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

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 373-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam R. Pearson ◽  
Jonathon P. Schuldt

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.

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 813-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liran Goldman ◽  
Howard Giles ◽  
Michael A. Hogg

Gang violence, endemic to many communities in the United States and around the world is a very significant social problem. Given that the messages conveyed by, and the rivalries associated with, gang identities readily invoke constructs and processes familiar to the social psychological study of social identity, intergroup relations, and communication (Lauger, 2012), it is surprising that social psychologists have not advanced such an analysis of gangs. In attempt to fill this void and set a research agenda, this theoretical article examines the role social identity and identity-related communication play in promoting affiliation with gangs, particularly among youth who confront uncertainties and strive for family-like protection. The article discusses messaging communicated by gang members and reasons why youth adopt antisocial (e.g., violent) rather than prosocial behaviors. It also explores ways to diminish the allure of gang membership and raises questions for future research.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn van Zomeren ◽  
Winnifred R. Louis

In this introduction to the special issue of Group Processes & Intergroup Relations on “Culture and Collective Action” we emphasize the importance of the special issue topic for the development of the field. Specifically, we highlight the globalization of collective action and the internationalization of the social-psychological study of collective action, both of which point to culture as a missing link for this field. We thus propose that the next step is to move toward a proper cultural psychology of collective action—a social psychology in which culture is an integral part. This special issue provides a first step toward such a broad and integrative psychological understanding of collective action, but comes with promises as well as problems. We discuss both the exciting synergies and some lessons to learn for the future, and conclude that a focus on culture will facilitate the development of the rich and fascinating field of the social psychology of collective action.


2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Skitka ◽  
Faye J. Crosby

Justice is one of the most basic and potentially important social psychological areas of inquiry. The assumption that others will be fair is what makes social cooperation possible. This article provides a brief review of trends, both historical and current, n the social psychological study of justice, and provides an introduction for a special issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review devoted to social psychological theorizing and research on the role that justice plays in human affairs. This overview highlights some exciting new directions in justice theorizing and research, including new uses of identity's ties to justice reasoning, increased attention to negative justice and moral emotion, as well as a greater emphasis on integrative and contingent, rather than competing, social psychological models of justice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8335
Author(s):  
Jasmina Nedevska

Climate change litigation has emerged as a powerful tool as societies steer towards sustainable development. Although the litigation mainly takes place in domestic courts, the implications can be seen as global as specific climate rulings influence courts across national borders. However, while the phenomenon of judicialization is well-known in the social sciences, relatively few have studied issues of legitimacy that arise as climate politics move into courts. A comparatively large part of climate cases have appeared in the United States. This article presents a research plan for a study of judges’ opinions and dissents in the United States, regarding the justiciability of strategic climate cases. The purpose is to empirically study how judges navigate a perceived normative conflict—between the litigation and an overarching ideal of separation of powers—in a system marked by checks and balances.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 627-636
Author(s):  
Dan Bouk

A mid-1960s proposal to create a National Data Center has long been recognized as a turning point in the history of privacy and surveillance. This article shows that the story of the center also demonstrates how bureaucrats and researchers interested in managing the American economy came to value personal data stored as “data doubles,” especially the cards and files generated to represent individuals within the Social Security bureaucracy. The article argues that the United States welfare state, modeled after corporate life insurance, created vast databanks of data doubles that later became attractive to economic researchers and government planners. This story can be understood as helping to usher in our present age of personal data, one in which data doubles have become not only commodities, but the basis for a new capitalism. This essay is part of a special issue entitled Histories of Data and the Database edited by Soraya de Chadarevian and Theodore M. Porter.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Kahn

Climate change could significantly reduce the quality of life for poor people in Asia. Extreme heat and drought, and the increased incidence of natural disasters will pose new challenges for the urban poor and rural farmers. If farming profits decline, urbanization rates will accelerate and the social costs of rapid urbanization could increase due to rising infectious disease rates, pollution, and congestion. This paper studies strategies for reducing the increased social costs imposed on cities by climate change.


1983 ◽  
Vol 165 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hakken

Some perspectives with which to evaluate the impact of the pedagogy of liberation on worker education programs in England and the United States are suggested. The pedagogy of liberation is often associated with the work of Paulo Freire and occasionally with that of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. After some initial discussion of the nature of liberation pedagogy, the problems involved in assessing its effectiveness, are discussed in reference to specific worker education programs in England and the United States. The analysis of workers' education involves discussion of the pedagogy which informs particular programs and the social psychological dilemmas which often face the worker/students involved in workers' education. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research on workers' education for liberation pedagogy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
V.A. Shorokhova ◽  
O.E. Khukhlaev ◽  
S.B. Dagbayeva

The paper describes results of a social psychological study on religious identity in Buddhist schoolchil- dren. The study involved 184 students of 9—10 classes of a school in the Aginskoye settlement (Aginsky Buryatsky Okrug, Zabaykalsky Krai). According to G. Allport’s concept and R. Gorsuch & S. McPherson measurements, religious identity is considered not only as practicing Buddhism, but as a complex social psychological formation with a four-factor structure base on the following scales: personal/social and in- trinsic/extrinsic. Different components of religious identity are explored in the context of their relation- ship with value orientations (as described by S. Schwartz and G. Hofstede). The following techniques were employed: the adapted version of D. Van Camp’s Individual/Social Religious Identity Measure, Schwartz’s Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-R2), and Hofstede’s Values Survey Module. As it was revealed, al- most all values related to various components of religious identity of the Buddhist adolescents refer to the social focus. The paper concludes that religious identity in modern Buddhist young people has a distinctive social character.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 83-97
Author(s):  
Sean Hildebrand, PhD ◽  
Brandon Waite, PhD

The purpose of this special issue of the Journal of Emergency Management is to assess the state of disaster preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article adds to this discussion by examining the results of a national survey of emergency managers in the United States regarding the social media platforms they use to communicate information related to the COVID-19 pandemic, how proficient they feel using them, and what value they see in these technologies during the times of crisis. The authors’ findings help make sense of government responses to the pandemic, as well as contribute to the body of literature on communication and emergency management more broadly. Furthermore, their findings have important implications for emergency management practitioners and educators. 


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Spetz ◽  
Susan A. Chapman ◽  
Timothy Bates ◽  
Matthew Jura ◽  
Laura A. Schmidt

Thirty-three U.S. states and the District of Columbia (DC) have legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and 10 states and DC have legalized marijuana for adult recreational use. This mirrors an international trend toward relaxing restrictions on marijuana. This article analyzes patterns in marijuana laws across U.S. states to shed light on the social and political forces behind the liberalization of marijuana policy following a long era of conservatism. Data on U.S. state-level demographics, economic conditions, and cultural and political characteristics are analyzed, as well as establishment of and levels of support for other drug and social policies, to determine whether there are patterns between states that have liberalized marijuana policy versus those that have not. Laws decriminalizing marijuana possession, as well as those authorizing its sale for medical and recreational use, follow the same pattern of diffusion. The analysis points to underlying patterns of demographic, cultural, economic, and political variation linked to marijuana policy liberalization in the U.S. context, which deserve further examination internationally.


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