Social Psychological Responses Research Articles

Human emergency behaviour and psychological stress characteristic mining based on large-scale emergencies

AbstractHuman emergency behaviour and psychological stress response in emergencies are important scientific issues in basic emergency management research. The analysis of the dynamic characteristics of large-scale human behaviour based on electronic footprint data provides a new method for quantitative research on this problem. Previous studies usually assumed that human behaviors were randomly distributed in time, but few studies have studied the psychological stress response of human groups under the influence of emergencies and carried out prediction methods through social media data. Based on the data from five emergencies and daily events in the Qzone, this paper explores the statistical characteristics of human communication behaviors such as time, space and social interaction. The research results reveal the psychological evolution of human groups when they encounter public security emergencies by analysing the causes of individual psychological stress responses in the group. We find that the time interval between people’s posting behaviour and interactive comment behaviour in mobile QQ space before and after an emergency can be approximately described by a power-law distribution. The time interval distribution of Posting and reply is an obvious heavy-tailed distribution. These behavioural characteristics are consistent with people’s psychological stress characteristics. Individual psychological stress responses gradually evolve into social-psychological responses with changes in behavioural characteristics. The greater the social-psychological stress response is, the more panic the public will be, which will cause the outbreak of group irrational behaviour. The research results are theoretically helpful in understanding the impact of emergencies on human communication behaviour patterns and reveal the psychological stress process of mass panic in large-scale emergencies.

Mortality management and climate action: A review and reference for using Terror Management Theory methods in interdisciplinary environmental research

AbstractGlobal climate change awareness is increasing, but efforts to convey information can trigger undesirable behaviors, including denial, skepticism, and increased resource consumption. It is therefore essential to more fully investigate social–psychological responses to climate information and messaging if we are to prompt, support, and sustain pro‐environmental behaviors. Yet consideration of these responses is typically absent from interdisciplinary environmental study designs. Of specific relevance is research using social psychology's Terror Management Theory (TMT) showing that people's efforts to repress mortality salience (MS) or awareness significantly influence their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Research on MS's influence on climate change beliefs is progressing but, to date, a systematic scoping review of the literature has been unavailable. Here, we provide such a review. We propose that TMT insights and methods should be better integrated into research designs to guide climate communications and to generate the comprehensive cultural and behavioral changes needed to address societies' climate problems. We introduce a methodological framework for interdisciplinary researchers to incorporate TMT into their research designs and to help practitioners anticipate how their mortality‐laden messaging could trigger unintentional social‐psychological responses that degrade climate communication strategies.This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Behavior Change and Responses

"Everything Is Greyscaled": Immigrant Women's Experiences of Postpartum Distress.

Postpartum distress increases the risk of developing mental disorders over a woman's lifespan. Although immigrant women experience a high rate of postpartum depression, we know very little about the psychosocial experiences of postpartum distress in immigrant populations. No theories have been developed to account for the intersection of cultural and maternal transitions or the relationship of this dual transition to postpartum distress. Therefore, this study aims to generate a conceptual model for describing immigrant women's experience of and social-psychological responses to postpartum distress. This study uses grounded theory to conduct and analyze interviews with 22 Chinese immigrant women who experienced postpartum distress. During their dual transitions, participants encountered many losses significant to their psychological self. The conceptual model of greyscaling and reviving the psychological self provides pathways to respond to these losses, assesses the pathways' impact on experiencing distress, and offers strategies that resolve distress.

Borders and Fear: Insecurity, Gender and the Far Right in Europe

In this article I analyze how far right movements and parties in Europe are challenging European notions of open borders and the freedom of movement through active involvement in national and European politics. This involves a discussion around the de/rebordering of European space and the relationship between bordering processes and a politics of belonging in which the drawing of boundaries becomes a way of establishing inclusion/exclusion in response to a politics of fear, insecurity, and threat. Thereafter I address what distinguishes such a politics and how various far right movements and parties have emerged as structural and social–psychological responses to it as well as the reasons behind their affective (and electoral) success in Europe. In examining this, I stress the idea of ‘subjective deprivation’ in relation to the bordering of essentialist identities, highlighting the role of ‘emotional governance’ and ‘nativism’ as crucial for understanding the appeal of these movements. Finally I discuss how these bordering processes have come to rely on gendered notions of masculinity and on the occurrence of control and surveillance as members of the far right redefine national and European borders.

When Spirits Talk: Reading Erna Brodber's Louisiana for Affect

Erna Brodber's historical interest in oral accounts as a source of emotional realities and social-psychological responses is expanded in her experimental novel Louisiana to include supernatural and extra-ordinary phenomena. Her incorporation of spirit possession into the life experiences of her protagonist forces a fundamental rethinking of the psyche, historical evidence, and the temporal relationship of the present to the past. Her novel suggests that silences in the written records are not only absences to be filled with new historical data but also spaces of affect , which does not designate feeling so much as a visceral response that cuts across thought and feeling, mind and body, spirit and matter, the physical and intuitive senses.

