Social Psychological Processes Research Articles

The social-psychological process of fearing crime: Developing and testing a new momentary model of victimisation worry

The current study describes and tests a new momentary model of victimisation worry, based on data collected from a smartphone app. We assess whether a momentary model provides further insight into the situated nature of fear of crime and risk perception. Data were collected from a sample of 72 young adults living in Southeast Queensland, Australia who completed momentary surveys on fear of crime that were administered on their mobile devices. Results suggest that constructs contained in our proposed momentary model of victimisation worry fit the data appropriately and that associations between dimensions of victimisation worry are all statistically significant based on their expected directions (i.e. increased perceptions of victimisation risk in the immediate area significantly predicts increased momentary worry about crime). We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings, limitations of the current study, and direction for future research.

Regaining normality: A grounded theory study of the illness experiences of Chinese patients living with Crohn’s disease

BackgroundCrohn’s disease is a chronic condition causing inflammation of the lining of the digestive system. Individuals suffering from this illness encounter various challenges and problems, but studies investigating the illness experiences of patients with Crohn’s disease in East Asian countries are scarce. ObjectivesThe objective of this study was to explore the illness experiences of patients with Crohn’s disease in China and construct an interpretive understanding of these experiences from the perspective of the patients. DesignA constructivist grounded theory approach was used to develop a theoretical understanding of illness experiences. SettingsThis study included participants from the following four provincial capital cities in China: Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Wuhan. ParticipantsPurposive sampling and theoretical sampling were used to select Chinese patients living with Crohn’s disease. MethodBetween February 2015 and January 2018, audio-recorded interviews were conducted. The data analysis included initial coding, focused coding, and theoretical coding using the constant comparative method and memo writing. ResultsThirty-one participants were included in the study. “Regaining normality” was identified as the core category. The following four categories were conceptualized: comparing, struggling, reflecting, and realizing. Comparing refers to distinguishing the similarities and differences or evaluating the superiority and inferiority of similar things. Comparisons could occur between patients with Crohn’s disease and healthy individuals or between patients and people in similar or more unfortunate situations. Struggling reflects the dilemmas experienced by patients with Crohn’s disease in acknowledging their patient identity and informing others of this identity. Reflecting refers to the consideration of the values and life attitudes held by patients before and after the diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. Realizing involves patients gaining a deeper understanding of the suffering associated with Crohn’s disease after experiencing the illness. ConclusionThis study offers an interpretive understanding of the illness experiences of patients with Crohn’s disease. Regaining normality represents the basic social psychological process. Regaining normality is related to reassessing and reconstructing the self after receiving a Crohn’s disease diagnosis. This paper provides new insight into patients’ lives and describes the strategies patients use to cope with the challenges and problems caused by the illness. These study findings can be used to develop future complex interventions and studies.

THE RACIAL BOUNDARIES OF INEQUALITY

AbstractMany White Americans believe that individual rather than structural factors explain racial inequality, yet there is substantial variation in Whites’ perceptions. Using data from the Portraits of American Life Study, we exploit this variation to provide insight into the processes driving Whites’ perceptions of the causes of racial inequality. Specifically, we assess how social boundaries inform Whites’ explanations for the disadvantage of two racial groups: Blacks and Asians. First, we examine how each group’s position in the racial hierarchy relates to the types of explanations employed by Whites and find that Whites use individual explanations more often for Blacks than Asians. Second, we assess the extent to which the importance given to race in one’s overall identity affects how Whites explain racial disadvantage. Whites who see their Whiteness as being important to their identity are more likely to use individual rather than structural explanations to explain Black disadvantage. Together, these findings provide insight into the social psychological processes that contribute to Whites’ perceptions of racial inequality and suggest increased attention to how perceptions of out-group boundaries shape individual perceptions of inequality. Addressing this dimension of how individuals view inequality will be critical to future efforts to reduce it.

