Topics In Social Psychology Research Articles

James H. (Jim) Sidanius (1945-2021).

Memorializes Jim Sidanius (née James Brown [1945-2021]), one of the the foremost social and political psychologists of his generation. His theory of social dominance redefined the scientific study of intergroup relations, advancing novel hypotheses regarding the causes and consequences of intergroup conflict and inequality by integrating insights across the social and biological sciences. Jim's theoretical insights were matched only by his empirical prowess; he was a master at analyzing large data sets with advanced statistical methods, methods that he taught to hundreds of doctoral students over the years in his notoriously challenging but rewarding graduate statistics courses at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Harvard. Beyond his teaching of statistics and advanced topics in social psychology and African American studies, Jim mentored dozens of aspiring intergroup relations scholars over a 44-year career. As one of few Black social psychologists, he served as a role model for young Black scholars in particular. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Family Transmission of Ethnic Prejudice: A Systematic Review of Research Articles with Adolescents

Ethnic prejudice is one of the most studied topics in social psychology. Empirical research on its development and intergenerational transmission is increasing but still scarce. This systematic review collected and analyzed psychosocial studies focused on the transmission of ethnic prejudice within families with adolescents. Specifically, it aimed at addressing the following research questions: (a) To what extent is there a vertical (between parents and children) and horizontal (between siblings) transmission of ethnic prejudice within the family? (b) Is this process unidirectional (from parents to children) or bidirectional (between parents and children)? (c) Which individual and/or relational variables influence this process? (d) Can adolescents’ intergroup contact experiences affect the family influence on adolescents’ ethnic prejudice? The literature search of four databases (Ebsco, Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science), carried out from February 2021 to May 2021, following the PRISMA guidelines, yielded 22 articles that matched the eligibility criteria. The findings highlighted a moderate bidirectional transmission of ethnic prejudice between parents and adolescents, which was influenced by several individual and relational variables (e.g., the adolescents’ age and sex and the family relationship quality). Moreover, the adolescents’ frequent and positive contacts with peers of different ethnicities reduced the parents’ influence on the adolescents’ ethnic prejudice. The findings are discussed, and their limitations and implications for intervention and future research are considered.

Ομοφυλοφιλία, ουσιοποίηση και ταυτότητα στο λόγο ομοφυλόφιλων και ετεροφυλόφιλων ανδρών

Essentialism of social categories and its consequences on intergroup relations constitute one of the most popular research topics in social psychology. Drawing upon the relevant literature, the present study explores essentialist and de-essentialist representations about homosexual men and their identity functions in discourse. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight men who identified themselves as homosexual and eight men who identified themselves as heterosexual. Interviews were analyzed by the use of the principles of discursive psychology and rhetoric. Analysis indicated the coexistence of essentialist and de-essentialist representations of homosexuality in the discourse of both groups as a result of the negotiation and reconceptualization of naturalness, historical stability and normality of social categories. However, similar essentialist representations –suchas the historical stability of homosexuality– perform different intergroup functions, whereas different entitative representations perform common intergroup functions in the discourse of homosexual and heterosexual participants.

Towards a socially situated rumouring: Historical and critical perspectives of rumour transmission

AbstractRumours are an ubiquitous feature of people's social life and one of the oldest topics in social psychology. Rumours, which tend to spread during crisis situations, allow people to mitigate unpleasant feelings and construct a meaning of the surrounding world. Rumour transmission has been associated with a number of specific individual (e.g., anxiety, personal involvement) and situational (e.g., ambiguity, uncertainty) characteristics and studied with the serial reproduction paradigm (Allport & Postman, 1947) in laboratory settings. The main criticism of rumour research has been its focus on primarily individual‐level analyses in an attempt to explain a social phenomenon. Furthermore, the classic serial reproduction paradigm tends to omit the essential properties of interpersonal interactions and communication processes. Despite the recent and rapidly growing trend of social network methods in social and behavioural sciences, rumour research could also include a finer analysis of individuals' social characteristics and the related complexity of real‐life communication processes. Therefore, the integration of a socially situated approach to rumour transmission might be especially relevant for rumour research and promising for the study of other social phenomena by extension.

Agentic narcissism, communal narcissism, and prosociality.

