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Despite repeated opportunities to reconsider their natural science ambitions, social psychologists have not done so, and there are no obvious signs of this changing. Why? This paper pursues an answer to this question by defining the field after the fashion of Michael Polanyi's thought. According to Polanyi, interpretative frameworks develop from our primitive bodily encounters with the world and then are shaped by language into the vast conceptual systems of our culture. Concerning frameworks erected on our most fundamental beliefs (e.g., science), he says that we "live in [them] as in the garment of our own skin." Frameworks such as this are not objects of critical evaluation but of commitment, and social psychology, as an outgrowth of positive philosophy, is an interpretative framework in this sense. Professionals' recent responses to the field's political makeup and replication failures demonstrate this. They aim primarily at preserving a natural science understanding of social psychology and point to the influence of belief‐stabilizing mechanisms Polanyi finds operative in folk religious practices. These mechanisms appear at work also in psychology as a whole. They are implied, for instance, in the field's resistance to Sigmund Koch's authoritative judgement against its scientific self‐conception in the latter half of the 20th century. Noting this reveals the broader implications of this paper's definition of social psychology, but it also urges questions about truth and relativity that cannot be ignored. These questions are addressed briefly in the end where it is suggested that what psychology needs most of all is a change of heart, and that this will happen, if at all, not primarily through argument and evidence, but through persons who authentically believe in the veracity of a different framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A serious consideration of pain has largely been absent in sociology, especially physical pain's close neurobiological relative, social pain. Social pain is the process by which rejection and exclusion recruits similar neural circuits as physical pain, generating an affectual response that mirrors the response one feels from physical trauma. Pain is essential to any sociological analysis of motivation and action because, like many affective responses, it is a necessary ingredient in cognition and behavior; and, in many cases, it preconsciously commands and even controls how we think and act. While exploring this concept, it becomes apparent that sociology has an entire set of distantly related concepts that can be classified as different processes of social pain that reveal the structural, cultural, and situational conditions shaping the distribution of social pain. The paper concludes by thinking through the implications social pain portends for neuroscience and sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the core of what makes humans, and their behaviour, social, is the interplay between self and other. Our identities, for example, are essential to our functioning as social beings as they allow us to make sense of ourselves, and others, across different contexts. We care about how others see us and achieving congruence between how we see ourselves, how we think relevant others see us, and indeed how relevant others actually see us in turn, becomes integral for achieving a positive sense of self. Therefore, humans require recognition from relevant others. This recognition can take many different forms, from legal recognition of one's rights in society, to social recognition of one's belonging to different groups. Moreover, the absence of recognition can lead to serious repercussions and consequences, resulting, on an individual level, in a reduced mode of being and feelings of exclusion, and on a social and political level, in tensions and conflict. The current special issue takes a multidisciplinary approach to contribute to the growing debates and discussions around the importance of understanding recognition and its role in social behaviour. As the introduction to this special issue, this paper argues that the concept of recognition enables a better understanding of how identification and belonging become entangled with power struggles and expressions of agency. Doing so leads us to conclude that a social psychology of identity and intra/intergroup relations which does not consider power relations, as bound up in processes of recognition and its denial, fails to consider the key processes and broader impact that exclusion, subtle or explicit, has on individuals' well‐being, belonging and ability to act in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: classical tolerance; democracy; identity politics; political freedom; postmodern tolerance EN classical tolerance democracy identity politics political freedom postmodern tolerance 237 241 5 06/24/22 20220601 NES 220601 INTRODUCTION In his paper "The meanings of tolerance", Maykel Verkuyten (2022) deals with the case of a student who posted comments on Facebook that expressed his disapproval of homosexuality and same sex marriage because it was considered a sin and abomination in his Christian belief. Classical tolerance, democracy, political freedom, postmodern tolerance, identity politics In his study Verkuyten distinguishes "classical tolerance" and a different, "modern" understanding of the term tolerance. CLASSICAL TOLERANCE Despite a long history of the term tolerance its traditional meaning can be summarized as follows: Classical tolerance is understood as enduring and putting up with issues one dislikes and even may disapprove of. [Extracted from the article]