Reconsidering jigsaw social psychology: Longitudinal effects on social interdependence, sociocognitive conflict regulation, motivation, and achievement.

Jigsaw is a peer learning procedure based on the assumption that making “children treat each other as resources” (Aronson & Patnoe, 2011, p. 8) stimulates cooperation among equals. Using a short-term, longitudinal experimental design in 14 sections of an undergraduate human anatomy laboratory, we contrasted this perspective with the idea that Jigsaw’s two-group composition actually elicits a mix of opposing social-psychological processes and outcomes. Supporting this view, students’ perceptions of social interdependence and sociocognitive conflict regulation covaried over time with each other and with motivation and achievement. Likewise, rather than solely elicit cooperation, Jigsaw students initially reported higher levels of competition and individualistic efforts than students in a business-as-usual (BAU) control, and lower levels of epistemic regulation. These trends then reversed over time, but the magnitude of increasing cooperation and decreasing competition and individualistic efforts among Jigsaw students never exceeded that of BAU students. In fact, at the end of the semester, the only significant differences between Jigsaw and BAU were for relational regulation and academic achievement. Overall, these findings provide a much more complete but complicated portrait of Jigsaw social psychology and its effects over time, and so doing indicate that theory development is needed to account for mixed-motive situations that simultaneously elicit cooperative, competitive, and individualistic goals and different forms of sociocognitive conflict regulation. For practice, findings also suggest that simply distributing resources among jigsaw group members does not result in optimal outcomes, and consequently Jigsaw must change in ways that strengthen positive interdependence and decrease social comparison. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

A Social-Psychological Process of “Fear of Crime” for Men and Women: Revisiting Gender Differences from a New Perspective

ABSTRACTPrior research has identified gender as a significant predictor of crime fear. Specifically, women are typically more fearful of crime than men, despite being relatively less likely to be victimized. The current study examines different ways men and women may think about crime and victimization within their neighborhoods, using contemporary social-psychological models of victimization worry. Data were collected from a sample of community residents (N = 713) living on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. Results suggest that men’s and women’s fear of crime and perceptions of victimization threat are dependent on crime type and can be represented by a number of relationships among different social-psychological dimensions of victimization worry. The study concludes with practical implications for researchers seeking to examine the complex associations between gender and fear of crime.

Cultivating Knowing and Relationships: Nursing Assistants’ Interactions With Residents Receiving Palliative Care

Nursing home residents are among the most vulnerable members of society. The literature emphasizes promotion of personhood, dignity, and comfort—dimensions that fall within the purview of the certified nursing assistant (CNA). Little is known about how CNAs approach caring for a dying resident. This grounded theory study explored CNA–resident interactions for residents receiving palliative care. The theory “Cultivating Knowing and Relationships” emerged, which represents a social–psychological process of how CNAs capitalize on reciprocity and achievement of gratification to develop personal relationships with residents and maintain personhood and dignity through death. These findings underscore CNAs’ significant role in enhancing quality.

Growing a Professional Identity: A Grounded Theory of Baccalaureate Nursing Students.

The purpose of this study was to construct a grounded theory that describes the experiences and explains the process of prelicensure baccalaureate nursing students as they progressed in a traditional nursing program. Strauss and Corbin's approach to grounded theory was utilized to guide this study. The basic social psychological process (BSPP) for baccalaureate nursing students that emerged was "searching for balance and utilizing support networks while growing a professional identity." The core category identified was unanticipated expectations, whereas the subcategories that emerged were self-doubt, confidence, sacrifice, rigor, and relevance. To successfully progress through the program, students needed to relinquish preconceptions and acclimate to the academic and, ultimately, the professional nursing climate. Findings support and broaden previous research on the expectations and professional identity formation of nursing students. Understanding this BSPP process is beneficial for educators to promote a student-centered learning environment. [J Nurs Educ. 2018;57(12):705-711.].

