Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

This study examines church-state relations in Europe, and analyzes their influence on anti-immigrant attitudes. The literature explains this relationship primarily with religious demographics, or state privileges for the majority faith. Alternately, this study focuses on the status of the majority religion. It argues that, in countries with a national church, citizens are more likely to consider the institutionalization of a new religion to be occurring at the expense of the national heritage, and react negatively. To test that hypothesis, the study focuses on Muslim immigrants in Europe, and builds an index that gauges the extent to which European states institutionalize Islam. Then, employing multilevel regression analysis, it investigates how the institutionalization of Islam influences anti-Muslim prejudice in different contexts of church-state regimes. Individual-level data come from the latest wave of the European Values Study, and cover 31 countries. Findings indicate that, in European countries with a national church, institutionalization of Islam increases anti-Muslim prejudice. In countries without a national church, however, institutionalization leads to tolerance. These results confirm the continuing relevance of religion on the national level in Europe, despite the decline in individual religiosity.

This dissertation responds to the public and academic debate concerning how to conceptualise the Alt-Right within the broader context of far-right movements -both historical and contemporary. Adopting a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the phenomenon, this research draws upon various political, sociological and cultural theories. A critical analysis of the Alt-Right’s substance and modus operandi through primary and secondary resources is contextualised within these various theoretical frames: establishing a conceptual framework of the Alt-Right as a ‘new social movement of oppositional subcultures’. The style and tactics of the movement are then analysed in the context of other far-right movements. These two preliminary conclusions are then synthesised, generating the thesis that the separation of the Alt-Right from other far-right groups constitutes a valid and necessary distinction.

Far-right political parties in Europe regularly portray Muslims and Islam as backward and a symbolic threat to secular and/or Christian European culture. Similarly, Islamist groups regularly portray Westerners and Western culture as decadent and a sym- bolic threat to Islam. Here, we present experimental evidence that meta-cultural threat – information that members of an out- group perceive one’s own culture as a symbolic threat to their culture – increases intention and endorsement of political vio- lence against that outgroup. We tested this in three experimental studies among Muslims and non-Muslims in Scandinavia. In Studies 1 and 2, we experimentally manipulated whether the dominant majority group was portrayed as seeing Muslim culture and lifestyle as backward and incompatible with their own culture. These portrayals increased the endorsement of extremist vi - olence against the West and violent behavioural intentions among Muslims living in Denmark and Sweden. Study 3 used a sim- ilar paradigm among non-Muslim Danes and demonstrated that learning about Muslims portraying the non-Muslim Danish in- group as a threat increased endorsement of ethnic persecution of Muslims, conceptually replicating the general effect that meta-cultural threat fuels endorsement of extremist violence among both majority and minority groups.

We use data from a 12-month ethnographic study of two medical-surgical units in a U.S. hospital to examine how members from different occupations can collaborate with one another in their daily work despite differences in status, shared meanings, and expertise across occupational groups, which previous work has shown to create difficulties. In our study, nurses and patient care technicians (PCTs) on both hospital units faced these same occupational differences, served the same patient population, worked under the same management and organizational structure, and had the same pressures, goals, and organizational collaboration tools available to them. But nurses and PCTs on one unit successfully collaborated while those on the other did not. We demonstrate that a social structure characterized by cross-cutting demographics between occupational groups—in which occupational membership is uncorrelated with demographic group membership—can loosen attachment to the occupational identity and status order. This allows members of cross-occupational dyads, in our case nurses and PCTs, to draw on other shared social identities, such as shared race, age, or immigration status, in their interactions. Drawing on a shared social identity at the dyad level provided members with a “dyadic toolkit” of alternative, non-occupational expertise, shared meanings, status rules, and emotional scripts that facilitated collaboration across occupational differences and improved patient care.

This paper develops grounded theory to understand how and when experts in lower-power peripheral roles can develop influential relationships with higher-power line managers in core functions to regularly elicit their cooperation. I use data from an ethnographic study of experts in peripheral roles—mental health professionals hired by the U.S. Army to provide rehabilitative services to active-duty soldiers suffering from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—and the line managers in core functions they depended on for their soldier-care recommendations to be followed—their soldiers’ direct commanders. I analyze relational histories of 56 commander–provider dyads and detail a three-phase process model I refer to as “rapid relationality.” Through the process of rapid relationality, mental health professionals capitalized on short windows of opportunity to quickly develop influential relationships with commanders, despite lacking formal authority over them, before a series of minor conflicts or a major conflict threatened their burgeoning influence. My analysis suggests it is not only what peripheral experts do that allows them to elicit cooperation from line managers but also when and how quickly they do it that matters. Speed and taking early action are important because experts cannot predict when conflict will occur and hence may have short initial windows of opportunity for establishing an influential relationship. I further find that some experts have fewer tactics available to them or must use more time-consuming and energy-intensive tactics than others to achieve the same relational influence based on their personal characteristics (e.g., gender). As a result, it may be harder for some experts to achieve relational influence before their window of opportunity closes.

