Current research in ecological and social psychology最新文献

COVID-19 is a global event that has impacted every individual on earth in some way and can be viewed as a mortality salience trigger. Although there were reports of increased nature exposure across the world, research is needed to understand whether the pandemic event impacted the underlying psychology of the human-nature nexus. Given the likelihood of pandemics and environmental challenges increasing in frequency in the future, there is a need for a deeper understanding of how pandemics impact individuals’ relationship with the natural environment in South Africa. To achieve this, the study applied psychological types (grouping individuals based on homogeneity) to explore potential shifts as human nature is neither fixed, nor universal. The study asked: Given the multiple significant impacts of COVID-19 on the African continent, how have perceptions and attitudes towards the natural environment changed within and between types of individuals from 2016 (pre COVID) to 2021 (COVID) in South Africa? In a longitudinal, quantitative study, separate samples 721 in 2016 and 665 in 2021 were obtained. Participants in 2021 were grouped into the same six types using the same criteria, for comparison with the 2016 data. The results showed limited potential for pandemics to act as catalysts for long-term individual change towards increased pro-environmentalism. The study confirmed the main tenets of Terror Management Theory that individuals tend to be driven to uphold worldviews when confronted with mortality. Furthermore, there was a reduced experience of personal control over outcomes that increased reliance on sources of control outside the self as an attempt to buffer against mortality concerns. The study contributes towards Terror Management Theory's application during pandemics, and how that relates to individual environmental attitudes and perceptions.

Integration is often assumed to be a public good and both UK and devolved governments have developed refugee integration strategies to address this aspiration. Within these strategies the development of social bridges with members of the host society is seen as a key indicator of integration, however the local neighbourhood is often neglected in research. This paper reports the findings of a discursive psychological analysis of interviews with 19 refugees and asylum seekers about their integration in Wales, UK. It focuses on the ways in which participants discursively constructed accounts of their neighbourhood relationships. The analysis highlights the importance of looking at the ways in which place is characterised by refugees and asylum seekers and the implications that this has for the kind of person who does, or does not, belong in that place. We demonstrate that most participants constructed their accounts using a discourse of ‘just saying hi’ and suggest that in using such a repertoire participants went to rhetorical lengths to construct themselves as respecting the normative principles of interaction amongst neighbours. Participants lives were largely circumscribed within the home and neighbourhoods were positioned as banal spaces in which stability take precedence over closer relationships with neighbours. The findings suggest that asylum dispersal policy of accommodation on a ‘no-choice’ basis and the use of housing in ‘difficult to let’ areas may be actively impeding other policies aimed at refugee integration.

Recent research shows that increasing diversity due to immigration can lead members of dominant ethnic groups (e.g., Whites in America) to experience prototypicality threat – the concern that their claim to best represent their national identity may be lost. Here we examine the emotional and behavioral responses to prototypicality threat in the domain of politics. Across eight years, five studies, two nations, and four electoral contexts (White Americans’ support for Trump in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election; White Britons’ support for the 2016 Brexit Referendum; White Americans’ support for Congressional candidates in 2018 U.S. Midterm Election; and White Americans’ support for a fictitious Congressional candidate in the 2022 U.S. Midterm Election), we show that prototypicality threat explains support for nativist policies and candidates. Furthermore, when those high in prototypicality threat see their favored nativist politics as victorious, they report lower anxiety and threat after the election. By demonstrating the role of prototypicality threat in support for nativist politics specifically, this work helps us understand how people respond to broad societal issues and suggests novel strategies for addressing politics hostile to immigrants.

Promoting individual lifestyle changes towards pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) has been one of the key strategies for tackling the climate crisis adopted by governments. Messaging to promote PEBs has been used in different contexts – most notably home and workplace settings; however, the message phrasing, opportunities, and motivations for adopting these behaviours can differ between locations. In this study, from a sample of working people, we investigate the sources and themes of PEB messages they remember. We then classify these based on their underlying motivations (egoistic, altruistic or biospheric). We compare these messaging prompts to those PEBs actually tried by participants and the factors leading to their successful or failed adoptions related to institutional or societal norms. Finally we explore what motivates and supports the transfer of adopted contextual PEBs between home and work. Our results highlight that messaging triggering a diversity of motivations may lead to the greatest adoption rates. For transfer of actions to be successful between contexts, both infrastructure and behavioural norms need to receive support for PEB changes to become habitual and ubiquitous.

Across the world, many cultural and religious groups participate in collective deprivation rituals such as the Ramadan fast. It is not obvious why people willingly deny themselves sustenance for prolonged periods of time. Apart from the physical hardship, fasting may have psychological and behavioral consequences comparable to those associated with involuntary scarcity and poverty, including susceptibility to impaired cognitive performance or increased risk-aversion and delay discounting. In this paper I propose and investigate one explanation for communal fasting rituals, that it is associated with increased cooperation over common resources, in part, through increased risk-aversion. I test the two prongs of this hypothesis in a series of studies. Studies 1a–c investigate the relation between the Ramadan fast and risk-taking, finding lower risk-taking in fasters than non-fasters and during Ramadan than after. In a repeated measures design, Study 2 (N = 283) finds that in multiparty resource dilemmas, people make smaller requests from commons with unknown size during Ramadan than after, and this difference is associated with corresponding shifts in risk-taking, but not indices of trust or social preferences. I propose that collective deprivation rituals may have served an adaptive sociocultural function in times of scarcity when incomplete information about the availability of resources and other people's response could increase defection and threaten commons with rapid depletion. Along with implications for research into the psychology of fasting, rituals, and cooperation in resource dilemmas under uncertainty, these results demonstrate Ramadan's potential as a natural laboratory for cognitive and behavioral research.

Recently, I presented evidence that there are two broad kinds of dehumanization: descriptive dehumanization and normative dehumanization. An individual is descriptively dehumanized when they are perceived as less than fully human in the biological-species sense; whereas an individual is normatively dehumanized when they are perceived as lacking a deep-seated commitment to good moral values. Here, I develop the concept of normative dehumanization by addressing skepticism about two hypotheses that are widely held by dehumanization researchers. The first hypothesis is that dehumanization is distinct from mere dislike and other non-dehumanizing attitudes. The second hypothesis is that dehumanization is an important predictor of intergroup hostility. Across four studies, I found evidence that normative dehumanization is distinct from mere dislike, and denials of ideal humanness. I also found that it is a unique predictor of intergroup hostility. These findings suggest that research into dehumanization and intergroup hostility will benefit from recognizing the distinction between descriptive and normative dehumanization.

Research on pro-environmental behavior (PEB) informs social policies and interventions, so the quality of PEB measurement is critical. Self-reported PEB measures in surveys often contain non-negligible measurement error that can bias estimates and lead to incorrect findings. Given the potential presence of error, we hypothesize that changes to the way self-reported PEB is measured might lead to systematic measurement errors that affect the validity of results. Study 1 (N = 951) showed that priming participants with related scales like environmentalist identity did not substantively change reported behavior (all ds ≤ 0.12). To investigate the possibility of overreporting without priming, Study 2 (N = 385) measured littering prevention behavior using the Unmatched Count Technique. A standard questionnaire format led to much higher reported behavior compared to the more anonymous covert condition, d = 0.53, and this effect appeared driven by participants who reported a stronger environmentalist identity. These results may help to explain some of the observed error in PEB measures. We suggest that researchers could reduce measurement bias with indirect questioning techniques.