British Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) refers to an adherence to conventional values and authorities with the power to penalize groups that are perceived to challenge the cohesion of ingroup norms. Correspondingly, RWA has repeatedly been linked to negative perceptions of minoritized groups, such as refugees or religious minorities. To investigate whether and how sociocultural factors add to and moderate how RWA influences perceptions that minoritized groups pose a threat (i.e. threat perceptions), we examined (a) the value of RWA, religiosity and perceived societal marginalization in predicting these threat perceptions across countries, (b) potential moderating effects of individual- and country-level religiosity and marginalization on the RWA-threat link and (c) the robustness of cross-sectional findings when daily threat perceptions were assessed longitudinally. We used cross-sectional survey data from Germany N = 1896; Study (1) and Europe N = 3227; Study (2) and global cross-sectional and longitudinal daily diary data N = 3154 individuals; N >52,447 assessments; N = 41 countries; Study (3). Our studies point to the significance of contextual conditions and the generalizability of cross-sectional findings to day-to-day assessments of threat perceptions.

Knowledge production on marginalized identities is frequently shaped by epistemic violence, which limits both the scope and methodologies of research. One example of this is the case of Kurdish identity in Turkey, where we find that methodological and epistemic problems are evident particularly in social psychological research. To summarize social psychological studies on Kurdishness, Kurdish identity and conflict in Turkey we've conducted a systematic review that includes a total of 63 studies on topics related to Kurdishness. We utilize qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012) to address: (1) whether samples in the studies in our review represent Kurds, (2) which topics the studies mostly focus on, (3) how Kurdish identity and Kurds as a group are conceptualized and (4) how the Kurdish issue is conceptualized. We discuss our findings in light of epistemic violence and methodological nationalism and identify the key gaps in the literature and offer a critical, inclusive understanding of the social psychological studies on Kurdish identity and state violence in Turkey.

Degrowth-oriented climate change mitigation policies offer inspiring possibilities for future societies. However, they require radical change to individual and collective behaviours; and research has not yet fully addressed how people may anticipate future loss and threat when confronted with such policies. This study proposes a twofold examination of anticipated reactions to pro-environmental degrowth-oriented minority influence. First, we conducted a qualitative study of 21 semi-structured interviews. Both thematic analysis and consensual approach methodologies were adopted to explore emerging trends in the perception of a minority call to reduce human overpopulation, consumption of natural resources, and infrastructural incursions into nature. Results revealed three recurring themes: loss of individual freedom, fear of extremism, and loss of comfort. Second, a quantitative study (N = 488) followed up these results by testing the hypothesis that anticipated loss would be associated to a gendered perception of threat. In line with our conjecture regarding the relationship between policy change, status quo preservation, and gender, moderation analysis showed that men reported more threat than women, the more perceptions of degrowth-oriented policies were anticipated as a loss. Implications for a future-forming approach of research and policy making are discussed considering perceiving radical pro-environmental change as a threatening loss.

Social psychological research on race and racism has shown that claims about racism are not always accepted or received as valid reports. In this paper, I offer racial epistemics as one mechanism by which race-talk takes place. I examine how ascribing category-bound entitlements to experiential or other knowledge about racism is variously realised and complicated in the production of claims about racism. Through examining news media accounts where Black persons were invited to talk about their experiences of racism in India, I show that despite ascribing a privileged epistemic position to Black persons, recipients (interviewers and other panellists) could make salient epistemic entitlements to commonsense, specialised, or other forms of (racial) knowledge in collaboratively establishing, confirming or correcting, and challenging claims about racism in India. The findings are discussed in relation to the broader understanding of racism in social psychology. The data are in Indian English.

Over the last two decades, Social Network Analysis (SNA) has become a standard tool in various social science disciplines. In social psychology, however, the use of SNA methodology remains scarce. This research identifies gaps in SNA use in Social Psychology and offers pathways for its further development. It reviews all empirical papers using SNA published in high-ranking social psychology journals over the last three decades. Findings reveal that SNA has been used across striking diversity of fields and subdomains central to the discipline, confirming its relevance for any field in Social Psychology in which the role of interpersonal or intergroup relationships is central to understand psychological and behavioural outcomes. However, the use of SNA in Social Psychology has been mostly limited to non-experimental and non-longitudinal studies, using student samples and with a focus on basic measurements of network structures such as density and centrality. The contributions of SNA to the understanding of psychosocial mechanisms have therefore remained modest. We propose several strategies by which such gaps can be filled in future research and the full potential of SNA for social psychology realized.