Who’s on Top? Gender Differences in Risk-Taking Produce Unequal Outcomes for High-Ability Women and Men

Research shows that men are more likely to take risks than women, but there is scant evidence that this produces gender inequality. To address this gap, I analyzed engineering exam scores that used an unusual grading procedure. I found small average gender differences in risk-taking that did not produce gendered outcomes for students of average or poor ability. But the gender gap in risk-taking among the most competent students reduced the odds that high-ability women received top exam scores. These results demonstrate that gender differences in risk-taking can produce gender inequality in outcomes among top performers. This suggests that the upward mobility of high-ability women may be depressed relative to equally competent men in male-typed institutional settings in which outcomes are influenced by both ability and risk-taking. In this manner, these results provide new insights into the microlevel social-psychological processes that produce and reproduce gender inequality.

Identity and Deprovincialization: Identity Complexity and Inclusiveness Encourage EU-Wide Behavioural Intentions via Reduced Intergroup Concerns and Increased Optimism

This research aimed at identifying social psychological processes contributing to deprovincialising behaviours (Pettigrew, 1997), which support social integration in Europe. We tested whether EU residents’ sense of identity, defined as complex (Linville, 1982; Brewer & Pierce, 2005) and inclusive (Dovidio, Gaertner, & Saguy, 2009), orient them toward EU-wide behaviours by mitigating intergroup concerns toward crime, immigration, and terrorism – and by improving optimism about their future within the EU. European adults (N = 28,004; females 54.3%; age M = 50.05, SD = 18.34) residing in one of the 28 EU member states completed the 2014 Eurobarometer survey (Standard EB 81, 2014) and contributed to our key analyses. Mediation analyses confirmed that reduced intergroup concerns and general optimism acted as pathways to pro-Europe integration orientations associated with complex and inclusive identities. This work highlights the promising value of deprovincialization as a concept that imbues both a behavioural and a time dimension.

Microblogging, friendship maintenance, and life satisfaction among university students: The mediatory role of online self-disclosure

Despite a substantial literature suggests that computer-mediated communication impact individuals’ various psychosocial factors, relatively few studies have elucidated the underlying mechanism behind these associations. Building upon self-disclosure theory and previous studies, the principal purpose of this present research is to systematically explore the relationships among microblog utilization, online self-disclosure, friendship maintenance, and perceived life satisfaction. A web-based survey was implemented using a total of 426 university students in Northwestern China. Structural equation modeling reveals that intensity of microblog use is positively associated with these students’ friendship maintenance and life satisfaction. Additionally, online self-disclosure plays the crucial mediatory role in the relationships between microblog use, quality of relationships, and gratification with life. The results imply that as microbloggers disclosure their inner thoughts or emotional states with other users online, they could foster their friendship maintenance and obtain greater life satisfaction. However, contrary to the expectation, students’ friendship maintenance is not discovered to be a significant predictor of the sense of life satisfaction in the online environment. Overall, these obtained outcomes of the empirical work could offer new insights into the deep comprehending of the social psychological process of microblogging among younger generation in the new media context.

Pessimistic expectations and poorer experiences: The role of (low) extraversion in anticipated and experienced enjoyment of social interaction.

Given research suggesting that social interactions are beneficial, it is unclear why individuals lower in extraversion engage less in social interactions. In this study, we test whether individuals lower in extraversion reap fewer hedonic rewards from social interactions and explore social psychological processes that explain their experiences. Before participants socialized, we measured extraversion, state positive affect, cognitive capacity, and expectations about the social interactions. After participants socialized with one another, we measured state positive affect and cognitive capacity again as well as fear of negative evaluation and belief in limited cognitive capacity. Participants also rated the social skillfulness of each interaction partner. We found that less extraverted individuals expect to feel worse after socializing. However, all but those extremely low in extraversion (17% of sample) actually experience an increase in positive affect after socializing. Surprisingly, those low in extraversion did not show reduced cognitive capacity after socializing. Although they are more likely to believe that cognitive capacity is limited and to be fearful of negative evaluation, these characteristics did not explain the social experience of those low in extraversion.

