Journal of Social and Political Psychology

Editorial Report and Acknowledgement of Reviewers, 2023

2024-03-06T03:59:59-08:00

No abstract available.

Are Today's Young People Active Citizens? A Study of Their Sensitivity to Socio-Political Issues and Their Social Participation

2024-03-06T04:00:00-08:00

This article focuses on two facets of young people's active citizenship: their experience of being impacted by socio-political events and their participation behaviour. The idea that underlies the study is that to better understand the relationship between young people's perception of socio-political reality and their multiple ways of exercising active citizenship, we need to conceptualize more broadly what constitutes "the political". Since today's youth engagement includes many different forms, research should focus on what young citizens themselves experience as impacting, going beyond traditional measures of political interest. We conducted a survey among university students (N = 969, 72.7% female) in Spain that included an open-ended question about events that had particularly impacted them in the past year and measures of their experience and willingness to engage in conventional and unconventional political and civic participation. The content analysis established four categories of impacting events: "national politics" and "international politics", which correlated with conventional political participation; events categorized as "social life" and "social justice" were associated with unconventional/civic participation. The results also suggest that most of the participants are, in fact, active citizens, which challenges the view of young people as "disaffected citizens". We conclude that the analysis of their specific socio-political sensitivities helps to understand the intensity and concrete orientation of their actions.

The Terrible Unknown: How Uncertainty Fosters Nationalist and Anti-Immigration Attitudes

2024-03-06T04:00:00-08:00

Uncertainty-identity theory (Hogg, 2000, 2007, 2012) postulates that people strengthen their adherence to, and identification with, extreme ideologies when they undergo an enduring uncertainty regarding their self-definition. Concomitantly, nationalist and extreme right-wing ideologies have been associated with the attribution of a threatening character to immigrant and refugee groups. We propose that self-uncertainty precedes the perceived threat posed by the latter groups, which in turn predicts adherence to nationalist attitudes. In one correlational (Study 1; n = 169) and one experimental study (Study 2; n = 309), we tested the mediational effects of perceived realistic and symbolic threat towards immigrants on the association between self-uncertainty and nationalist attitudes (belief in national superiority, support for anti-immigration laws and intention to vote for an anti-immigration party). In both studies, perceived realistic threat emerged as the most reliable mediator between self-uncertainty and nationalist attitudes. In addition (Study 2), we found a causal effect of self-uncertainty on realistic threat. We discuss the implications of these findings for social inclusion policies based on the reduction of uncertainty generated by immigration.

Heterosexist System Justification: Identity and Ideology Explain Variability in Sexual Minorities’ Opposition to Homophobia and Support for LGBTQ+ Rights

2023-12-22T02:59:25-08:00

We hypothesized that because politically conservative ideology legitimizes the status quo—including heteronormative institutions and arrangements—it should be negatively associated with in-group identification, opposition to homophobia, and support for LGBTQ+ rights among sexual minorities. These hypotheses, which were derived from system justification theory, were assessed in large US samples of sexual minority respondents. In Study 1 (N = 4,530) and Study 2 (N = 1,107), we observed that more conservative sexual minorities expressed weaker sexual identification, and, relatedly, less support for same-sex marriage and adoption and other rights and privileges, as well as less participation in collective action in favor of LGBTQ+ rights. In Study 3 (N = 446), heterosexist system justification was associated with decreased sexual identification and support for LGBTQ+ rights. In all studies, identity and ideology accounted for unique variance in support for vs. opposition to LGBTQ+ rights. Implications for the politics of sexual identity and collective action among disadvantaged groups are discussed.

Predicting Radicalism After Perceived Injustice: The Role of Separatist Identity, Sacred Values, and Police Violence

2023-12-22T06:36:03-08:00

Perceptions of injustice are central to fueling violent political action, though not everyone within a social movement will support violence in response to collective grievances. So who supports violence and who doesn’t after perceived injustice? To address this question, we followed up on the same individuals (N = 805) before and after a court decision in Catalonia (Spain) sentencing nine separatist leaders to prison, an event that led to mass violent and nonviolent protests. We tested three hypotheses by combining classical theories of collective action and more recent extremism models and found support for all three hypotheses. Namely, individuals who exhibited steeper increases in radicalism (controlling for activism) after the court ruling were those who had previously experienced police violence (social dynamics hypothesis), those who identified as separatists (separatist identity hypothesis), and those who held Catalan independence as a sacred value (sacred value hypothesis). Our findings offer a complex picture of real-world conflict settings, where the three evaluated factors seem to be intertwined. We discuss potential venues to restore inter-group relations after perceived injustice, with an assessment of how likely these strategies are to succeed based on the three adopted perspectives.