The Affect Theory of Social Exchange (ATSE) research program has produced cumulative insights on how instrumental exchanges lead to the development of affectual attachments. With its focus on task responsibilities, ATSE leaves space to interrogate how factors not related to task execution are at play in the production of interpersonal bonds. In this paper, we integrate insights from social psychology, cultural sociology and organizational research to develop a theoretical framework suggesting (a) why and how cultural tastes contribute to social cohesion and (b) the conditions under which cultural tastes remain a source of strategic advantage or, worse, symbolic exclusion. Our theory rests on the basic proposition that shared cultural tastes increase the likelihood of experiencing positive emotions, which in turn are key in the development and maintenance of affectual attachments. Variations to this proposition are subsequently introduced, considering culture in declarative and nondeclarative forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that something important, and something social, is missing from contemporary accounts of social cognition, social neuroscience and evolutionary social psychology. Contemporary accounts of social cognition focus on cognition directed towards social objects, that is, towards persons and social groups. In contrast, early twentieth century accounts of socially engaged cognition focused upon beliefs and attitudes oriented to the represented beliefs and attitudes of members of social 'reference groups' and directed towards both social and non‐social objects. I argue that this earlier conception of socially engaged cognition should be integrated with contemporary research on social cognition, social neuroscience and evolutionary social psychology, since it poses a challenge but also an opportunity for these disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Drawing on the dual process framework from social and cognitive psychology, this paper reconciles two distinct conceptualizations of trust prevalent in the literature: “rational” calculative and irrational “affective” or normative. After critically reviewing previous attempts at reconciliation between these distinctions, we argue that the notion of trust as “reliance” is the higher order category of which “deliberate trust” and “intuitive faith” are subtypes. Our revised approach problematizes the conflation of epistemic uncertainty with phenomenological uncertainty while providing sound footing for a key sociological insight: that reliance on the routine social order is both the cognitive default and based on substantial practical evidence. We develop two broad suggestions for future research from these implications: (1) sociological research should examine the role of intuitive faith—as opposed to deliberate trust—in late modern societies, and (2) analysts should challenge the role of deliberate trust as the “modal” form of reliance in contemporary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By leveraging the case of Hindu sati, this paper elucidates the ways in which structure and culture condition suicidal behavior by way of social psychological and emotional dynamics. Conventionally, sati falls under Durkheim's discussion of altruistic suicides, or the self-sacrifice of underindividuated or excessively integrated peoples like widows in traditional societies. In light of the fact that Durkheim's interpretation was based on uneven data, nineteenth century Eurocentric beliefs, and a theoretical framework that can no longer resist modification and elaboration, by reconsidering sati it is possible to sketch a new model that strengthens Durkheim's theory by making it more robust and generalizable. The following model is built on five principles. First, integration and regulation are not distinct causal forces, but overlapping contextual conditions. Second, to better explain the variation in suicidality across time and space, we must also pay attention to culture as it provides the underlying meanings of suicide that can increase the odds a person or class of persons become suicidal or are protected against suicidality. Third, structure still matters, but in many cases, the role power and power-differentials play must be considered. Fourth, understanding why and how people choose suicide depends on incorporating identity and status processes. Fifth, because the expression of social emotions like shame are patterned by structural and cultural conditions, to understand how suicidality is socioculturally patterned we must further explore the link between identity/status, social emotions, and structure and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational citizenship behaviour has generally been associated with organizational effectiveness. However, recent research has shown that this may not always be the case and that certain types of organizational citizenship behaviour such as compulsory citizenship behaviour, may be inimical to the fulfillment of formal goals and organizational effectiveness. Using military historical and business organizational secondary data, the paper maintains that extreme variance in either organizational (task) or personal (social psychological) support organizational citizenship behaviour generates entropic citizenship behaviour which derails completely the effective accomplishment of formal organizational goals. A general model of organizational citizenship behaviour with entropic citizenship behavior as its novel conceptual boundary is developed in the paper, and four specific propositions with implications for future empirical research are delineated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumer culture and neoliberal political economy are often