British Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

This study employed critical discursive and rhetorical psychology to analyse the discourses drawn upon to justify an arguably violent protest outside a previously disused hotel in rural Ireland, where 34 male asylum seekers had been accommodated. Interviews with protesters and public representatives were retrieved from three mainstream media platforms. The protesters drew on three contradictory and deracialized discursive strategies to inoculate their justification for the protest against accusations of prejudice, which we label compassionate exclusion. The first is a compassionate concern about the suitability of the accommodation for the asylum seekers, whilst engaging in collective action to force the asylum seekers into homelessness and risk of further violence. The second positions the protesters as compassionate towards the asylum seekers whilst demanding that they receive vetting and that the local community receive prior consultation on their suitability for accommodation. The third presents the ‘male’ asylum seekers as a threat to women in this isolated rural community, even though the protesters position themselves as compassionate towards the ‘lovely men’ who are already accommodated. This highlights how compassionate humanitarian concerns can be co-opted to justify an arguably violent demand for the forced removal and exclusion of asylum seekers, whilst avoiding accusations of racism.

Women remain underrepresented in leadership, particularly in traditionally masculine work settings. At the same time, the visibility of this imbalance has led to growing calls for diversifying leadership. This research examines how both men and women contribute to the preservation or disruption of gender inequality in masculine organizational contexts. Men remain the gatekeepers of change—deciding who rises to the top and under what conditions—while women face the strategic dilemma of fitting in by downplaying inequality (supporting the status quo, sometimes called ‘queen bee behaviour’) or ‘rocking the boat’ by advocating social change (challenging the status quo). Across five experimental studies (total N = 887), we examined how evaluators assessed male and female leadership candidates who either supported or challenged the status quo. Results revealed that although men favoured female over male candidates, they consistently preferred women who reinforced the status quo over those who advocated equality. By contrast, male candidates who supported the status quo were penalized, and female evaluators showed no such preferences. These findings highlight subtle mechanisms through which gendered power dynamics are maintained, underscoring both the strategic trade-offs women must navigate to advance and the conditional nature of men's support for gender equality.

Through two experimental studies (pre-test/post-test/follow-up with control), we tested reciprocal gifting as an indirect contact strategy that could improve Turkish native children's attitudes towards their Syrian refugee peers in the highly prejudicial immigration context of Türkiye. In Study 1 (N = 144), children who were led to believe that they exchanged gifts with their Syrian peers showed more positive outgroup attitudes in the post-test (unlike children in the control group), while there were no significant changes in negative attitudes or social closeness. In Study 2 (N = 207), we implemented an enhanced procedure whereby children created personalized and symbolic gifts, making the reciprocal gifting experience more engaging. Although this revised approach improved positive attitudes and social closeness, negative attitudes remained unchanged, and all outcomes returned to baseline levels at the follow-up stage (approximately 40 days later) in both studies, overall providing evidence for the short-term positive effects of the reciprocal gifting strategy. We discussed the importance of implementing creative strategies in hostile school environments.

This study examines motivations for participating in the understudied Indonesian riots of May 1998 targeting the ethnic Chinese minority, using an integrative framework addressing intergroup, intragroup and individual factors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 participants (26 male, 5 female), all aged over 35 and involved in violent acts during the riots, in which thousands of homes and businesses were looted or destroyed, and hundreds of people were raped or murdered. Thematic analysis revealed motivations at three levels: intergroup (ethnic prejudice, animosity towards security forces), intragroup (conformity, fear of missing out) and individual (thrill-seeking, need for significance, greed, impulsivity). Narratives illustrate how these factors interact within a context of socio-political and economic upheaval. Most participants cited motivations at the intragroup and individual levels, with fewer referencing intergroup factors or reporting a single level of motivation. Conformity (an intragroup factor) was reported by all participants. This research highlights the complex interplay of psychological and social dynamics driving collective ethnic violence.

With increasing division and conflict amongst groups with different opinions on social and political issues, there is a growing need to effectively manage intergroup conflict. The current paper examined the role of superordinate identities in facilitating—versus hindering—competing opinion-based groups to work through value-based intergroup conflict and reach value consensus. We examined interactions on Wikipedia as a novel, ‘real-world’ context where people with different opinions and perspectives work through disagreement guided by the rules and norms of a Wikipedian superordinate identity. We thematically analysed 22 discussion topics (comprising 9837 words) involving 21 editors on the Wikipedia talk page corresponding to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament article. Analyses revealed that supporters and opponents of the Voice often shared the same values but disagreed about how those values should be expressed (i.e., the implications of those values). Moreover, we found evidence that working through intergroup conflict involved perceiving value consensus—a process which was facilitated by a Wikipedian superordinate identity. The results highlight the conditions under which superordinate groups can productively structure disagreement and attenuate conflict between opinion-based groups.

