Social Psychology Research Articles

Community mental health care in Croatia: Mobile team for psychosocial support in the community

Abstract The Republic of Croatia has initiated numerous reforms in the mental health care system in the community. Within the framework of EU JA Implement, a mobile team was formed to provide interventions in the community, that is, in the homes of persons discharged from psychiatric hospitals. The mobile team was formed during 2023. The team includes: one psychiatrist, leader and coordinator of the mobile team, three graduate nurses, a case manager, a social worker, three experienced experts who are employed in the team as peer workers, and one social pedagogue and psychologist. The wider composition of the team includes a psychiatrist who provides outpatient psychiatric treatment, who is familiar with the individual recovery plan and, if necessary, participates in the development of the plan. The goal of establishing a mobile team is to implement an individual recovery plan in the community, that is, in the patient’s home, using biopsychosocial interventions, with the aim of better and faster recovery of the user and inclusion in the community, as well as prevention of rehospitalization and disability. Before the patients home visits, the experts in the team were trained. 15 patients were included in the pilot project, with whom 96 home visits or interventions were carried out in the time period from the establishment of the team to April 2024. As a result of the effectiveness of the pilot project, in 2024, in accordance with the Strategic Framework for the Development of Mental Health until 2030, the Republic of Croatia adopted a new network of health institutions, within which 30 mobile psychiatric teams and 24 psychological teams at the primary level of health care are planned. Empowerment of users, engagement of people with experience in the implementation of interventions, increase in mental health literacy of the population and destigmatization are additional results of the implementation of mental health protection in the community through JA impleMENTAL.

Indeterminacy and the Role of the Archive: The Eight Extensions of Piaget’s Sociological Studies

What a text means in translation is accepted, canonically, to be indeterminate. Authors can provide additional constraints to interpretation by taking care to explain some of the original context. But this requires making judgments about what counts, and readers can’t generally do that of sources except in retrospect. So the solution to the problem is taken to be “to become bilingual,” and basically do the translation work oneself. This means immersing in that foreign culture for long enough that its ways of being, and ways of meaning, become one’s own. When the subject of one’s interest is the undiscovered country, however, this goal remains forever inaccessible. That’s just not somewhere you can go and report back from. The true meanings of deceased authors are therefore forever inscrutable. Except, of course, in cases where historical traces can stand in their stead. Interactions with archival sources are thus offered as a new solution to the problems of indeterminacy and inscrutability: archives provide anchors to stabilize the received meaning of historical texts by offering evidence of what those involved in their production intended them to mean. Here, that is demonstrated with reference to (1) the difficulty of translating Jean Piaget’s (1896–1980) collection of essays entitled Sociological Studies and (2) the broader misunderstanding of Piaget’s sociality in relation to the popularity of its critique by Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934). We then find, in the process, new ways to consider a consistently thorny question: what is the means by which one attains truth? Here, we therefore articulate and illustrate the “Interpretation Game” by providing access to a curated selection of archival texts drawn from several collections never before considered in relation to the question of the meaning of “Piaget” as a holophrastic utterance. The result is then also a new look at Cold War-era developmental psychology, social psychology, educational theory, and genetic epistemology (the study of the construction of knowledge).

Not Talking about Climate Change: Everyday Interactions, Relational Work and Climate Silences

Despite evidence of extensive and growing concern about climate change, citizens remain relatively unlikely to discuss it in everyday conversation, presenting a puzzle to commentators and researchers. Different explanations of climate silence have been suggested, most notably from social psychology and from political economy perspectives, which posit forms of cultural control. However, there is limited evidence about the relational contexts of everyday climate talk and the meanings that people themselves attach to it. In this article, we analyse data from new qualitative research and explore how climate talk is patterned, forms of self-silencing and the meanings attached to climate talk, with reference to its interactional and relational contexts. We argue that social interactional contexts, relational work and mundane forms of practical constraint play an under-investigated yet crucial role in limiting climate talk.

The psychology of social change – 30 years post-apartheid: what went wrong and how to fix it?

This article presents some snapshots from 30 years of my collaborative work in the social psychology of social change in South Africa. Projects with students and colleagues used ethnographic, discursive, and survey methods to document racial encounters in the newly desegregated spaces of post-apartheid South Africa. I will review some of the successes and failures of desegregation efforts both in the country and in social psychology, where intergroup contact theory has come under considerable scrutiny. Critically, an assimilate-to-privilege form of desegregation has not resulted in systemic change but replaced the apartheid ‘colour line’ with an ‘epistemic line’ of White privilege and race stereotyping. Towards the end of the article, I’ll consider why anticolonial discourse rejects intergroup contact as a solution, and turn, finally, to Mbembe’s concept of Afropolitanism to make modest proposals for a way forward – the ‘how to fix it’ part of the article.