viewed by social psychologists as topics reserved for anthropologists, economists, political scientists and sociologists. This paper takes an alternative view arguing that social psychology needs to better understand these two intertwined institutions as they can both challenge and provide a number of important insights into social psychological theories of self-identity and their related concepts. These include personality traits, self-esteem, social comparisons, self-enhancement, impression management, self-regulation and social identity. To illustrate, we examine how elements of consumer culture and neoliberal political economy intersect with social psychological concepts of self-identity through three main topics: 'the commodification of self-identity', 'social categories, culture and power relations' and the 'governing of self-regulating consumers'. In conclusion, we recommend a decommodified approach to research with the aim of producing social psychological knowledge that avoids becoming enmeshed with consumer culture and neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of psychology, the topic of everyday life as a specific subject of inquiry has been afforded little attention. Indeed, everyday life has recently been analyzed mainly in psychological studies that examine people's ways of behaving and thinking when they act in situations termed as mundane and ordinary. These studies are mainly carried out in two fields of social psychology which we refer to in general terms as Social Cognition and Social Representation Theory. The aim of this paper is to examine how both these fields treat some of the features commonly attributed to everyday life. In particular, the features of familiarization, continuity and stability over time and automaticity are discussed in order to try to figure out meeting points between the two fields mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staging public engagement events to inform health policy is becoming increasingly common. In these events, participation from a diversity of individuals is fostered to enhance the input to policy from those groups of whom individual participants are seen to be are representative. Participants' identities thus come to be seen as constituted by group membership and roles they occupy in society. Recent insights from social psychology and other disciplines suggest that replacing the notion of role with that of subject positioning serves to better understand the multiple and fluid nature of personhood. In this paper we use the notion of subject positions to understand the way in which participants in a particular public engagement (The BC Biobank Deliberation) drew on different aspects of their identity to warrant arguments during deliberation. The aims of the paper are: to create theoretical links between deliberative democracy and positioning theory; to address a gap in knowledge of the process of deliberation itself, and to illustrate the use of positioning theory as a viable analytical lens through which to develop a deeper understanding of the communicative practices that constitute deliberation; and to contribute to the theoretical literature on positioning theory as the discursive constraints present in the institutional settings of deliberative forums offer a novel context within which to study subject positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the potential of the notions of reification and consensualization as developed by the theory of social representations as analytical tools for addressing the communication between the lay and scientific spheres. Social Representations Theory started by offering an over-sharp distinction between the reified and the consensual universes of which science and common sense, respectively, were presented as paradigmatic. This paper, however, suggests that the notions of consensual and reified can be considered as describing two distinct communicative formats: reification implying the use of arguments which establish prescriptions for representations and action, and consensualization relying on arguments which recognize the heterogeneity of representation and action. We illustrate this proposal through the analysis of a case in which the expert and the lay spheres of a Lisbon neighborhood opposed each other regarding the new laws of public participation in community matters. This analysis showed how reification and consensualization can be used as discursive formats by both spheres. The implications of the use of reification and consensualization and how they may depend on several power resources and have different impacts on social change are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines Kurt Lewin's classic leadership studies, using them as a concrete example to explore his wider legacy to social psychology. Lewin distinguished between advanced "Galileian" science, which was based on analysing particular examples, and backward "Aristotelian" science, which used statistical analyses. Close examination of the way Lewin wrote about the leadership studies reveals that he used the sort of binary, value-laden concepts that he criticised as "Aristotelian". Such concepts, especially those of "democracy" and "autocracy", affected the way that he analysed the results and the ways that later social scientists have understood, and misunderstood, the studies. It is argued that Lewin's famous motto--"there is nothing as practical as a good theory"--is too simple to fit the tensions between the leadership studies and his own views of what counts as good theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accepting Cole's the premise that, 'cultural-inclusive psychology has been ... an elusive goal' (1996, pp. 7-8) but one