The Role of Violent and Nonviolent Delinquent Behavior in Educational Attainment

Given large variations in the etiology and developmental trajectories of violent and nonviolent delinquency, this study examines whether educational outcomes of violent and nonviolent offenders might differ. In particular, this study attempts to remove environmental influences such as family background and neighborhood effects from the effects of delinquency because these factors are likely to differentially confound the effects of violent and nonviolent delinquency on educational attainment. By exploiting variation within sibling pairs, this study finds that the effects of engagement in violent delinquency on education is driven spuriously by shared family background, whereas the effects of nonviolent delinquency are quite robust to adjustment for family fixed effects. Moreover, relying on fixed effects estimates, this study finds that the effects of engagement in nonviolent delinquent activity on educational attainment occur in part through disruption of educational progress, rather than through institutional responses to student delinquency and social-psychological processes.

The social psychological processes of ‘procedural justice’: Concepts, critiques and opportunities

Contemporary research on policing and procedural justice theory (PJT) emphasizes large-scale survey data to link a series of interlocking concepts, namely perceptions of procedural fairness, police legitimacy and normative compliance. In this article we contend that as such, contemporary research is in danger of conveying a misreading of PJT by portraying a reified social world divorced from the social psychological dynamics of encounters between the police and policed. In this article we set out a rationale for addressing this potential misreading and explore how and why PJT researchers would benefit both theoretically and methodologically through drawing upon advances in theoretical accounts of social identity, developed most notably in attempts to understand crowd action. Specifically, we advance an articulation of a ‘process-based’ model of PJT’s underlying social and subjective dynamics and stress the value of ethnographic approaches for studying police–‘citizen’ encounters.

The 3-Phase Process in the Cancer Experience of Adolescents and Young Adults.

When confronted with cancer, adolescents and young adults (AYAs) enter a psychosocial trajectory. Previous research has acknowledged the importance of care adjusted to the specific needs of AYAs. To develop AYA-focused care, in-depth knowledge about the experiences of AYAs with cancer is necessary. The purposes of this study were to discover the psychosocial experiences of and their meanings for AYAs enduring cancer, as well as its treatment and follow-up, and to capture the basic social psychological process that shaped these experiences. This was a qualitative study in which individual semistructured interviews were conducted with 23 participants aged 15 to 25 years. A 3-phase process was identified, which demonstrated alterations in the AYAs' experiences and their underlying meanings: (1) maintaining normal life was essential, (2) normal life was slipping away, and (3) evolving toward a new normal life after treatment. Certain core dynamics were present in these 3 phases. Throughout the cancer trajectory, the AYAs attempted to maintain control, redefine the self, and incorporate their cancer experience to the long-term course of life and had varying expectations of their social networks. Understanding the process that AYAs with cancer go through and taking into account their experiences can facilitate better psychosocial care for this emotionally vulnerable population. Healthcare professionals need to take a patient-centered approach, with a focus on communication, to meet the needs of AYAs throughout the cancer trajectory.

Climate change and intergroup relations: Psychological insights, synergies, and future prospects

Climate change is often conceived as a technical challenge, requiring smart policies and science-driven solutions. Yet, as revealed by each new round of international negotiations, and by growing (rather than receding) partisan divides on climate change in the United States, climate change is also profoundly social: How people understand and engage with the issue is powerfully influenced by the responses of others, including members of ingroups and outgroups. This special issue brings together research and theory that shed light on new and understudied group and intergroup dimensions of climate change. The featured articles showcase the breadth of social psychological processes (e.g., social identity and categorization processes, intergroup perceptions, normative influence, justice concerns, and group-based ideologies) relevant to the study of climate change while highlighting how the problem’s shared, global relevance poses unique questions and opportunities for the field. We explore the contributions of these articles to the social psychological study of climate change and highlight new challenges and pathways forward.