Voices without words: the spectrum of nonverbal vocalisations

ABSTRACT Nonverbal vocalisations are a fundamental part of human life. Here, we use Tinbergen’s ethological framework to examine the functions, ontogenetic trajectories, evolutionary history, and underlying mechanisms of five types of vocalisations: cries, laughter, moans, screams, and sighs. Integrating insights from evolutionary biology and social psychology, we demonstrate how biological functions and social factors shape vocalisations. Tracing the development of vocalisations from infancy to adulthood emphasises the role of innate tendencies, as well as delineating processes of social learning. For each vocalisation type, we map their distinct nature and communicative potential: cries are crucial for survival and caregiving responses; laughter fosters social bonding and group cohesion; moans convey a wide range of internal states from pleasure to discomfort; screams serve as urgent alarms in critical situations; and sighs regulate emotions and signal shifts in emotional states. We conclude that both biological and social factors must be considered to understand nonverbal vocalisations.

In their narratives: academic socialization in the experience of sensory processing sensitivity among university students.

While much of the worldwide contemporary research on sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) and environmental sensitivity (ES) has relied on the participation of university students, there remains a significant gap in understanding the academic social experiences of those scoring high in SPS (i.e., highly sensitive individuals). To address this gap, this exploratory study aimed to investigate in detail students' academic socialization through their narratives. We conducted nine interviews with Italian university students who self-identified as highly sensitive. Through thematic reflexive analysis, we identified and analyzed 6 themes (with subthemes and versions of subthemes) concerning their self-definitions, their university experience (in classroom, before, during, and after exams), and socialization with peers and teachers. After 20 years of research on SPS, this study integrates the relevant literature into the field of social psychology and academic socialization, emphasizing the importance of understanding SPS within real-life educational contexts and considering highly sensitive students' perspectives on their resources and challenges in attending university. By contributing to the emerging qualitative literature on SPS and ES, this study provides practical implications for educators and policymakers seeking to foster inclusive learning environments for all students.

How developments in natural language processing help us in understanding human behaviour.

The ways people use language can reveal clues to their emotions, social behaviours, thinking styles, cultures and the worlds around them. In the past two decades, research at the intersection of social psychology and computer science has been developing tools to analyse natural language from written or spoken text to better understand social processes and behaviour. The goal of this Review is to provide a brief overview of the methods and data currently being used and to discuss the underlying meaning of what language analyses can reveal in comparison with more traditional methodologies such as surveys or hand-scored language samples.

Conspiracy Theories as Productive Practices: Toward a Theory of Conspiratorial Style, Agency, and Politics

This article reviews anthropological explorations of conspiracy theories—in dialogue with insights from other disciplines, primarily political science, philosophy, and social psychology—to frame conspiracy theories as productive social practices. While conspiracy theories are often depicted through their epistemological shortcomings and associated with social and political margins, this article traces the nascent threads across anthropological scholarship to reach an emic understanding of those narratives and their sociopolitical reverberations and proposes approaching conspiracy theories through their style, agentive implications, and political effects. Conspiratorial style, the article argues, pertains not to the content of the narrative but to its incessant seeking of covert operations beyond readily visible forms as well as a growing flexibility regarding the narrator's belief in the narrative's veracity. The agentivizing dynamic generated through conspiracism differentiates contemporary conspiracism from its predecessors and involves an empowering current. Finally, the article focuses on how contemporary conspiracism is intricately linked to political contestations.

Cognitive dual-task does not annihilate the negative effects of gender stereotype threat on girls' motor learning