Organizational life is rife with conflict between groups that pursue different goals, particularly when groups have strong commitments to professional identities developed outside the organization. I use data from a 30-month comparative ethnographic field study of four U.S. Army combat brigades to examine conflict between commanders who had a goal of fielding a mission-ready force and mental health providers who had a goal of providing rehabilitative mental health care to soldiers. All commanders and providers faced goal and identity conflict and had access to similar integrative mechanisms. Yet only those associated with two brigades addressed these conflicts in ways that accomplished the army’s superordinate goal of having both mission-ready and mentally healthy soldiers. Both successful brigades used what I call “anchored personalization” practices, which included developing personalized relations across groups, anchoring members in their home group identity, and co-constructing integrative solutions to conflict. These practices were supported by an organizational structure in which professionals were assigned to work with specific members of the other group, while remaining embedded within their home group. In contrast, an organizational structure promoting only anchoring in one’s home group identity led to failure when each group pursued its own goals at the expense of the other group’s goals. A structure promoting only personalization across groups without anchoring in one’s home group identity led to failure from cooptation by the dominant group. This study contributes to our understanding of how groups with strong professional identities can work together in service of their organization’s superordinate goals when traditional mechanisms fail.

In this chapter I propose a new methodological tool for analyzing social and communicative phenomena that I call “a deictic perspective”. Deploying this perspective, the chapter explores various ways in which the notions of “us” has been formed by, and transformed in, the most salient parts of discourse – slogans used in public rallies in two Central European countries in two different times. In late 1989 the West was the much desired Other for many citizens of Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic; at the turn of 2014 and 2015, the West frequently became a rhetoric means by which to protect “us” against the undesired Other, i.e. the (often Muslim) migrants coming from non-European territories – the East and the South. The once cheerful we-want-to-be-part-of-the-West attitude has been, by some people at least, transformed into a much less cheerful we-don’t-want-others-to-be-part-of-the-West. Based on samples of public discourse from Germany and Czech Republic, I argue that the deictic perspective suits to comparing the fine interplay among time, space and social identity. The chapter concludes by emphasizing both similarities and differences in public “we” across time and space within Central Europe, thus documenting the changing – and yet to a certain degree stable – sense(s) of belonging to the West.

Based on intergroup contact theory, we conducted a social media campaign to improve the relationship between Chinese sojourners and Singaporeans. We found that perceived discrimination fully mediated the effects of face-to-face contact as well as imagined contact on intergroup prejudice. An investigation of joint effects showed that, for the campaign audience, online contact campaign, instead of face-to-face contact, significantly reduced their perceived discrimination, which in turn reduced intergroup prejudice. We discuss explanations for the impact of social media on intergroup relationships and implications of targeted social media campaigns in the context of a growing crisis in global immigration.

As we belong to a host of groups, we have a multitude of social identities that are interdependent. Social identity complexity refers to the degree of overlap between cross-cutting group memberships while social identity inclusiveness to the range of people a person identifies with through shared group membership. In this paper, we explored the relationship between the complexity and inclusiveness of social identity, and feelings toward ethnic/religious in-groups, as well as feelings toward out-group members. The research was conducted in two cities in Serbia: Belgrade and Novi Pazar (N = 178; average age 23), allowing for comparisons between young Serbs and Bosniaks, who belonged to the groups with a recent history of conflict. We found that social identity complexity was unrelated, whilst social identity inclusiveness was systematically and positively related to more positive feelings toward religious and ethnic out-groups. This effect was significant across different ethnic group...

In capitalist societies, individuals who occupy the highest positions in the economic hierarchy feature prominently in the political discourse under the moniker of the One Percent. However, little is known about how the psychology of One Percent might differ from that of the average person. Using a large, nationally representative sample in New Zealand (N = 14,650), we aimed to fill this gap examining the political attitudes and subjective wellbeing of the top one percent of the income distribution. We found that, compared to general public, the One Percent in New Zealand more strongly legitimize the political and economic systems in society, and express lower support for redistributive taxation. They also report higher life satisfaction, self-esteem and belongingness compared to everyone else. Thus, the One Percent benefit not only economically and politically from the current system, but also psychologically. Moreover, their political beliefs serve to bolster the inequality from which they benefit.

Sosyal Psikoloji’nin önemli ve temel konularından biri gruplarda insan davranışının incelenmesidir. Psikoloji bilimi insan davranışlarını incelerken bireyi toplumsal bağlamından ayrı olarak düşünemez çünkü bireyin yalnız olarak gerçekleştirdiği davranışları ile grup içerisindeki davranışları farklılık gösterebilmektedir. Bu nedenle, bireyin grup içerisindeki davranışları birey hakkında önemli çıkarımlarda bulunmamızı sağlamaktadır. 