Collective continuity, the perception of the ingroup as an enduring temporal entity, has been linked with ingroup favouritism, negative attitudes and prejudice towards the outgroups. However, previous studies focused mainly on the perceived connection between the past and present of the group. We proposed that the expectation of a strong similarity between the present and future of the national ingroup, future collective continuity (FCC), positively affects present intergroup relations construals. In line with the hypotheses, Study 1 (N = 202) showed a positive relation between FCC and prosocial outgroup beliefs (i.e., foreigner-related). Study 2 (N = 200) suggested that FCC negatively affects prejudice towards immigrants through lower levels of collective angst. Study 3 (N = 250; preregistered) provided experimental evidence that FCC decreased outgroup prejudice and anxiety and increased collective action intentions through collective angst. Furthermore, a moderated mediation model revealed that these effects held only for individuals who identified with their nation more. Our work suggests that believing that the ingroup will not significantly change in the future might make individuals more open towards outgroup members in the present.

The ways people imagine possible futures with artificial intelligence (AI) affects future world-making—how the future is produced through cultural propagation, design, engineering, policy, and social interaction—yet there has been little empirical study of everyday people's expectations for AI futures. We addressed this by analysing two waves (2021 and 2023) of USA nationally representative data from the Artificial Intelligence, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) survey on the public's forecasts about an imagined future world with widespread AI sentience (total N = 2401). Average responses to six forecasts (exploiting AI labour, treating AI cruelly, using AI research subjects, AI welfare, AI rights advocacy, AI unhappiness reduction) showed mixed expectations for humanity's future with AI. Regressions of these forecasts on demographics such as age, the year the data was collected, individual psychological differences (the tendency to anthropomorphise, mind perception, techno-animist beliefs), and attitudes towards current AI (perceived threat and policy support) found significant effects on all forecasts from mind perception, anthropomorphism, and political orientation, and on five forecasts from techno-animism. The realized future that comes to pass will depend on these dynamic social psychological factors, consequent changes in expectations, and how those expectations shape acts of world-making.

Previous research on the link between temperature and prosociality has produced mixed findings. A recent meta-analysis focusing on laboratory-based research concluded that the effect was null, a conclusion that was subject to low ecological validity. This paper complements the discussion by investigating the link between ambient temperature and three indicators of real-life prosociality in 164 regions over 14 years. The between-regional comparison probes the relationship over a wide range of thermal conditions, whereas the within-regional temporal comparison draws this literature to the real-life problem of global warming. Bayesian analysis indicates that temperature is linked to helping strangers, but not volunteerism or charity donation. Hotter regions have more helping respondents than colder regions, and as a region warms, it also records more helping respondents. The positive link between temperature and helping is in line with social thermoregulation theory, but it is also subject to alternative explanations from a cultural perspective and sociological perspective. We conclude that it is unrealistic to expect temperature to have the same effect on all prosocial acts without considering contextual factors and the underlying mechanisms. Our findings call for a nuanced view concerning the effect of temperature on prosociality, which awaits verification by rigorous research designs.

The burgeoning progress of cutting-edge technology paradoxically evokes nostalgia. How does this emotion influence responses to innovative technology, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI)? We hypothesized that two pathways operate concurrently. First, by enhancing connection with significant others, nostalgia constitutes a psychological resource that supports exploration of technological innovation, thereby promoting positive responses to AI. Second, by reinforcing scepticism toward change, nostalgia heightens uncertainty about innovative technology, thereby fostering negative responses to AI. Three preregistered experiments, testing participants (ΣN = 1397) across cultures (China, UK, USA), supported the two pathways. Nostalgia influenced responses to ChatGPT via two opposing serial pathways (Experiment 1). Further, social connectedness bolstered favourable responses to AI avatars via increased technology exploration (Experiment 2), whereas scepticism about change reduced favourable responses to companion robots via increased technology uncertainty (Experiment 3). This dualistic role of nostalgia can be harnessed to sustain new technology or instill caution for its risks.

The climate and ecological crisis poses an unprecedented challenge, with scientists playing a critical role in how society understands and responds. This study examined how 27 environmentally concerned scientists from 11 countries construct the future in the context of climate change, applying a critical discursive psychology analysis. The degree to which the future is constructed as predetermined or transformable impacts both the urgency and scope of proposed actions. Along a temporal spectrum from fixed and inevitable to contingent and transformable, scientists drew upon shared discourses of social and ecological collapse. The degree of fixity or openness in scientists' talk about the future shaped the range of arguments available, demonstrating varying levels of argumentative flexibility when framing solutions to climate change. At the fixed end, the future was presented as beyond human intervention, echoing doomist discourse. By contrast, more open framings presented collapse not as inevitable but as transformable through human agency. Here, collapse discourses were presented as warnings, motivating arguments that drew upon a wide array of strategies from collective action to technological innovation. These constructions of the future highlight scientists' role in shaping societal discourse and framing what actions are seen as viable or necessary to address the climate crisis.