Stereotype threat, a key concept in social psychology, occurs when individuals fear they may confirm negative stereotypes about their social group (Steele, 1997). This phenomenon can significantly impair motor learning, particularly in children. Given the robust nature of stereotype threat, research it is now focused on mitigating these negative effects. According to the explicit monitoring hypothesis, it is suggested that distracting individual’s attention can lead to an annihilation of stereotype threat effects, however, to date, this hypothesis has not been examined in children. The present study examined the effect of stereotype threat in a dual task condition on children’s motor learning. One hundred and fifty girls (mean age = 10.96 ± .80 years) were randomly assigned into 3 groups; 1- explicit gender stereotype threat; 2- explicit gender stereotype threat + dual task; 3- control. The task consisted of a soccer-kicking task in which the participants had to score the most points by kicking the soccer ball towards the goals on the wall. This study included three phases; 1- pretest (10 trials); 2- practice phase (5 blocks of 10 trials); 3- retention test (10 trials). During the practice phase, the results indicated that participants in the control condition performed better (M = 1.46, SD = .19) than participants in the gender stereotype threat condition (M = 1.25, SD = .16, p < .001), and, than participants in the gender stereotype threat + dual task paradigm condition (M = .92, SD = .19, p < .001). However, participants in the gender stereotypes + dual task paradigm condition performed worse than participants in the gender stereotype threat condition (p < .001). In addition, the results of the retention test showed that participants in the control condition performed better (M = 1.51, SD = .34) than participants in the gender stereotype threat condition (M = 1.24, SD = .35, p = .001), and participants in the gender stereotype threat + dual task paradigm condition (M = 1.15, SD = .49, p < .001). In conclusion, these results do not support the potential neutralizing effect of a cognitive dual task in a stereotype threat condition in children.

The Principle of Righteousness and the Chosŏn–Ming and ROK–ROC Security Commitments*

This study addresses the question of why some decision‐makers and political elites in Chosŏn and the Republic of Korea (ROK) remained committed to the Ming Dynasty and the Republic of China (ROC) when the latter had declined in power. Based on the social psychological literature on righteousness, we explore this relationship through the lens of spontaneous and binding mechanisms. The former refers to voluntary help after reciprocity has been internalized as a duty, and the latter suggests that although individuals are reluctant to help, the fear of violating righteousness motivates continued commitment. Using the most‐different case design, this study finds supporting evidence from both the Chosŏn and the ROK periods. Specifically, Chosŏn loyalist officials insisted on aiding the weakened Ming and dethroned the rationalist King, Gwanghaegun. Moreover, those Korean elites who lived through the Korean Independence Movement and the Korean War emphasized diplomatic ties with the ROC even after the ROC lost its UN seat in 1971. By integrating social psychology and constructivism literature, the findings illuminate how the norms of righteousness shape decision‐makers' foreign policy and alliance commitment preferences.

Exploring the Impact of AI Enhancement on the Sports App Community: Analyzing Human-Computer Interaction and Social Factors Using a Hybrid SEM-ANN Approach

The iteration of AI technology has enhanced the industry competitiveness of sports apps and brought a new emotional experience to users. However, the community function of AI-enabled sports apps has not yet received sufficient attention. This study adopts the technology acceptance model framework through the human-computer interaction and social psychology perspectives, incorporating perceived interactivity (human-human interaction, human-information interaction, human-system interaction), user experience (functional experience, content experience, and emotional experience), attachment theory (emotional attachment, emotional loyalty), social identity, social trust, and satisfaction variables to construct a theoretical model. It aims to solve the problem of how AI can enhance users’ emotional interaction, community stickiness, and ultimately social interaction satisfaction in sports apps. Through literature review, theoretical analysis, and case study, the Chinese “KEEP” APP was identified as the research object, and the questionnaire was constructed with an improved test scale. The study used a cross-sectional sampling method to collect data from Chinese online platforms for three months (N = 520) and tested the hypotheses in the theoretical model through structural equation modeling and artificial neural networks. The results of the study show that (1) emotional attachment, emotional loyalty, social identity, and social trust positively and significantly affect user satisfaction; (2) emotional attachment and social identity positively and significantly affect human-human interaction; (3) perceived usefulness, social identity, and social trust significantly construct an influence loop on the internal path. Compared with existing studies, this study proposes a multidimensional innovative framework that reveals the deeper influence mechanism of AI technology in sports APP communities and makes up for the shortcomings of existing studies in terms of users’ emotional interactions and community stickiness. Through this study, sports APP developers and operators, marketers, AI technology developers, as well as sports enthusiasts, and general users can obtain specific practical suggestions to further optimize the design and functionality of sports apps, and enhance the overall user experience and satisfaction.

