British Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

The current research examines perceived ingroup strengths and their relationship with collective efficacy, generalized power, and resistance among Black Americans. Two studies investigated how different perceptions of ingroup strengths (e.g. collective resilience, ingroup solidarity, intergroup coalitions, ingroup resistance, and intergroup respect) were associated with generalized power perceptions, perceived collective efficacy, and resistance behaviours. Study 1 demonstrated that collective resilience, ingroup solidarity, and intergroup coalitions predicted increased collective efficacy, which in turn predicted organized resistance but not everyday resistance. Perceived control over resources and influence predicted generalized power but not resistance behaviours. Study 2 extended these findings by including perceived ingroup resistance and intergroup respect. Ingroup resistance and intergroup respect predicted collective efficacy, which mediated their effects on both organized and everyday resistance. Unlike in Study 1, collective resilience, ingroup solidarity, and intergroup coalitions had no significant effects on collective efficacy in Study 2, though ingroup solidarity directly predicted organized resistance. Generalized power perceptions were linked to lower everyday resistance. These findings highlight the complex interplay between different perceived ingroup strengths and their distinct roles in fostering collective efficacy and resistance against racial oppression.

Understanding potential costs of social identity switching contributes to our knowledge of how people manage their various group memberships in a fast-paced and interconnected world. Recent research demonstrates that people can switch between demographic social identities seamlessly. The current studies advance this research by (1) moving beyond demographic identities to identities that are not perceptually distinguishable, (2) developing a new identity switching paradigm based on an implicit computational linguistic style measure of salience and (3) including self-report measures of salience, task difficulty and performance. In two within-subjects studies (N = 211; N = 220), a short writing task was used to prompt a switch from participants' parent identity to their feminist identity or a repetition of the feminist identity. Findings from the implicit measure revealed no identity activation ‘cost’ in the switch relative to the repeat condition, consistent with previous findings for demographic identities. In contrast, we found evidence for lower self-reported salience of the feminist identity in the switch compared to the repeat condition. Furthermore, Study 2 found little difference in self-rated performance or task difficulty between conditions, indicating that switching identities does not affect self-rated performance. The results illustrate a new paradigm for investigating social identity switching.

We investigated the preregistered hypothesis that an optimistic bias in updating beliefs about climate change (i.e., integrating good news more than bad news) cross-sectionally (N_{Study 1} = 109) and longitudinally (N_{Study 2} = 407) predicts self-reported pro-environmental behaviour (PEB). To test this, we employed an experimental task in which participants were presented with multiple climate change scenarios and asked to update their beliefs after receiving scientific evidence. Additionally, we investigated whether biased belief updating and PEB could be altered by brief experimental interventions providing information on different aspects of climate change. Results show that optimistically biased belief updating did not predict PEB cross-sectionally, but did predict PEB 4 weeks later, while controlling for baseline levels of PEB. The experimental interventions did not significantly alter belief updating or increase PEB, although there were significant gender differences. The results suggest that an optimistic bias in belief updating longitudinally predicts low engagement in PEB, possibly because selectively integrating good news over bad news reduces the perceived urgency to take action. Yet the effect may be small and detectable only in sufficiently large samples. The results also indicate that it is challenging to modify this bias. Implications for research on attitude change, social cognition and PEB are discussed.

Across both wealthy and non-wealthy nations, research finds public support for wealthy countries taking greater climate action. However, it is unclear whether this is driven by a belief that wealthier nations have greater economic capacity to respond or a greater historic responsibility for causing climate change. We explore this idea in the context of climate aid policies, which direct support to those most affected by climate change. In a correlational study (N = 292, United Kingdom), individuals who believe their nation has greater historic responsibility for climate change showed stronger support for their country providing climate aid. Two experiments provide conflicting findings. In Study 2 (N = 366, United Kingdom), we experimentally manipulated national wealth and historical emissions using a fictional nation paradigm and found that wealth was the stronger predictor of support for their country providing climate aid. In Study 3 (N = 797, South Africa) we manipulated these factors about participants' own nation and found that neither predicted support for climate aid policy, but both predicted greater support for their country implementing climate mitigation policies. Although higher capacity and responsibility increased support for mitigation policies, further efforts are needed to understand their role in shaping support for climate aid.

Many descendants of migrants feel belonging to both the national group and the ethnic minority group of their family (dual identity), but they often experience that majority members see them only as ethnic minority members. This could hamper their potential to improve intergroup relations. Because social networks tend to be homogeneous, having friends from a particular group could be interpreted as a signal of someone's group belonging. Our research advances the field by examining how the ethnic minority/national majority composition of the friendship network of descendants of migrants may affect the national/dual ascriptions they receive. In two vignette studies, we manipulated the composition of the friend group, using names or AI-generated faces of fictitious Moroccan-Dutch individuals, and examined how this affected ascriptions and stereotypical evaluations given by a representative sample of Dutch majority members. We find mixed results; having Dutch friends increased Dutch ascriptions and having mixed friends increased dual ascriptions when participants read text. However, these effects were attenuated when targets' faces were categorized. This suggests that information about phenotype limits the effects of friend group composition. Future research should examine these dynamics in real-world environments where phenotype and social cues coexist.

