Current research in ecological and social psychology最新文献

Refugees undergo traumatic events during the premigration and transit phases and also experience severe difficulties after resettlement in a new country, and they are therefore at high risk of developing mental health problems. The present studies examined if intergroup contact with members of the receiving society moderates these negative impacts on refugees’ mental health. Two studies with refugees in Switzerland (N = 262) revealed both buffering and exacerbating effects of intergroup contact. Having more Swiss friends was associated with a less negative relationship between postmigration living difficulties and mental health. Surprisingly, having more Swiss friends was also associated with a more negative relationship between traumatization and mental health. These results suggest that intergroup contact may help refugees adjust to the living conditions in the receiving society, but may pose a risk regarding trauma-related disorders.

The sense of feeling at home by people ‘on the move’ was inquired through an adaptation of the homemaking approach. Two groups of people who make their living by working in agricultural sites (internally mobile seasonal agricultural workers and internationally displaced migrant workers) were reached out to examine associations between feeling at home, social interactions, perceived degradation, and subjective well-being. Results showed that both worker groups (seasonal and displaced workers) felt at home despite precarious working and living conditions. Expectedly, feeling at home was predicted significantly by social interactions with others; however, the type of interactions also determined the direction of the effects. While within-group interaction (binding ties) predicted feeling at home positively, across-groups interaction (bridging ties) predicted it negatively for both groups. Additionally, perceived degradation and subjective well-being moderated the effect of feeling at home partially: the effect emerged for a cross-groups but not for within-group interactions. In conclusion, the notion of binding and bridging ties could help to attain an increased explanatory power rather than contact theory alone in understanding the patterns of feeling at home.

Conspiracy theorists’ unpopular opinions likely make them more apprehensive about interactions with others, frustrating their need to belong. Therefore, they may be susceptible to believing misinformation because evidence that others share their beliefs provides “social proof” that they can expect interactions with others to be positive and rewarding. The present research examined whether alternatively fulfilling the need for social connection through romantic relationships could protect conspiracy theorists against COVID-19 misinformation. In a 3-week daily diary study (N = 555), experimental participants implicitly learned to associate their romantic partners with positive experiences (by repeatedly pairing their partner with highly positive and approachable stimuli, McNulty et al., 2017). We then assessed how much participants trusted individuals they might normally distrust, as a manipulation check, and how much participants tuned their daily personal beliefs and behavior to match the U.S. public's daily susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation. Participants high on conspiratorial thinking trusted fellow community members more in the experimental than control condition. Participants high on conspiratorial thinking in the experimental condition were also less likely to treat the U.S. public's greater daily susceptibility to COVID-19 misinformation as proof that they could discount the virus. The present findings suggest that rewarding romantic connections might be leveraged to limit conspiracy theorists’ susceptibility to believing public skepticism about COVID-19.

A national sample from Norway (N = 2001) was asked to report how much they worry about climate change (closed-ended question), and then to write down their reasons for (not) being worried (open-ended question). Answers to the open-ended question were content analyzed and compared across responses to the closed-ended question. The results showed that the most common reason for being at least somewhat worried was concern about the consequences of climate change. Respondents reporting high worry were in particular more likely to bring up consequences for humans than those reporting medium worry. Respondents who reported low worry referred to a broader range of reasons in their answers, such as believing in natural rather than human causes of climate change, expressing a sense of optimism towards potential solutions, or being discontent with political measures or public discourse on climate change. These findings add novel insights into understanding the subjective meaning associated with the degree to which people report being worried about climate change.

This essay contends that contemporary research should pay greater attention to three fundamentally human characteristics of dehumanization. First, we argue that scholars need to better consider and analyze the ideological context of dehumanization, specifically the multiple meanings that diverse cultural conceptions of the human and the dehumanized impart to dehumanizing concepts or attitudes. Second, we urge a greater emphasis on how social relationships influence dehumanization, recognizing that people are entangled in complex and intersecting social identities, relationships, and histories that affect how they respond to the dehumanizing intentions of others. Third, we argue that the institutional context of dehumanization must be investigated and theorized, as dehumanization’s effects are rarely the result of atomized individuals reacting to diffuse dehumanizing rhetoric but rather the result of collective action within more or less formal organizations. These tasks can be accomplished through increased interdisciplinarity, thereby enhancing the insights and applicability of dehumanization research to the numerous forms of conflict, brutality, and extremism that are so frequently associated with dehumanization.