Векторы социальной психологии: опережая время (к 100-летию со дня рождения Галины Михайловны Андреевой)

&lt;p style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objective.&lt;/strong&gt; Analysis of the main methodological and theoretical directions in social psychology developed by Professor Galina Mikhailovna Andreyeva, one of the founders of Russian social psychology; consideration of the key problems of modern social psychology. &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background. &lt;/strong&gt;The vectors of scientific knowledge identified by G.M. Andreyeva and the problems she developed in the field of social psychology have become general methodological principles in various fields of psychological science. Among them there are the problems of joint activity and communication, which have become the basis for the study of social groups and personality. A fundamental principle of the new paradigm of social psychology offered by G.M. Andreyeva, &amp;ndash; the issues of the influence of the social context and the influence of social changes on the formation (construction) of a person's world image and his social behavior. Significant moments in the field of social cognition created by G.M. Andreyeva are highlighted. The potential of her main ideas in modern psychology is shown. The main biographical data of Galina Andreyeva are presented, showing her life path and significant for the creation of the G.M. Andreyeva School of Social Psychology at Moscow University. &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methodology.&lt;/strong&gt; The article uses methods of deductive analysis; methods of historical and psychological hermeneutics. &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions.&lt;/strong&gt; The main scientific ideas of G.M. Andreeva not only became the theoretical and methodological basis for understanding and explaining the fundamental problems of socio-psychological knowledge, but also made a huge contribution to understanding the ongoing social changes.&lt;/p&gt;

Какая гендерная теория нужна российской социальной психологии

&lt;p style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Objective&lt;/strong&gt;. The article problematizes the theoretical field of gender studies and the concept of &amp;ldquo;gender&amp;rdquo;, which are currently vulnerable in the socio-political context. The aim of the article is to determine the range of theories of Russian psychologists capable of solving topical issues in the field of gender social psychology outside of a politically conflicting discourse. &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background&lt;/strong&gt;. According to political theory, psychological knowledge can become a guide for political practice, this area of political science is called biopolitics. The constructivist theoretical field of gender studies belongs to the field of biopolitics; in Western gender theory, the deconstruction of gender is allowed not only as a social phenomenon, but also as a change in biological sex. Moreover, the possibility of deconstructing gender and sex is currently determined by political practice, not by psychological or psychiatric indications. The use of Western gender theory and the concept of &amp;ldquo;gender&amp;rdquo; in political conflicts pushes Russian social psychology to search for a theory based on the concepts of Russian psychologists focused on the analysis of the socio-psychological reality of gender relations. &lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results&lt;/strong&gt;. The article emphasizes the impossibility of the reverse movement of science and the choice of the gender-role approach as outdated, not responding to the needs of modernity. Three theories are called productive and adequate to modern problems: the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky, the subject-activity approach of S.L. Rubinstein, the theory of relations by V.N. Myasishchev. The concept of gender relations by I.S. Kletsina, one of the most popular modern concepts of gender in Russian psychology. &lt;strong&gt;Conclusions&lt;/strong&gt;. Gender psychology is a new branch of social psychology, which turned out to be vulnerable to political initiatives in a period of socio-political instability. The search for new theoretical constructs and the educational activity of psychologists in the biopolitical field will help gender psychology overcome the crisis period.&lt;/p&gt;

More than ‘ignorant bushbaby bullshit’

Abstract According to the social psychologists R. D. Laing, H. Phillipson and A. R. Lee, we human beings are constantly speculating about the view that others have upon us, thereby forming a metaperspective (Laing et al. 1966). Yet despite the fact that literature is grounded in some of the most fundamental and general structures of human cognitive experience (Gavins and Steen 2003: 2), proving a rich seam to mine for metaperspectives, the concept has not yet been explored in a literary context. Accordingly, this paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach to investigate metaperspectives within fiction for the first time. Introduced is my coinage of the racialised metaperspective, denoting a sub-type concerned with colour, culture, and/or ethnicity. Taking as my literary case study Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), I demonstrate that the racialised metaperspective both contributes to the depiction of a specific social milieu within a text, and serves a characterising function.

Тенденции исследований в психологии семьи: от неблагополучия к жизнеспособности

&lt;p style="text-align: justify;"&gt;A special issue of the journal "Social Psychology of the Modern Family" is devoted to the research of the modern family in the context of socio-psychological knowledge. The issue reflects trends, the general state and problems of family psychology, highlights a number of fundamental socio-psychological problems of the family that underlie its dynamic development in modern society, and identifies further research prospects in this area.&lt;/p&gt;

A hybrid self-supervised model predicting life satisfaction in South Korea.

