women from a holistic and multidimensional perspective through an ecological approach that integrates different levels of action: collective, organisational, interpersonal and individual. Cyberviolence against women entails interventions that are complex and multi-focused on all those who inhabit the virtual dimension, as well as the offline dimension, where the consequences of online violence become evident.

Modern social ecosystems have become increasingly complex due to the sanitary, political, social, cultural and technological transformations they are dealing with. This also requires professionals working within these contexts—such as community psychologists—to adapt by acquiring new and updated skills in order to properly address the challenges they pose. Therefore, this paper unpacks the experience of planning, organising and managing the 9th International Conference of Community Psychology (9ICCP) as a case study showing how onlife social contexts require the development of specific professional competencies and at the same time take advantages from psychologists' relational skills. Indeed, the conference hosted participants from all over the world, yet it was to be organised when the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian–Ukrainian war represented threats to participants' mobility, safety and health; therefore, it was managed as an onlife, hybrid event. Dealing with this meant that the organising committee had to face unprecedented challenges, which required the team to rely on the core competencies of community psychologists, and also on digital and technical skills as well as on models and competencies typical of other professional fields (e.g., social marketing principles). We will describe and discuss the strengths as well as the pitfalls of this process, with the aim of highlighting the main challenges required by dealing with hybrid, onlife settings and how they can be enhanced and updated. We will propose guidelines and key issues to be tackled, based on the relational and participatory community psychologists' competencies to be developed in onlife settings.