The current research examines the relationship between psychological distance and system justification through the lens of the Construal Level Theory. In three experimental studies, we investigated whether and how psychological distance shapes the salience of different levels of social identity relevant to system-justifying tendencies. In Study 1, we investigated the moderating effect of psychological distance on the relationship between membership in different gender-based groups and system justification in the context of gender inequality. In Study 2, we investigated the influence of psychological distance on the extent to which individuals with opposing political ideologies justify the system. Finally, Study 3 deepened Studies 1–2 by comparing the impact of lower- vs. higher-level identity threats as a function of psychological distance. Results suggest that psychological distance reduces system justification among typically high-justifying groups, leading to greater convergence across status and ideological divides. Implications, limitations and future directions are discussed.

Research has shown that speakers opposing political demonstrations can pathologize protesters campaigning against racial prejudice in order to justify racialized police profiling and brutality. This paper builds on these insights by exploring how right-wing political commentators reinforce the racist stereotype of violent Black people when discussing protests and police brutality in Black Lives Matter (BLM) debates. The dataset includes two debates drawn from Conservative Talk Radio and The Candace Owen Show, where issues concerning anti-Black racism in the United States were discussed—including racialized police brutality and BLM demonstrations. Using discursive and rhetorical psychology, we show how far-right commentators managed their (arguably racist) identities by employing ‘rioter’ categories against the BLM movement. We demonstrate that far-right commentators used anti-protest rhetoric and anti-Black racist tropes to portray BLM activists as uncivilized and violent rioters. Doing so portrayed the BLM movement as using anti-racism as an ulterior motive to enact violence which also downplayed racialized police brutality. This study shows how anti-protest rhetoric and anti-Black stereotypes overlap when right-wing speakers undermine attempts to challenge systemic racism. Black people and protesters are discriminated against in similar ways; both are characterized as violent and uncivilized when they mobilize against structural oppression and inequality.

Psychology has rendered capitalism invisible, treating individualism as cultural inheritance rather than a response to contemporary economic conditions. Building on my recent theoretical framework (Bettache, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 29, 215, 2024), this article explores how capitalism functions as a missing link in psychology—an overlooked generative mechanism that shapes the phenomena we study. Three ‘capitalist syndromes’—Gain Primacy Syndrome (perpetual accumulation as life orientation), Zero-Sum Rivalry Syndrome (competitive ethos eroding social bonds) and Ownership Syndrome (possessive identity formation)—interact recursively to generate a self-enhancement agenda we recognize as individualism. This framework reinterprets established findings, from the correlation between economic development and individualism to social class differences in self-concept, as responses to political-economic structures rather than ancient traditions. Making capitalism visible transforms psychological distress from individual pathology into rational responses to structural dysfunction, opening possibilities for interventions that address root causes rather than merely helping individuals cope with harmful conditions.

Social psychological research typically focuses on promoting peace between groups in conflict by fostering intergroup harmony through prejudice reduction or advancing social justice through collective action. Unfortunately, these investigations rarely consider the mainstream discursive structures and epistemic engagement that normalize collective ethnic/racial violence. We addressed this gap with two mixed-method (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) studies in two contexts (Turkey and the United States), utilizing decolonial frameworks informed by liberation psychology, critical race theory and privileged ethnic/racial (Turkishness and White racial) contracts. Comparative analysis of meta-representations of peace among Turks (Study 1; N = 116) and White Americans (Study 2; N = 151) exposed the overlapping (i.e., negative peace and reliance on the nation-state order) and divergent (i.e., assimilative inclusion and neoliberal individuality) elements of privileged epistemic engagement with peace that align with Turkishness and White racial contracts, perpetuating collective violence. Furthermore, both Turks' and White Americans' ethnic/racial identity endorsement predicted higher perceptions of the state/military contribution to peace, suggesting the role of racial privilege in maintaining systemic violence. To our knowledge, this work is the first social psychological investigation of the Turkishness contract and the comparative analysis of privileged meta-representations of peace.

Friendship is a common and complex social bond. Among friendship practices yet to be fully understood are group- versus dyadic-oriented friendship styles, or whether people socialize with one versus multiple friends at a time. We report two studies comparing friendship styles and relational mobility among 1674 young adults (18–35 years old) in Japan and the United Kingdom. Respondents from both countries completed the Friendship Habits Questionnaire, a new measure of dyadic- versus group-oriented friendship styles. Participants also estimated their friendship group size and time spent in friendship groups versus dyads, and completed a scale of relational mobility. Participants' group-oriented friendship style, assessed with the Friendship Habits Questionnaire, was associated with larger friendship groups and more time spent in groups, rather than dyads of friends. Compared to Japanese, participants from the United Kingdom had more group-oriented friendship styles and were more relationally mobile. Moreover, group-oriented friendship styles were associated with higher relational mobility. These findings provide insights into models of friendship and social relationships promoted across diverse cultural settings.