Gender Inequality Discourse as a Tool to Express Attitudes Towards Islam

2023-12-21T09:18:20-08:00

In order to promote their anti-immigration agenda, many politicians resort to gender equality discourse, often suggesting that national or European values should be protected against Islam that subordinates women. This co-occurrence of racist and anti-sexist arguments is striking because research generally shows that people with racist views and lower levels of egalitarianism tend to have more sexist attitudes. In this study, we use textual data to examine whether this co-occurrence emerges in lay people’s discourses and how it relates to their ideological positions. Drawing on data collected via an online questionnaire with French-speaking Belgians (N = 500) and using statistical text analyses, we investigate participants’ responses to open-ended questions pertaining to their conception of European lifestyle, the relation between Islam and Christian religions, and Islam and feminism. We find that participants with right-wing political orientation and higher levels of system justification associate women’s rights with European way of life more than other participants, perceive Islam and Christianity as more different, and perceive Islam as incompatible with feminism. They justify their views using gender equality arguments. In contrast, left-wing participants do not see feminism and Islam as incompatible and blame both religions for being an obstacle to gender equality. As a set, our findings confirm that people with right-wing political orientation and higher levels of system justification tend to exploit the issue of gender equality to promote their anti-egalitarian views towards Islam. In view of the widespread and normative support for gender equality in many Western countries, this phenomenon is particularly treacherous.

‘Warming Up’ to Populist Leaders: A Comparative Analysis of Argentina and Spain

2023-12-20T04:59:52-08:00

What makes populist leaders, responsible for many episodes of democratic backsliding, especially appealing to a significant part of the electorate? In the following pages we argue that the effect of perceptions regarding leaders’ ‘warmth’ causes them to be perceived as having good intentions toward and even being part of ‘the people,’ resulting in a more positive overall evaluation among citizens with more critical views of democratic representativeness (external political efficacy). We test this hypothesis in two very different political systems, Argentina and Spain, using data from original surveys that contain batteries of questions on warmth and competence trait dimensions for multiple leaders in both countries. The results show that while perceptions of traits along both warmth and competence dimensions are important for the evaluation of all leaders in democratic systems, the interactive effect between external political efficacy and perceptions of warmth is important for explaining more positive evaluations of populist leaders.

Colonial Mechanisms for Repudiating Indigenous Sovereignties in Australia: A Foucauldian-Genealogical Exploration of Australia Day

2023-12-20T06:28:11-08:00

A Foucauldian genealogical approach was used to explore the historical context surrounding Australia Day social tensions. Historic Indigenous-settler relations appear central to Australia Day events. Australia Day social contestation suggests unsettlement surrounding the ways in which Australian nationhood is predicated on colonial-settler privilege and exploitation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignties. While modalities of colonial-settler power are identified, so too are Indigenous forms of resistance that serve to disrupt settler privileges. The findings indicate that settler determination of Australia Day acts to preserve settler sovereignty within the national mythscape as a mechanism in the colonial project and repudiation of Indigenous sovereignties in Australia. However, Indigenous forms of resistance challenge settler constructions of the Australian mythscape and nationhood.

When Small Acts Are Multiplied: Assessing Everyday Social Justice Behaviors

2023-12-13T04:45:54-08:00

Using the Act Frequency Approach, we drew on majority White, U.S. samples to create a new measure of social justice behavior and examine its correlates. Although existing measures of social justice behavior focus on engagement in collective action, participants in Study 1 (n = 137) were encouraged to nominate and evaluate a broad set of acts relevant to their daily lives. The final 17-item Everyday Social Justice Behavior (ESJB) scale reflects a range of global and domain-specific actions rated as prototypical by both 53 undergraduate novices and 20 social justice experts in Study 2. Participants in studies 3 (n = 388) and 4 (n = 613) were then asked to rate how frequently they perform the items. As expected, women and sexual minorities, and those with left political orientation, engaged in more everyday social justice behavior. Moreover, those reporting more everyday social justice behavior also scored higher in structural attributions of social change, intersectional awareness, ratings of the importance of and confidence in taking action, openness to experience, extraversion, and empathy, while being lower in social dominance orientation, system justification, and the need for cognitive closure. In addition, those high in ESJB also reported more progressive activist engagement and intentions. Relations with activism were modest, suggesting social justice activism and ESJB are somewhat distinct forms of social justice behavior. This measure should be of broader use in similar (majority White) samples; the measure development process can also be used to assess such behaviors in other samples and contexts.

Adversarial Interaction in Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK

2023-12-06T07:30:17-08:00

Politeness is a social norm but so too in certain contexts is impoliteness. One such situation is that of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the UK House of Commons. The event is notorious for its adversarial discourse, especially for the gladiatorial encounters between Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. Their encounters form the focus of this paper, in which, through the reporting of previous studies, we explore five distinctive features of PMQs discourse: face-threats, personal attacks, the rhetorical use of quotations, equivocation, and traditional forms of address; in a sixth study, we also discuss the potential political functions of adversarial opposition. Adversarial questioning is the norm of PMQs; it is the expected role of opposition leaders to scrutinise government policies and actions, and to call the government to account. Thereby, PMQs adversarialism can be seen to reflect the underlying social norms and evaluations of this highly distinctive social setting.