The contact hypothesis stipulates that contact between social groups can reduce intergroup prejudice, implying that contact changes people (i.e., within-person effects). However, recent research suggests that more intergroup contact might simply be associated with less intergroup prejudice (i.e., between-person effects). We explore primary but also secondary contact effects, whereby contact with one outgroup theoretically improves attitudes towards other uninvolved groups. White, heterosexual Americans' contact with Black and gay people was assessed at four timepoints, 3 weeks apart (T1 N = 456; 51.6% women, M_age = 46.71, SD = 15.30); multilevel modelling parsed between- from within-person contact effects on intergroup outcomes (attitudes, humanization, collective action intentions). We found consistent evidence of predicted primary contact effects, reflecting both within- and between-subjects relations. For secondary contact, between-subjects gay-to-Black associative generalization was observed: greater contact (quantity and quality) with gay people was observed among those expressing more positive Black intergroup outcomes. Within-subjects secondary effects were primarily observed in terms of assessing contact quantity, where more contact with Black people predicted more positive gay intergroup outcomes downstream (i.e., Black-to-gay process generalization). Contrary to recent concerns, the current study promisingly shows that contact with a primary outgroup can change people in ways that generate positive outcomes towards primary and (some) secondary outgroups.

Governments around the world fear a loss of social cohesion and a risk of harm to individuals and democratic processes that stem from politicization, polarization and radicalization. We argue that these processes of social influence provide the motivation for—but are not sufficient for—mobilization (the behaviour of engaging in collective action). To be able to collectively act, people require the capability and resources to do so, which can be developed during an activation process. We clarify the common and distinct aspects of each process so the common drivers, but unique effects, can be conceptualized and operationalized by policymakers, practitioners and researchers who wish to understand democratic resilience.

We analyzed the effect of collective efficacy on mobilizing allies for Roma rights and the role of legitimizing ideologies and perceived discrimination as moderators. In an online experiment, pooling two samples of non-Roma Hungarians (n = 397) and Spaniards (n = 339), participants were randomly assigned to a high (vs. low) efficacy condition and reported their perceived collective efficacy, collective action intentions, and participation for supporting Roma. Pooled analyses showed that participants were more willing to take action in the high (vs. low) efficacy condition, although meritocracy beliefs moderated the effects. In a second study in Slovakia (n = 454), with a control condition, we found indirect effects of the manipulation of collective efficacy, supporting the idea that decreasing perceived collective efficacy predicts lower collective action intentions and participation. In a third study in Hungary (n = 382), we disentangled collective efficacy from social norms and found indirect effects via perceived collective efficacy. Participants in the low efficacy condition (vs. high efficacy or control) perceived less collective efficacy as allies, which in turn was associated with lower collective action. We discuss the conceptualization of collective efficacy in experimental studies and its implications for the mobilization of equality.

Emotional responses to anthropogenic climate change have attracted significant attention. People negotiate emotions through culturally available frameworks. This study, based on 18 focus group discussions, explores in detail three instances of how Norwegian youth engage affectively with climate change. Utilising affect and discourse theory, we conceptualise affective dilemmas as conflicts arising from contradictory expectations made available through discourse. These dilemmas are negotiated through affective-discursive practices. Through a discourse-oriented analysis, we illustrate how ecological distress is interpreted, enacted, and resisted. We identified three key affective-discursive dilemmas: (a) climate anxiety as voluntary versus involuntary, (b) fear as motivation versus a barrier for climate action, and (c) responsibility for climate actions versus self-care. Participants engaged in practices such as (a) purposeful engagement with climate anxiety, (b) detachment from ecological distress, and (c) self-care and staying positive. The study contributes to social psychology by applying affective-discursive theory to understand how youth make sense of and use eco-emotion categories in dialogue. It empirically shows how discussions on ecological issues reflect cultural expectations of self-care and positivity and individualised emotional management. The analysis highlights how socio-cultural imperatives shape youths' emotional responses, which may sideline collective climate action and favour psychological solutions to ecological crises.

The stigma of incarceration contributes to the global reoffending crisis and remains a barrier to reintegration into receiving communities. Recent research suggests that the key to solving this problem may lie in shared transformative experiences. We tested whether the salience of such experiences can overcome stigma among members of receiving communities when they act as gatekeepers for formerly incarcerated persons seeking employment. Across four experimental studies with seven samples of US and UK nationals (N = 2091), we examined the conditions under which transformative experiences can lead to identity fusion, a powerful form of social bonding and contribute to hiring and optimism about reintegration among prospective employers. In six of seven samples, those who reported stronger transformative experiences of their own were more fused to a job applicant, which was linked to positive attitudes towards them and willingness to hire them. Effects of formerly incarcerated persons' experiences varied between national samples and experience contexts: American citizens were more receptive to experiences in prison, while British citizens were more influenced by sports experiences. These findings highlight the potency of transformative experiences to forge connective bridges to stigmatized groups, despite cultural differences in perceptions of relevant social cues about formerly incarcerated people.