Life satisfaction pertains to an individual's subjective evaluation of their life quality, grounded in their personal criteria. It stands as a crucial cognitive aspect of subjective wellbeing, offering a reliable gauge of a person's comprehensive wellbeing status. In this research, our objective is to develop a hybrid self-supervised model tailored for predicting individuals' life satisfaction in South Korea. We employed the Busan Metropolitan City Social Survey Data in 2021, a comprehensive dataset compiled by the Big Data Statistics Division of Busan Metropolitan City. After preprocessing, our analysis focused on a total of 32,390 individuals with 51 variables. We developed the self-supervised pre-training TabNet model as a key component of this study. In addition, we integrated the proposed model with the Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanation (LIME) technique to enhance the ease and intuitiveness of interpreting local model behavior. The performance of our advanced model surpassed conventional tree-based ML models, registering an AUC of 0.7778 for the training set and 0.7757 for the test set. Furthermore, our integrated model simplifies and clarifies the interpretation of local model actions, effectively navigating past the intricate nuances of TabNet's standard explanatory mechanisms. Our proposed model offers a transparent understanding of AI decisions, making it a valuable tool for professionals in the social sciences and psychology, even if they lack expertise in data analytics.

Systematic Review of Environmental Activism

Abstract: Despite a need for societal change to resolve environmental problems, social psychology has largely focused research on individual changes. At the same time, new climate movements recently emerged and social psychology has theoretical tools to study their societal impacts. In this review, we study how social psychology has approached environmental activism. We performed a search in the literature on different databases and 56 articles were finally included and analyzed with theoretical tools: levels of explanation ( Doise, 1982 ) and social influence models ( Moscovici, 1976b ). Results indicate that articles concerning environmental activism mainly focus their research on understanding the predictors of individual involvement in activism. On the other hand, few articles have dealt with the societal impacts of environmental activism. We discuss these results by questioning the paradigm and dominant approaches that lead to this individualization of environmental activism, and we propose other approaches to study environmental change.

Humanistic transformation and contemporary pathologies of normalcy impulses following the analytical social psychology of Erich Fromm

Humanistic transformation and contemporary pathologies of normalcy impulses following the analytical social psychology of Erich Fromm

Scientific Reflection on the Logic of the Development of Russian Social Psychology (For the 100th Anniversary of G.M. Andreeva)

The author studies the life path and scientific and organizational activities of a prominent social scientist and humanitarian G.M. Andreeva against the background of an analysis of the ways of the post-war formation of Soviet social psychology. Its outstanding role in the creation of an interdisciplinary system of cognitive and communicative social psychology and in its design and pedagogical implementation through the organization of teaching at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University with appropriate educational and methodological support for domestic higher education and the inclusion of its achievements in world science is shown. Generalization of her teaching experience in Russian and foreign universities and its theoretical and methodological foundations allowed G.M. Andreeva to develop a fundamental concept of cognitive psychology of social cognition, which is being developed in various directions by participants and followers of the scientific school she created, one of the largest in Russian socio-psychological science.

Modern Approaches in Domestic Psychology: Unity in Diversity

A brief result of the analysis of modern approaches undertaken within the framework of the collective monograph “Scientific approaches in modern domestic psychology” (M., 2023) is presented. 27 chapters (of different approaches) were divided into general psychological (developing within psychological science), general scientific approaches in psychology (interdisciplinary, resource, environmental, network, etc.), specific psychological in the field of psychology (personality psychology, social psychology, speech psychology, professional activities, etc.) and scientific approaches in applied psychology. Four options for comparisons are considered: the possibility of integration (V.A. Mazilov, V.A. Yanchuk) or comparison of scientific approaches (E.A. Sergienko, A.V. Yurevich). Based on the analysis, guidelines were proposed in an attempt to present the space of psychological science as differentiated by different approaches, and interconnected through the openness of borders and the flexibility of conceptual structures. The leading concepts, specifying concepts, methodological principles and leading methods of approaches are identified. all four groups demonstrate interconnections and complementarities in the understanding of nature, multidetermination of the psyche, and the ability to solve new and complex problems on their basis. Many approaches incorporate concepts and principles of other approaches in psychology. General scientific approaches have generated not only new concepts in psychology (interdisciplinarity, psychological resources), but also new methodological principles. I would like to emphasize that the analysis demonstrated a significant expansion of the methodological principles of psychological sciences, which are explicit not only in general psychological and general scientific, but also specific scientific approaches. The principles of interdisciplinarity, uncertainty, anticipation, subjectivity, evolution, multi-determination and self-development were justified, along with confirmation of the principles of systematicity, the unity of consciousness and activity, the unity of being and consciousness. But even the principles traditional for psychology are filled with new content, excluding determinism, which fetters a person by universal laws, and indeterminism, where a person is lost in infinite degrees of freedom. The author’s approach to the analysis of scientific approaches in psychology is an attempt to compare them and highlight trends in the development of methodology, which involves discussions and discussions, new solutions, new analysis possibilities, which is necessary for the development of our science and the implementation of the idea of the opponent circle.