Person Perception, Meet People Perception: Exploring the Social Vision of Groups

Groups, teams, and collectives —people—are incredibly important to human behavior. People live in families, work in teams, and celebrate and mourn together in groups. Despite the huge variety of human group activity and its fundamental importance to human life, social-psychological research on person perception has overwhelmingly focused on its namesake, the person, rather than expanding to consider people perception. By looking to two unexpected partners, the vision sciences and organization behavior, we find emerging work that presents a path forward, building a foundation for understanding how people perceive other people. And yet this nascent field is missing critical insights that scholars of social vision might offer: specifically, for example, the chance to connect perception to behavior through the mediators of cognition and motivational processes. Here, we review emerging work across the vision and social sciences to extract core principles of people perception: efficiency, capacity, and complexity. We then consider complexity in more detail, focusing on how people perception modifies person-perception processes and enables the perception of group emergent properties as well as group dynamics. Finally, we use these principles to discuss findings and outline areas fruitful for future work. We hope that fellow scholars take up this people-perception call.

Of Precarity and Conspiracy: Introducing A Socio-Functional Model of Conspiracy Beliefs

Conspiracy Beliefs (CB) are a key vector of violent extremism, radicalism and unconventional political events (e.g. Brexit). So far, social-psychological research has extensively documented how cognitive, emotional and intergroup factors can promote CB. Evidence also suggests that adherence to CB moves along social class lines: low-income and low-education are among the most robust predictors of CB (Uscinski, 2020; van Prooijen, 2017). Yet, the potential role of precarity – the subjective experience of permanent insecurity stemming from objective material strain – in shaping CB remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we propose for the first time a socio-functional model of CB. We test the hypothesis that precarity could foster increased CB because it undermines trust in government and the broader political “elites”. Data from the World Value Survey (n = 21,650; Study 1, electoral CB) and from representative samples from polls conducted in France (n = 1760, Study 2a, conspiracy mentality) and Italy (n = 2196, Study 2b, COVID-19 CB), corroborate a mediation model whereby precarity is directly and indirectly associated with lower trust in authorities and higher CB. In addition, these links are robust to adjustment on income, self-reported SES and education. Considering precarity allows for a truly social psychological understanding of CB as the by-product of structural issues (e.g. growing inequalities). Results from our socio-functional model suggest that implementing solutions at the socio-economic level could prove efficient in fighting CB.

Us and the Virus

From a social psychological perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated protective measures affected individuals’ social relations and basic psychological needs. We aim to identify sources of need frustration (stressors) and possibilities to bolster need satisfaction (buffers). Particularly, we highlight emerging empirical research in which social psychological theorizing can contribute to our understanding of the pandemic’s social consequences: Loneliness, social networks, role conflicts, social identity, compliance, trust, reactance, and conspiracy beliefs. We highlight directions for future social psychological research as the pandemic continues.

Cognitive Biases and International Law: What’s the Point of Critique?

One of the main aims of critique is to work towards progressive change. What are critical scholarship’s assumptions about how that change should happen? And do they hold? In the present chapter, I focus on three characteristic traits of critique: seeing law as part of the problem; emphasizing law’s relative indeterminacy; and carving out contingencies in the law’s past. Critique has exposed and countered several dynamics that render the present state of affairs more natural, necessary, and just. Social psychological research has notably drawn attention to people’s longing to live in a world that they consider just—which is a world in which things appear to happen for a reason. Research has further drawn attention to the bias of hindsight and dynamics of ex post rationalization. In short, there are many concerns, tropes, and even vocabularies that are shared between critical legal scholarship and social psychological research. Yet, divides between the two still remain deep.

Mentioning the Sample’s Country in the Article’s Title Leads to Bias in Research Evaluation

Psychology research from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries, especially from the United States, receives more scientific attention than research from non-WEIRD countries. We investigate one structural way that this inequality might be enacted: mentioning the sample's country in the article title. Analyzing the current publication practice of four leading social psychology journals (Study 1) and conducting two experiments with U.S. American and German students (Study 2), we show that the country is more often mentioned in articles with samples from non-WEIRD countries than those with samples from WEIRD countries (especially the United States) and that this practice is associated with less scientific attention. We propose that this phenomenon represents a (perhaps unintentional) form of structural discrimination, which can lead to underrepresentation and reduced impact of social psychological research done with non-WEIRD samples. We outline possible changes in the publication process that could challenge this phenomenon.

Mentioning the Sample's Country in the Article’s Title Leads to Bias in Research Evaluation

Psychology research from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) countries, especially from the United States, receives more scientific attention than research from non-WEIRD countries. We investigate one structural way that this inequality might be enacted: mentioning the sample's country in the article title. Analyzing the current publication practice of four leading social psychology journals (Study 1) and conducting two experiments with U.S. American and German students (Study 2), we show that the country is more often mentioned in articles with samples from non-WEIRD countries than those with samples from WEIRD countries (especially the United States) and that this practice is associated with less scientific attention. We propose that this phenomenon represents a (perhaps unintentional) form of structural discrimination, which can lead to underrepresentation and reduced impact of social psychological research done with non-WEIRD samples. We outline possible changes in the publication process that could challenge this phenomenon.

Ideological Polarization and Social Psychology

Ideology is a recurrent feature of human societies. Ideologies provide people with frameworks to evaluate the relative legitimacy of different approaches to social order. Such ideologies often involve an opposition between right-leaning ideologies, which tend to justify and maintain the traditional order, and left-leaning ideologies, which advocate for systemic reforms to reduce hierarchies. Social psychological investigations of ideology explore the root motivations and moral foundations of people’s attraction to left versus right ideologies. In particular, such work focuses on understanding the motivational dynamics of ideologies that justify the status quo, promote authoritarian control, and rationalize social dominance hierarchies. Social psychological research also investigates information-processing biases that increase the polarization between left and right. These insights can be applied to bridge divides within ideologically polarized communities.

Intersectionality, Gender, and the Self-Stigma of Mental Illness

Introduction: This study sought to examine self-stigma at the intersection of two identities: mental illness and gender. Methods: Using an MTurk panel, 100 self-identified men and women with and without mental illness (total N = 400) completed the Difference and Disdain Self-Stigma Scale. Results: Significant effects were found for mental illness (participants with mental illness reported greater perceptions of being different from the population and disdain themselves because of that) but not for gender or the interaction. Discussion: Failure to find intersectionality may reflect classic findings from social psychological research that suggests people do not necessarily diminish self-esteem because of socio-demographic identity (I am a woman or African American). Future studies need to test for an intersection effect for public stigma.