Introduction

In 2014, a deadly epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever ravaged three countries in West Africa. While the disease barely hit the United States, it caused widespread panic that sometimes threatened the safety of African immigrants in the United States. Five years later, a global pandemic of a novel coronavirus, later named COVID-19, quickly picked up speed around the world. In the face of a serious and very real threat, many Americans ignored the warnings and a vocal minority even insisted that the pandemic was not real. While the particulars of each of these examples might be quite different, they have something very important in common: science denial. This introductory chapter provides an overview of how such widespread science denialist views come into existence and how they spread. The authors outline the eight chapters of this book, which go into depth on different psychological mechanisms behind this phenomenon. Finally, they provide a preview of some of the solutions we have devised in response to this grave problem.

The Economic Theory Behind the Global Climate Change

This article touches on several polarising subjects in the world environmental crisis. The author attempts to classify the main ideas that can have the same venomous level of disagreements, such as the issue of climate change or global warming. The argument is supported by a healthy majority of people who work in the field with a vocal minority of dissenters as well. The article starts with models about economic growth and the energy industry and how those interact to produce carbon emissions. The author tries to analyse models of how carbon emissions affect climate. Finally, the article outlays the models of how climate affects economic output and health projecting into the future. The research concludes by adding some additional models of how policy changes might affect all of this.

“Normally I Try and Capture a Moment, and With This I Had to Create a Moment”: Implications of Anonymous Photography Protocols in Photovoice Research with People Who Inject Drugs

Photovoice collaborations are designed to promote critical consciousness and advocate for change. People who inject drugs (PWID) are systematically silenced from advocacy for fear of being “outed.” Photovoice protocols that prohibit identifying photography provide a safer alternative; however, it is not known how these protections affect participant experience. This study examined how human subjects’ protections affect PWID experience in a Photovoice research project. A purposeful sample of PWID ( N = 25) was recruited from a Photovoice study and engaged in semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed for key themes. The majority of participants understood the protections while also explaining the difficulty in achieving their vision. Creativity played a significant role in overcoming the restrictions. A vocal minority voiced strong objections to the restrictive protocol. Allowing only anonymous photography posed certain challenges, but PWID valued the inherent privacy. Creative approaches may aid in overcoming restraints and achieving a balance.

Speaking-out or Remaining Silent? The Importance of Interplay Between Personal Attitudes and Perceived Group Norms in Outspokenness

Europeans’ attitudes and perceived group norms on immigration were examined from social psychological and semantic approaches. While overall personal attitudes are neutral and significantly different from perceived norms (mismatch), a small minority with extremely negative attitudes was observed. As predicted, the mismatch shaped outspokenness and identification with Europe moderated it. A conformity orientation among low identifiers and a resistance among high identifiers were revealed. Such resistance might is partly due to robust and vocal minority of opponents to the immigration. The need of distinguishing between attitudes and norms is discussed in regards to explanation of rising intolerance to migration.

‘We are the vocal minority’: The Safe Standing movement and breaking down the state in English football

Lord Justice Taylor’s final report into the Hillsborough stadium disaster recommended that all Premier League and Championship football grounds in England and Wales should become all-seated and that football supporters would eventually become ‘accustomed and educated to sitting’. Thirty years later, thousands of fans continue to stand at matches but in areas not designed for them to do so. This ritual has become a source of conflict between clubs, supporters and official safety bodies. In 2018, the UK Sports Minister claimed that despite this problem, there remained no desire amongst top clubs to change the all-seating policy and that it was only a ‘vocal minority’ who wanted to see the permanent return of standing in English football. However, supporters, networked through the national Football Supporters Association, had been actively mobilizing a social movement against the legislation for over 20 years. In this article, I use relational sociology to analyse empirical snapshots of the latest phase of this movement, ‘Safe Standing’, to show how the switching and cooperation of supporter networks and their tactics were successful in breaking down the state to create new political opportunities. In doing so, the article reveals the key characteristics of safe standing, including conflict, organizational form and intersubjective motivations, to represent the collective – but also often complex and contradictory – responses to the neoliberal political economy which English football, and society more broadly, has inhabited over the past 30 years.

I Am a Warrior: An Analysis of the Military Masculine-Warrior Narrative Among U.S. Air Force Officer Candidates

This qualitative study examines how cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy make sense of their experiences, form attitudes and beliefs, construct identities, and how a vocal minority of men create and perpetuate a biased gender norm. Despite an institutional intention of egalitarianism, cadets construct a highly masculinized culture. Focus group and interview analyses show how cadets perpetuate the military masculine-warrior narrative in sensemaking and the construction of gender differences. We argue that the narratives become an acceptable way to express gender biases, overriding the actual reason for the existence of fitness testing. We conclude by addressing the contradiction between policies promoting the inclusion of women in the military and the sexism described above. Acknowledging the lived experience of military personnel would allow for better perceptions of gender equality and suggests potential directions for policy, practice, and future research.

Speaking-out on the migration crisis or remaining silent? The importance of the interplay between personal attitudes and perceived group norms

Europeans’ attitudes and perceived group norms on immigration were examined from social psychological and semantic approaches. While overall personal attitudes are neutral and significantly different from perceived norms (mismatch), a small minority with extremely negative attitudes was observed. As predicted, the mismatch shaped outspokenness and identification with Europe moderated it. A conformity orientation among low identifiers and a resistance among high identifiers were revealed. Such resistance might is partly due to robust and vocal minority of opponents to the immigration. The need of distinguishing between attitudes and norms is discussed in regards to explanation of rising intolerance to migration.

Corporal Punishment Harms All Children

Corporal punishment remains a controversial practice among American parents despite over 1,400 studies demonstrating the harms to children’s long-term physical and psychological health. Although the public strongly believes there are large disparities in racial attitudes about hitting children, national surveys show that the majority of parents across racial and ethnic lines (with the exception of Asians) defend hitting. Moreover, the utilization of the culture defense in public forums is erroneous and harmful. Consequently, expert witnesses who invoke the culture defense are admitting views of a vocal minority into courtrooms while lacking evidentiary value that satisfies Daubert standards. This chapter provides a template for how to dismantle assertions that whupping children is an intrinsic cultural tradition among African Americans. It also shares historical and scientific facts to help professionals counter defenses that attempt to minimize the harms of children or excuse their maltreatment.