Grandiose narcissism and prosociality are important topics in personality and social psychology, but research on their interplay is lacking. We present a first large-scale, systematic, and multimethod investigation linking the two. In 2 studies (N1 = 688, N2 = 336), we assessed grandiose narcissism comprehensively (i.e., agentic and communal narcissism) and examined its relations with instantiations of prosociality, namely, objective prosociality (actual behavior in Study 1; round-robin informant-reports in a real-life setting in Study 2) and subjective prosociality (self-perceptions in Studies 1 and 2). We obtained a consistent set of results. Agentic narcissism was related to lower objective prosociality and lower subjective prosociality. Communal narcissism, by contrast, was unrelated to objective prosociality, but was related to higher subjective prosociality. Additionally, we tested for prosociality self-enhancement among agentic and communal narcissists. Agentic narcissists evinced the same (and modest) level of prosociality self-enhancement as their non-narcissistic counterparts. Communal narcissists, by contrast, evinced substantial levels of prosociality self-enhancement, whereas their non-narcissistic counterparts did not enhance their prosociality at all. We discuss implications of the findings for the literature on narcissism and antisociality, and for the concept of prosocial personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Modeling stereotypes and negative self‐stereotypes as a function of interactions among groups with power asymmetries

AbstractStereotypes is one of the most researched topics in social psychology. Within this context, negative self‐stereotypes pose a particular challenge for theories. In the current work, we propose a model that suggests that negative self‐stereotypes can theoretically be accounted for by the need to communicate in a social system made up by groups with unequal power. Because our theory is dynamic, probabilistic, and interactionist, we use a computational simulation technique to show that the proposed model is able to reproduce the phenomenon of interest, to provide novel accounts of related phenomena, and to suggest novel empirical predictions. We describe our computational model, our variables' dynamic behavior and interactions, and link our analyses to the literature on stereotypes and self‐stereotypes, the stability of stereotypes (in particular, gender and racial stereotypes), the effects of power asymmetries, and the effects of intergroup contact.

Perceiving attitude change: How qualitative shifts augment change perception

Attitude change and persuasion are among the most studied topics in social psychology. Surprisingly, though, as a field we have virtually zero insight into perceived attitude change—that is, how people assess the magnitude of a shift in someone's attitude or opinion. The current research provides an initial investigation of this issue. Across 6 primary experiments and a series of supplemental studies (total N = 2880), we find consistent support for a qualitative change hypothesis, whereby qualitative attitude change (change of valence; e.g., from negative to positive) is perceived as greater than otherwise equivalent non-qualitative attitude change (change within valence; e.g., from negative to less negative or from positive to more positive). This effect is mediated by ease of processing: Qualitative attitude change is easier for people to detect and understand than non-qualitative attitude change, and this ease amplifies the degree of perceived change. We examine downstream consequences of this effect and discuss theoretical, methodological, and practical implications.

A Perspective on the Relevance and Public Reception of Psychological Science

In this short commentary, data from the website Reddit is used to examine how people receive social psychological research. The data show that people care greatly about research dealing with humans: links tagged as psychology, social sciences, and health are upvoted more than other categories on Reddit. Within the category of psychology, articles were coded based on the topic of research. Articles dealing generally with social psychological topics are among the highest in number and upvotes on the subreddit r/Science. Many posts were upvoted tens of thousands of times. However, upvotes on Reddit are unrelated to scientific publishing metrics (e.g., impact factor, journal rankings, and citations), suggesting a disconnect between what psychologists and Redditors may see as relevant. These findings also highlight some points for reflection. For example, psychologists may benefit from thinking about the purpose, goals, and beneficiaries of the research they pursue. Additionally, the level of attention that some psychological research receives has implications for transparent research practices. Researchers have a responsibility to ensure that findings are reported accurately and transparently because, whether scientists like it or not, people care about psychological research, they share it, and use it in their lives.

Can Implicit Measures Contribute to a True Understanding of People's Attitudes and Stereotypes?

Traditionally psychologists used explicit self-reports to better understand individuals’ attitudes but influences such as social desirability and impression management often made this method of data collection unreliable. This article describes the origins and the advancements of one of the most studied topics in social psychology - Implicit Social Cognition. Unobtrusive/indirect research methods were initially used to overcome the problems of using self-reports. Subsequently, reaction time tasks such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) were developed to enable researchers to measure response biases, at the individual level, in socially sensitive domains such as prejudice towards minority groups. Automaticity is a core requirement for a measure to be described as implicit and therefore, fast reaction times (< 2,000 milliseconds) are needed. This article will describe under what conditions implicit and explicit measures are and are not related, including the theoretical basis for these relations. The value of using both implicit and explicit measures to predict behaviour will be explained, along with a discussion on what implicit measure are detecting. In certain domains or under specific conditions, implicit measures can contribute to providing a true understanding of attitudes and stereotypes.