A Formal Theory of Reflected Appraisals in the Evolution of Power

This article investigates the evolution of power with a formal theory that focuses on the influence network through which control of a group’s outcomes emerges via direct and indirect interpersonal influences on group members’ positions on a series of issues over time. Power evolves when individuals’ openness or closure to interpersonal influences correspond with their prior relative control over the group’s issue outcomes. In groups with members who are appraising the relative power of their members over the outcomes of prior issues, a mechanism of “reflected appraisals” will elevate and dampen members’ self-appraisals of their relative power and the amount of influence they accord to others. Across a series of issues over time, this mechanism suffices to generate state transitions of a group’s influence network. The result is an evolution of the group’s influence network such that, with rare exceptions, power becomes concentrated and the preferences of a single leader control the group’s outcomes via intermediaries. A laboratory experiment and a simulation provide support for the theory. The analysis suggests that the evolution of the influence network toward concentrated forms of power and control is generated by fundamental social psychological responses to power and may occur in all enduring social groups whose members are dealing with a lengthy sequence of issues, independent of the conditions of bureaucratic organizations.

Characterizing pork producer demand for shelterbelts to mitigate odor: an Iowa case study

Shelterbelts have been shown to mitigate livestock odors incrementally through complex physical and social dynamics. By surveying Iowa hog producers, we assessed the current degree of shelterbelt usage by pork producers, examined producers’ beliefs and concerns regarding shelterbelt usage for odor mitigation and estimated both their willingness to pay and their overall demand for shelterbelts. Overall, Iowa hog producers display strong beliefs that shelterbelts help, social-psychologically, to mitigate odors and generally believe that shelterbelts physically reduce odors. Seventy-five percent of producers expressed a mean willingness to pay $0.18 per pig produced annually. Sixty percent are willing to pay within a range of estimated costs, and 13% are willing to pay more. Overall, younger (<mean) producers are the most probable users of this technology, and they tend to meet four criteria: they plan to be at the same site for over 10 years; they are located in regions with high pig populations; they are at higher risk of affecting neighbors with odors, due to their proximity; they appreciate the more intangible perceived benefits of using shelterbelts (e.g., those associated with social-psychological responses). Overall, the younger producers perceived excessive cost/labor requirements as their main concerns. This information is critical to guide future extension programming that addresses all key concerns of current and potential users of shelterbelts.

Cultural difference and the therapeutic alliance: An evidence-based analysis.

The research on positive psychotherapy outcome consistently indicates that the quality of the alliance is important across different models of psychotherapy (D. E. Orlinsky, M. H. Ronnestad, & U. Willutzki, 2004; B. E. Wampold, 2000). Social psychological research has documented how "unintentional bias" can produce barriers to university admissions, employment, and advancement of well-qualified members of ethnic minority groups (J. F. Dovidio, S. L. Gaertner, K. Kawakami, & G. Hodson, 2002). Neuroscience is further confirming social psychological responses associated with race (J. L. Eberhard, 2005). Unintentional bias identified in social psychological research may be part of the psychotherapist/client interaction, interfere with the therapeutic alliance, and partly account for the high dropout rates and underutilization of psychotherapeutic services by people of color. The purpose of this article is to provide an evidence-based analysis of how psychologists in practice may unintentionally interfere with development of quality alliances with culturally different clients or patients and thus contribute to the barriers to effective multicultural counseling and psychotherapy. Principles from the American Psychological Association's (2003) multicultural guidelines and a review of relevant research are applied in suggesting strategies to reduce bias and to develop culturally appropriate skills in psychological practices.

Imaging race.

Researchers have recently begun to use the tools of neuroscience to examine the social psychological responses associated with race. This article serves as a review of the developing literature in this area. It advances the argument that neuroscience studies of race have the potential to shape fundamental assumptions about race, and the interplay between social and biological processes more generally.

The Construction and Evaluation of a Scale to Measure Attitude Toward Any Educational Program

There is a constant search for techniques that might be utilized in evaluating the various types of educational activity to be found in the modern institutions of learning whether on elementary, secondary, or college level. In spite of the extensive progress made in the field of tests and measurements during the past quarter-century there is still a lack of valid and reliable measures of psychological variables that are highly important, especially in the general field of social-psychological phenomena. This lack of evaluative criteria is especially noticeable in the field of certain guidance activities. There is also a general lack of measuring devices available for evaluating the results obtained from the various types of school programs designed by educators to develop certain social-psychological responses. The author noting a lack of suitable scales to measure attitude toward the various types of educational programs that are prevalent in most schools ?home room, auditorium, group guidance, individual guidance, etc.?has developed a generalized scale to measure attitude toward any educational program. A technique developed by H. H. Remmers1 of Purdue University was utilized by the author in developing this measure of social-psychological phenomena or attitudes. This technique, a modification of the method used by Thurstone,2 is described functionally in the explanation of the con struction of the scales to measure any educational program. CONSTRUCTION OF THE SCALES