The Emergence of Contextual Social Psychology.

Social psychology experiences recurring so-called "crises." This article maintains that these episodes actually mark advances in the discipline; these "crises" have enhanced relevance and led to greater methodological and statistical sophistication. New statistical tools have allowed social psychologists to begin to achieve a major goal: placing psychological phenomena in their larger social contexts. This growing trend is illustrated with numerous recent studies; they demonstrate how cultures and social norms moderate basic psychological processes. Contextual social psychology is finally emerging.

Unpacking Medium Effects on Social Psychological Processes in Computer-mediated Communication Using the Social Relations Model

Unpacking Medium Effects on Social Psychological Processes in Computer-mediated Communication Using the Social Relations Model

From “Ridiculous” to “Glad to Have Helped”: Debriefing News Delivery and Improved Reactions to Science in Milgram’s “Obedience” Experiments

Commentators on Milgram’s classic and controversial experiments agree that better integration of theories of “obedience to authority” with current archival research on participants’ viewpoints is essential in explaining compliance. Using conversation analysis, we examine an archived data source that is largely overlooked by the Milgram literature, yet crucial for understanding the interactional organization of participants’ displayed perspectives. In hundreds of interviews conducted immediately after each experiment, participants received one of two types of debriefing: deceptive or full. Analyzing 56 full debriefings from three experimental conditions, we find they featured interactional structuring as news delivery sequences and that debriefing news could transform initially ambivalent or negative assessments of the experiment into positive ones. Such findings reveal limitations of engaged followership, the currently dominant theory of “obedience.” Following discussion of improved assessments’ relevance to public attitudes toward science, we conclude that multiple social psychological processes were at work in producing Milgram’s results.

Toward a Cultural-Structural Theory of Suicide: Examining Excessive Regulation and Its Discontents

Despite its enduring insights, Durkheim’s theory of suicide fails to account for a significant set of cases because of its overreliance on structural forces to the detriment of other possible factors. In this paper, we develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the role of culture in vulnerability to suicide. We argue that by focusing on the cultural dynamics of excessive regulation, particularly at the meso level, a more robust sociological model for suicide could be offered that supplements structure-heavy Durkheimian theory. In essence, we argue that the relevance of cultural regulation to suicide rests on the (1) degree to which culture is coherent in sociocultural places, (2) existence of directives related to prescribing or proscribing suicide, (3) degree to which these directives translate into internalized meanings affecting social psychological processes, and (4) degree to which the social space is bounded. We then illustrate how our new theory provides useful insights into three cases of suicide largely neglected within sociology: specifically, suicide clusters in high schools, suicide in the military, and suicides of “despair” among middle-aged white men. We conclude with implications for future sociological research on suicide and suicide prevention.

Trajectories on the path to reciprocity-A theoretical framework for collaborating with socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.

The importance of cultivating connection to enhance individual, relational and collective well-being is gaining attention in the current literature on building community. Although these goals are being increasingly considered, the concept of reciprocity has been less prominent than may be warranted in the field of psychology. This article presents a theoretical framework on the dynamics of reciprocity which resulted from grounded theory (GT) research involving 2 complementary studies. The first study involved 22 participants from different socioeconomic backgrounds engaged in "reflecting-team with appreciative audiences" sessions (Madsen, 2007) in Portugal. The second study involved participant observation of 15 community programs recognized as good-practices in collaboration with socioeconomically disadvantaged participants, at national and international levels, across 9 countries. The theoretical framework emphasizes the centrality of building reciprocity for the development of individuals, families, communities, and programs. It integrates the trajectories of reciprocity; quadrants reflecting the standpoints assumed according to socioeconomic and cultural positions; basic social-psychological processes inherent to the process of building reciprocity; and characterizes different types of programs. The resulting framework is analyzed in relation to prior literature for a broader understanding of synergies and challenges, and the article concludes by suggesting implications for further research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record