Open Sharing of Data on Close Relationships and Other Sensitive Social Psychological Topics: Challenges, Tools, and Future Directions

This article reports on an adversarial (but friendly) collaboration examining the issues that lie at the intersection of confidentiality and open-data practices. We describe the process we followed to share our data for a speed-dating article we recently published in Psychological Science (Joel, Eastwick, & Finkel, 2017) and provide a summary of the issues we considered and addressed along the way. As we drafted the present article, the third author became unsure, in retrospect, about some of the procedures we had followed, especially if our approach were to be perceived as a model for open-data decisions in other, more typical cases involving nonindependent data. This article addresses these concerns, but also identifies areas of consensus. All three authors agree that there remains an unmet need for guidelines and other resources to help researchers address the challenges of sharing data that cover sensitive topics, particularly nonindependent data collected from pairs and groups (e.g., romantic couples, work teams, therapy groups). We conclude with a discussion of new tools that could be developed to help scholars who have collected such data to increase the transparency of their research while simultaneously protecting the confidentiality of the participants.

Connecting Psychological Science With Climate Change

Students often have little understanding of the role psychological science plays in informing us about the impact of human behavior when addressing climate change. We designed an assignment for a social psychology course based on Frantz and Mayer’s use of the decision tree model of helping behavior to identify the psychological barriers that reduce the likelihood that people will take action against climate change. Students identified one barrier and designed a persuasion or influence attempt to address that barrier. The assignment integrated social psychological topics in several areas (e.g., helping behavior, persuasion). A pretest–posttest design revealed that students’ knowledge of the role of psychological science in understanding climate change increased compared to a control class.

The Effect of Stereotype Threat on Group Versus Individual Performance

Stereotype threat has been one of the most studied topics in social psychology in recent years. This research shows that subtle reminders of stereotypes about one’s social category hurt task performance—an effect replicated across several stereotypes and performance domains. Despite extensive research on individual performance, it is unknown how stereotype threat affects group performance. A question of theoretical and practical importance is whether people who face a common stereotype can overcome it by working together. To answer this question, an experiment was conducted comparing the performance of individual women and groups of women on a math/logic problem when faced with a stereotype threat. Results indicated that when facing a stereotype threat, groups outperformed the best individuals and performed just as well as non-threatened groups. This effect was due to threatened groups avoiding problem-solving errors. The implications for understanding group versus individual performance when facing stereotype threats are discussed.

Mission Accomplished: What's Next for Consumer BDT-JDM Researchers?

A main objective of Behavioral Decision Theory (BDT) research – demonstrating that economic theory often fails as a description of decision making as well as gaining insights into systematic influences on judgment and choice – has been largely accomplished. This research program, published in psychology, decision making, marketing, and other fields, has had unique characteristics that combined criteria employed in economics and psychology. Now that the prominent portion of the BDT agenda has been largely completed, it is time to consider whether the BDT and greater judgment and decision making (JDM) community in marketing will pursue a new direction or just follow the topics of the day (e.g., current topics in social psychology, public policy applications of previous JDM findings). I propose a broad research area – the interaction between the evolving information environment and consumer JDM – that raises a wide range of important questions and may fit the skills and interests of BDT researchers. In addition to raising new JDM concepts and problems, the proposed area can lead to major revisions of long established frameworks of consumer behavior and marketing. It is far from obvious, however, that BDT researchers/marketing professors, who are accustomed to studying general purpose JDM topics and are aligned with the broader JDM and social psychology community, will be receptive to a consumer-centric research program.

Predicting Identity Style based on Family Communication Pattern in Young Males

This research shows the role of family communication pattern in predicting identity styles. One of the main topics in social psychology and characteristic in the recent decade is the Identity. On the other hand, family is the first system that a kid is placed in, affected by and his identity formed. Based on this reason, this research is looking for the role of family communication pattern in identity processing style in young males. For this purpose 345 male students were selected with the average age of 21/05 (±2/02) among the students of different colleges of Shiraz University with simple random sampling. All of the participants completed Revised Family Communication Pattern (RFCP) instrument (Fitzpatrick & Ritchie, 1994) and Identity Style Inventory (ISI) (White, Wampler & Winn, 1998). RFCP has two orientations: Conversation Orientation and Conformity Orientation. Also ISI has three styles: Normative, Informational and Diffuse-avoidant Styles. The result of multiple regressions shows that the conversation orientation of communication pattern in family predicts normative and informational styles positively. Also conformity orientation of communication pattern in family predicts diffuse-avoidant style positively.