Yerli ve yabancı alanyazın incelendiğinde "Grup Dinamikleri ve Süreçleri” ile ilgili sınırlı sayıda akademik kaynağın olması beni bu kitabı yazmaya yönlendirmiştir. Kitabın yazılmasındaki amaç az da olsa yerli alanyazındaki bu eksikliği gidermeye çalışmaktır. Bu amaç kapsamında kitap 8 temel bölüm ve her bir bölüm kendi içerisinde alt bölümlerden oluşmaktadır.

Taking the concept of gender as the interpretative axis, this intervention- research aimed to identify and analyze the narratives from a women’s empowerment group, focusing on social representations of motherhood. Clinical listening with floating attention was applied in the analysis of the narratives. Afterwards, inferences and interpretations were made based on the perspective of Critical Social Psychology. The group became a potentiating field to yield reflections on subjectivity and gender relations, allowing the development of discussions about themes related to women’s space in face of social changes and their impact in the way to experience motherhood. Beyond an identification space, the group enabled the opening of opportunities to transform social representations, providing support for the process of empowerment and desire for changes in the relations women go through in their daily lives.

This work in progress is in early development. There are currently twelve pages, the last seven of which are the early bibliography.

Introduction:

My review of the literature on TMT (Terror Management Theory) has indicated that there is no adequate treatment of the key differences between the fear of death and the fear of eternal torment, which I will henceforth usually abbreviate as “ET”. These key differences are:

1. Death is unavoidable, whereas ET is ostensibly avoidable if one does or believes the right things
2. Death is universal to all living things; ET is for "them", while heaven, we hope, is for "us"
3. ET could be a far more terrifying concept than annihilation; there should prove to be clinical implications.

Of the three differences, the us/them dichotomy should prove to be the most socially significant.

I propose that these differences justify an additional theory, which we might call Eternal Torment Terror Management Theory (ETTMT).

Summary of the Scope and Purpose of This Document:

As I began to review the extant literature on TMT (Terror Management Theory) and on correlations between belief in eternal torment (ET) and social behavior, I at first found the opposite of what I expected to find. I found studies that showed a positive correlation between a belief in ET and pro-social behavior. But this finding would turn out to lead my research to something much larger and more complex than I'd originally expected to find.

It appears that the belief in and/or fear of ET may not promote pro-social behavior, as some have theorized, but only pro-ingroup behavior, while reinforcing hostility towards outgroups. Most obviously relevant to contemporary international relations would be the hostility and conflict between Islamic and Christian communities. However, I will propose that the doctrine of ET contributes to a range of destructive intergroup phenomena that is exponentially broader than that. Or, as I intend to frame it in a planned follow-up work, the “need and opportunity for reconciliation” is far grander, and goes much deeper than any of the more soundbite-worthy conflicts favored by facile media trends.

Further research is needed to better establish correlations between the fear of ET and intergroup hostility and conflict. Many of the central hypotheses put forth in ETTMT would not be difficult to research, even experimentally. Experimental research could determine a causal relationship by utilizing, for example, priming and implicit behavioral measurements.

More importantly, however, the establishment of a relationship between the belief in ET and intergroup hostility would justify a call to specific action, funded by social impact investments from humanitarians of every ilk.

The following summary will provide the theoretical frameworks for a full spectrum of social harm that may result from the widespread belief in ET, and it will suggest a viable and specific response from the humanitarian community.

Emerging research suggests that both perceptions of discrimination and internalized racism (i.e., endorsement of negative stereotypes of one's racial group) are associated with poor mental health. Yet, no studies to date have examined their effects on mental health with racial/ethnic minorities in the US in a single study. The present study examined: (a) the direct effects of everyday discrimination and internalized racism on risk of DSM-IV criteria of past-year major depressive disorder (MDD); (b) the interactive effects of everyday discrimination and internalized racism on risk of past-year MDD; and (c) the indirect effect of everyday discrimination on risk of past-year MDD via internalized racism. Further, we examined whether these associations differed by ethnic group membership. We utilized nationally representative data of Afro-Caribbean ( = 1,418) and African American ( = 3,570) adults from the National Survey of American Life. Results revealed that experiencing discrimination was associated with increased odds of past-year MDD among the total sample. Moreover, for Afro-Caribbeans, but not African Americans, internalized racism was associated with decreased odds of meeting criteria for past-year MDD. We did not find an interaction effect for everyday discrimination by internalized racism, nor an indirect effect of discrimination on risk of past-year MDD through internalized racism. Collectively, our findings suggest a need to investigate other potential mechanisms by which discrimination impacts mental health, and examine further the underlying factors of internalized racism as a potential self-protective strategy. Lastly, our findings point to the need for research that draws attention to the heterogeneity within the U.S. Black population.