We examine Australians’ preferences for resettling people displaced by climate change from overseas (‘climate refugees’), from within Australia (‘internal climate refugees’), and people displaced by war. Across three studies (Study 1 N = 467, Study 2 N = 1679, Study 3 N = 492), our findings reveal greater support for resettling refugee groups already residing in the nation: internal climate refugees and refugees of war. Although support for all three groups was reasonably high, participants were consistently and significantly less supportive of resettling international climate refugees. Both groups of international refugees (relocating due to war or climate changes) were viewed as posing greater threat than internally displaced Australians. Endorsement of right-wing ideological attitudes predicted lower support for climate refugees, which was mediated by symbolic and realistic threat perceptions. These findings highlight the potential of ideology, economic and cultural concerns to undermine support for resettling those displaced by climate change.

Inequality affects how people make social decisions. Laboratory research has shown that when income inequality is simulated using cooperative economic games, groups with higher inequality often generate less wealth overall, with poorer group members receiving the worst outcomes. This study links these experimental findings to real world inequality and applies a decision model to explain the effects in terms of social decision-making dynamics. Using a pre-existing dataset from 255 groups playing a public goods game in thirteen economically diverse societies, we show that in nations with higher inequality, groups contribute less (Research question (RQ) 1). Further, we find that higher inequality is associated with lower optimism regarding others’ contributions at the outset of the game and increased sensitivity to others’ contributions, which accelerates the decay of cooperation (RQ2). These effects might be explained by national differences in social capital as expressed by trust and adherence to civic norms (RQ3). Using the European Values Survey, we replicate the negative association between inequality and contributions to a public good by examining national volunteering rates (RQ4).

An accurate understanding of pro-environmental behavior is a key research topic within environmental psychology and a prerequisite for an adequate psychological response to environmental issues. In this study, we present an experiment testing the degree to which decision makers’ pro-environmental behavior is “coherently arbitrary”. Coherent arbitrariness refers to the phenomenon that behavior in experimental models may only appear rational, as if supported by fixed preferences, despite being affected by arbitrary factors unrelated to preferences. Using the Carbon Emission Task, the present research extends this behavioral economic finding to pro-environmental behavior research. We find that (a) objectively identical trade-offs are evaluated substantially differently depending on the relative rather than absolute price level of comparative choices, and (b) biospheric values correlate robustly with behavior across conditions. This result may also help to explain findings documenting a motivation-impact gap in pro-environmental behavior, as people may find it difficult to objectively and globally assess the costs and benefits associated with their choices.

The psychological construct of nature connectedness has been consistently linked to well-being and pro-nature behavioral outcomes, with a sense of self considered important for individuals to feel like they are part of nature. Interventions focusing on noticing good things in nature and the Five Pathways Framework have been utilized to help people reconnect with the more-than-human world although they have often overlooked incorporating nature within the self-concept and emphasizing similarity with nature despite its importance for the construct. We developed and tested a related, but alternative, approach to previous interventions to focus on similarity and sense of self through anthropomorphism: that of mindfully identifying how one's own character strengths are exhibited in nature. A Structured Tabular Thematic Analysis was conducted on 747 written observations (n = 93) of shared character strengths in nature. Five themes were generated: (1) finding representations of the self through seasonal change; (2) identifying with weather and the character strengths it possesses; (3) experiencing awe and wonder in nature through shared character strengths; (4) nature as an honest or dishonest entity; and (5) the inability to find similarity between oneself and nature. These themes provide insight into the ability of the intervention to enable participants to find a sense of self in the rest of nature when identifying shared strengths. Nature connectedness pathways of meaning, compassion, and beauty were also evident in the observations. Implications for using a character strengths-based approach to boost nature connectedness through a shared sense of self and similarity are discussed. The identification of personal character strengths shared with nature offers a new and meaningful way to reconnect with the more-than-human world to which we belong.

Messages about what others typically do are increasingly used to encourage sustainable behaviors. The effectiveness of such social norm interventions hinges on selecting an appropriate referent group. However, it is unclear which characteristics make norm referents effective. In a field experiment on energy conservation, in a non-WEIRD and under-studied setting, we examine the role of two referent characteristics: group identification and physical proximity. Students in university dorms (N = 584) were randomly assigned to a control group or to one of two treatment groups, in which they were given social norm information that varied only in whether it was about a group with whom they were likely to identify or a physically proximal group with whom they identify less. Tracking electricity meter reading data in the weeks before and after the intervention, we found that social norm information about the high identification group led to an 11 percent reduction in energy consumption relative to a control group. In the physical proximity condition, we did not find an overall reduction in energy use relative to controls, although the effect of the intervention was significantly moderated by identification with the referent group. We conclude that identification with a group is important for the efficacy of social norms interventions in this setting, and that physical proximity alone may be insufficient for an effective norm referent.