Research topics in Social Psychology in Brazil

How is the portrait of the Brazilian scientific production in Social Psychology of the past few years? This study aims to address especifically this question, by visiting the articles published by Brazilian scholars since 1980, all of whom have been recognized and sponsored by the Brazilian National Council on Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Production from 80 Brazilian researchers was analysed, based on phenomena traditionally studied by Social Psychologists (e.g., Social Influence), which served as a priori categories. Articles that reflect studies developed in 5 geopolitical regions of the country, but data showed regions South and Southeast with the highest concentration in terms of academic production. Such finding is discussed in terms of the influence of an individualist culture on Brazilian research. Observing the main Social Psychology topics studied by Brazilians, it was noticed a centrality of the “Psychological” approach to Social Psychology, mainly originated in English-speaking countries.

Mental time travel: A conceptual overview of social psychological perspectives on a fundamental human capacity

AbstractHumans have the unique capacity to mentally travel through time, that is, to reflect on the past, anticipate the future, and construct alternate realities in their minds. The ability to mentally travel through time affects a variety of social psychological topics. Representations of events can differ considerably, depending on the event's temporal location and distance from the present. Current emotions may be influenced by thoughts of future and past times (e.g., nostalgia, hope). Judgments about future events and actions are an important aspect of everyday functioning (e.g., predictions). Indeed, hypothetical thought about counterfactual events that might never come to pass may change the perception and evaluation of present reality. Despite this varied and extensive influence of time on affect, judgment, perception, and behavior, these diverse topics have not been brought together under one common roof. In this overview article and in the special issue on Mental Time Travel, we aim to identify key themes of mental time travel research, point to communalities and differences, and help to integrate various aspects of mental time travel research. Future directions regarding open questions, need for theoretical integration, and further empirical research are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The winds of change: Some challenges in reconfiguring social psychology for the future

In this short article, I celebrate the plurality and eclecticism of the British Journal of Social Psychology. I argue that this approach offers the best hope for an uncertain future. The powerful narrative on which social psychology was once based is fragmenting in part due to Research Assessment Exercise (RAE/REF) pressures. Social psychological topics and research are migrating outside institutional Psychology, and the BJSP needs to follow. Examples of recent social research on affect and emotion are used to illustrate the new spreading and reach of social psychological topics and issues.

Effects of Prosocial Media on Social Behavior

Helping and aggression are core topics in social psychology. So far, abundant evidence that violent media decreases helping and increases aggression has been collected. However, recent theoretical and empirical work has demonstrated that the media may also increase prosocial outcomes and decrease antisocial outcomes. In fact, exposure to media with prosocial content increases the accessibility of prosocial thoughts, empathy, and helping behavior and decreases aggression and aggression-related cognition and affect. The present article reviews this research and provides an overview of when and why media exposure instigates helping and reduces aggression.

Threats: Power, family mealtimes, and social influence

One of the most basic topics in social psychology is the way one agent influences the behaviour of another. This paper will focus on threats, which are an intensified form of attempted behavioural influence. Despite the centrality to the project of social psychology, little attention has been paid to threats. This paper will start to rectify this oversight. It reviews early examples of the way social psychology handles threats and highlights key limitations and presuppositions about the nature and role of threats. By contrast, we subject them to a programme of empirical research. Data comprise video records of a collection of family mealtimes that include preschool children. Threats are recurrent in this material. A preliminary conceptualization of features of candidate threats from this corpus will be used as an analytic start point. A series of examples are used to explicate basic features and dimensions that build the action of threatening. The basic structure of the threats uses a conditional logic: if the recipient continues problem action/does not initiate required action then negative consequences will be produced by the speaker. Further analysis clarifies how threats differ from warnings and admonishments. Sequential analysis suggests threats set up basic response options of compliance or defiance. However, recipients of threats can evade these options by, for example, reworking the unpleasant upshot specified in the threat, or producing barely minimal compliance. The implications for broader social psychological concerns are explored in a discussion of power, resistance, and asymmetry; the paper ends by reconsidering the way social influence can be studied in social psychology.

Expert Psychological Testimony

Psychologists serve as expert witnesses in criminal and civil cases and testify about a wide range of clinical, cognitive, developmental, industrial-organizational, biological, and social psychological topics. We review the topics about which psychologists offer testimony, the rules governing the admissibility of expert testimony, and contemporary research on expert testimony. With respect to the latter, we review research concerning the need for, appropriateness of, and effect of expert testimony. We discuss research pertaining to admissibility issues, including the effect of changes in admissibility criteria on admissibility decisions and judge and juror sensitivity to the quality of scientific psychological research. Because judges and jurors lack sensitivity to variations in expert evidence quality and common safeguards do not appear to increase sensitivity to research flaws, additional research is needed to identify methods of assisting fact finders who must evaluate expert testimony.