British Journal of Social Psychology最新文献

Climate change is a significant and urgent challenge faced by humanity, yet the widespread dissemination of misinformation hampers progress in combating it. While previous research shows that false information about the scientific consensus on climate change can shape beliefs and attitudes, its effect on behavioural intentions remains less understood. To examine this, two experiments in Spain (n = 673) and Ecuador (n = 365) tested the impact of denialist versus confirmatory or neutral messages about the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change on the intention to take pro-environmental actions. Moreover, we explored the moderating roles of gender and ideological orientation, which are key factors in climate scepticism. In both countries, right-wing men who received consensus-denying messages showed fewer intentions to perform pro-environmental behaviours compared to those who received consensus-confirming messages. Consensus misinformation did not appear to have a consistent impact on women across ideological lines or on left-wing men. These findings highlight the urgent need to develop communication interventions targeted at specific demographic subgroups to counteract climate misinformation and promote pro-environmental actions.

People's perceptions of social classes may differ from scholars' definitions. We used a mixed method, sensitive to context, to examine lay perceptions of social classes in Spain. In Study 1 (N = 90), we conducted qualitative interviews to examine how people spontaneously characterize wealth-based groups. Participants identified between two and seven groups. We grouped these into five main analytical categories for analytical purposes: poor, lower and working classes, middle classes, upper classes and rich and beyond. These groups were described based on material characteristics, traits and culture. Positive traits were mainly associated with non-wealthy groups, especially the lower and working classes, while negative traits were associated with wealthy groups. In Studies 2 (N = 251) and 3 (N = 190), we extended these findings quantitatively, showing that positive stereotypes were associated with non-wealthy groups, whereas negative stereotypes were associated with wealthy groups. Using psychometric networks, non-wealthy groups were ascribed more positive traits—with some ambivalences—while wealthy groups were mainly described using negative traits. We confirmed this pattern of results through meta-analyses. These findings highlight the importance of lay perspectives in theoretical frameworks and the need for context-sensitive approaches in analysing social class representations.

Victims have the prerogative to withhold forgiveness. However, offenders who apologize may believe that they have acted correctly and can feel wronged by victims who refuse to forgive in return. Indeed, apologetic offenders can perceive victims' non-forgiveness as violating an apology-forgiveness reciprocity norm and as a threat to their own sense of status/power, which makes offenders perceive themselves as victims, and less willing to engage in further reconciliatory behaviour. The present research investigates whether offenders' trait empathy can qualify these destructive responses to non-forgiveness. We originally theorized that a greater capacity to empathize with victims may help offenders better understand victims' non-forgiveness and react less negatively to it. Across three studies (combined N = 1000), we find evidence of the contrary—offenders who have high trait empathy tend to react more negatively to non-forgiving victims. Our findings suggest this is because empathic offenders believe that victims should reciprocate their reparatory action with an empathic response. This presents a conundrum for repair processes that promote empathy.

Across three studies, we examined the associations between group identification, identity fusion and pro-group action in national (Study 1: Palestinians), religious (Study 2: Muslims in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks) and non-political (Study 3: football fandom) contexts. We first tested models in which group identification was related to pro-in-group outcomes, followed by models incorporating identity fusion to assess its additional associations. Group identification was consistently associated with peaceful pro-group action, while identity fusion was more strongly linked to violent pro-group action across all contexts. In Study 1, identity fusion was negatively associated with endorsement of a peaceful solution, a pattern not observed in the other studies. In the football fandom context, identity fusion was positively associated with both peaceful and violent pro-group action, with a stronger association with peaceful action. These findings suggest that identity fusion and group identification, while related, capture different psychological processes relevant to collective action. The study extends research on identity fusion to new cultural contexts and highlights the importance of examining identification processes in diverse real-world contexts.

Two cross-sectional studies conducted in Chile (Study 1, N = 587) and Italy (Study 2, N = 438) investigated the action-bound role of perceived efficacy in explaining the association between politicized (Studies 1 and 2) and non-politicized identity (Study 2) with normative and non-normative collective action (CA) intentions. We comparatively explored different efficacy perceptions: internal locus of control (i.e., individual agency), group efficacy (i.e., ingroup agency), normative and non-normative collective action efficacy (i.e., action efficacy). Both identity types were positively associated with normative CA intentions via increased perceptions of group and normative CA efficacy (Studies 1–2). Regarding non-normative CA intentions, beyond observing positive associations with politicized identity via increased group (Study 1) and non-normative CA efficacy (Study 1–2), we also found a negative indirect effect of politicized identity via increased normative CA efficacy (Study 1) and a negative indirect effect of non-politicized identity via decreased non-normative CA efficacy (Study 2). These findings highlight the key role of efficacy perceptions in translating identity into action, emphasizing both group agency and the perceived efficacy of specific forms of action. Moreover, they suggest that the type of social identity can promote or inhibit more radical forms of CA, shaping pathways to social change.

Intergroup contact theory and research argue and demonstrate that intergroup relations, even in post-war societies, could be improved by individuals' positive contact experiences with outgroup members. This study extends this argument by investigating whether post-war reconciliation is determined by the amount and quality of individuals' personal contact experiences with members of former adversary groups (individual-level contact) and/or by the amount and quality of contact that occurs within the context in which they live (context-level contact). Using multilevel analyses among large representative youth samples from ethnic majorities (N = 2758) and minorities (N = 1751) nested across 40 administrative regions in five post-war countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina; North Macedonia; Kosova; Montenegro; Serbia), we provide substantive evidence that context-level contact is a stronger determinant of reconciliation, surpassing the influence of individual-level contact. Evidence from this research demonstrates the critical influence of the social context, particularly the amount and quality of intergroup contact that occurs within individuals' immediate surroundings, on post-war reconciliation, and provides important guidelines for policies and interventions fostering positive intergroup relations.

Kende, J., Baysu, G., Van Laar, C., & Phalet, K. (2021), Majority group belonging without minority group distancing? Minority experiences of intergroup contact and inequality. British Journal of Social Psychology, 60: 121–145. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12382

Figures 1–3 were presented in the wrong order in the original publication. The labels and captions in the figures are correct, and so is the description of the results, but the description of the results does not correspond to the numbering of the figures.

The results illustrated in Figure 1 on p. 12 (Attitudes towards the minority group at low and high individual perceptions of unfair treatment and low and high majority contact) are described in the text on p. 13 (Examining this interaction further (see Figure 2), more majority contact predicted significantly less positive attitudes towards the minority group at higher levels of perceived unfairness (p = .003), yet minority attitudes were unrelated to majority contact when minority youth perceived less unfair treatment (p = .526). Likewise, when minority youth perceived more unfair treatment, their attitudes were significantly less positive only at higher levels of majority contact (p = .003), yet at lower levels of majority contact minority attitudes were unrelated to perceived unfair treatment (p = .649), as being illustrated in Figure 2. Correctly, it should be described as illustrated Figure 1.

Similarly, the results illustrated in Figure 2 on p. 13 (Minority identification at low and high perceptions of unfair treatment and low and high majority contact) are described in the text on p. 14. (The same interaction was also significant on strength of minority identification (see Table 2). As Figure 3 shows, more majority contact was significantly related to weaker minority identification at higher levels of perceived unfair treatment in school (p < .001), yet majority contact was unrelated to minority identification when minority students perceived less unfairness (p = .182). Also, at high levels of majority contact, majority contact was related to weaker minority identification, although this association did not quite reach significance (p = .070).as being illustrated in Figure 3 instead of Figure 1.

Finally, the results illustrated in Figure 3 on p. 14 (Attitudes towards the minority group at low and high individual experiences of discrimination and low and high majority contact) are described in the text on p. 12. Moreover, in line with H2 on minority group distancing, there was a significant two-way interaction of positive majority contact with individual discrimination experiences on attitudes towards the minority group (see Table S3 in Appendix S1). To interpret the interaction, we tested simple effects of majority contact at high versus low levels of experienced discrimination, and of discrimination at high versus low levels of contact (-1 SD) with the Wald te