worth striving to attain, I first set out to identify my domain of interest and competence as an intellectual. Deciding it to be social interaction between individuals, I then searched out theoretical approaches to this domain that encompassed as many approaches to this trans-historical concern that have emerged from cultural traditions bequeathing us their legacies. Doing this search comprehensively required me to move outside my Judeo- Christian, Greco- Roman, Renaissance heritage and its international diffusion via the European Empires since the 1500's, embodied most recently the American dominance of intellectual discourse since the Second World War. In my case, this journey has taken me in to Chinese culture and psychology where I have worked towards integrating the Chinese worldview and its psychological measures into the discipline of social psychology. Striving for a more inclusive culture-view, I am now using multi-cultural data bases to transcend this two-cultural focus and incorporate wider measures of cultural variation into our theorizing and empirical validation of universal models for social interaction. This paper describes my current procedures for such culture-mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I describe the relevance of philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's (1998/2011) book Bubbles for social psychology. Bubbles offers the opportunity for the development of what I call a round social psychology. This is in contrast to the flatness characteristic of some of the more influential contemporary varieties of social psychology. Flat social psychology stays close to the ground, and is focused on the coordination of action. Round social psychology describes the atmosphere that surrounds and makes interaction possible in the first place. It requires a theory that links intersubjectivity with spatiality. To describe flat social psychology I analyze the assumptions of three contemporary versions of social psychology: social cognition theory, Goffman's dramaturgy, and Gergen's relational psychology. I then describe in greater detail Sloterdijk's bubble philosophy and the characteristics of round social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses some widespread but often not fully articulated views concerning the possible roles of biology and evolution in the social sciences. Such views cluster around a set of intuitions that suggest that evolution's role is 'ballistic': it constitutes a starting point for mind that has been, and is, superseded by the role of culture and social construction. An implication is that evolved and the socially constructed aspects of mind are separable and independent, with the latter being the primary driver of mind. I outline four variants of the ballistic view. I then show how current findings and arguments in evolutionary thinking as related to mind contradict those ballistic views. The contrary view-that evolutionary and social factors are interdependent in the generation of social psychological capacities-is proposed as a consequence. This view is able to respect some insights of theories that make ballistic assumptions, whilst avoiding those assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper reports a study of conversational acts in dialogical interaction. Conversation in which the use of a vulgar term [à la bieb żobbi] in the Maltese language was used was recorded and analysed for the present purpose. The term is demonstrated to serve social psychological functions. We documented three modes governing its use in conversation, that is, (a) as a personality descriptor, (b) as a strategy for shutting down an alternative view, and (c) as a strategy for shifting dialogue to more neutral and less threatening grounds for the subject. We further document a number of modalities that govern justifications for using the vulgar term in conversation. We argue that the use of vulgarity can serve to achieve semantic barriers in dialogue and that these apply to internal conversations as much as they do to dialogical engagement with another. We further argue that semantic barriers can be overcome in ways that shift conversation to less threatening grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue for a stronger consideration of the possible relationship between social psychology and architecture and architectural history. After a brief review of some of the ways in which other social psychologists have sought to develop links between social psychology and history, I consider the utility of architecture in more depth, especially to the social psychologist interested in the development of knowledge and understanding. I argue that, especially when knowledge is institutionalised, the design and use of buildings might have a particular contribution to make to the way we can understand how phenomena have been understood and approached in the past. Although many examples are relevant, I consider the case of the psychiatric hospital (or 'asylum') in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jahoda (2012) criticizes discursive social psychology ( DSP) on several different grounds; specifically, he argues that DSP has opaque methodological procedures, is of questionable scientific merit, involves over-interpretation of its data, and implicitly claims its findings to be universal rather than contextually specific. We challenge these criticisms by arguing that observational studies of the kind typical within DSP research have a perfectly valid place within a scientific social psychology, that the interpretations made by DSP researchers should be seen in the context of a temporally extended research process in which they are subject to criticism and potential replication, and that Jahoda is himself guilty of over-interpretation by inferring claims of universality when such an inference is not warranted by the data (i.e. the qualitative content of the sample of research papers considered by Jahoda). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-interest is widely accepted as a powerful motivator by both academics and laypeople alike. However, research surrounding the self-interest motive paints a complicated picture of this most important psychological construct. Additionally, research on the social desirability of self-interest has revealed that despite its widespread acceptance, people do not readily accept that self-interest drives their own behaviors. This paper reviews the literature on self-interest and reveals several curious features surrounding its actual effect on helping behaviors, political attitudes and voting, and people's apparent ambivalence toward self-interest as a motive. It is possible that norms against the expression of self-interestedness evolved, creating ambivalence towards this widely accepted construct, subsequently affecting its expression on many human behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we suggest that there is a need to examine what is meant by 'context' in Social Psychology and present an example of how to place identity in its social and institutional context. Taking the case of British naturalisation, the process whereby migrants become citizens, we show that the identity of naturalised citizens is defined by common-sense ideas about Britishness and by immigration policies. An analysis of policy documents on 'earned citizenship' and interviews with naturalised citizens shows that the distinction between 'elite' and 'non-elite' migrants is evident in both the 'reified' sphere of policy and the 'common sense' sphere of everyday identity construction. While social representations embedded in lay experience construct ethno-cultural similarity and difference, immigration policies engage in an institutionalised positioning process by determining migrants' rights of mobility. These spheres of knowledge and practice are not disconnected as these two levels of 'managing otherness' overlap-it is the poorer, less skilled migrants, originating outside the West who epitomise difference (within a consensual sphere) and have less freedom of mobility (within a reified sphere). We show that the context of identity should be understood as simultaneously psychological and political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people with disabilities are asked about the quality of their lives, they report only slightly lower quality than nondisabled people. Nevertheless, most nondisabled people (especially including bioethicists and health care economists) estimate the quality of life of disabled people to be extremely low, and they sometimes argue that the high QOL reports of disabled people should be discounted. Social psychologists have begun to systematically study human happiness in a new field called hedonics. This paper reports and interprets the recent empirical results of hedonics research to see whether disabled peoples' high reports of their own quality of life are more reliable than the lower estimates of bioethicists and other nondisabled observers. The outcome is relevant to policy disagreements surrounding disability. If bioethicists are correct about the intrinsically low QOL of people with impairments, then the disability rights (DR) movement's political goals of environmental modification are diminished in value. Careful inspection shows that at the present state of research, hedonics is on the side of DR advocates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces two theoretical approaches on symbolic boundaries that have become standard within Science and Technology Studies (STS), but which have little theoretical connections and seem to be talking about different types of boundaries. I will conceptually combine these two approaches, as well as providing a deeper explanation of what is going on when scientists draw boundaries, by utilising theoretical concepts from social psychology: social representations and identities. I will explore how the two boundary concepts can be explained through social representations and identities with an example of popular science authors' depictions of the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, and where the philosopher can become both a boundary marker that separates science from other pursuits as well as defining scientists' identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes use of a new development in social psychology, Positioning Theory, the study of the way rights and duties are ascribed, attributed and justified to and by individuals in local social groups. It links this theory with a generally Vygotsky inspired approach to understanding the means by which people are brought into terrorist networks. Focusing on the use of the Internet as a device to bring mentor and novice together, the unique role of chat rooms and personal conversations made possible by the Internet in this psychological process is revealed. Examining Vygotsky's ideas about the influence of a collective identity on the development of individual identities by psychological symbiosis in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) sheds new light on the positioning of terrorist recruits. Incorporating Wittgenstein's concept of hinges into understanding the groundings of individual positions explains how the jihadist form of life turns on the unexamined grounding of beliefs about the non-believers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In moral psychology, it has long been argued that empathy is a necessary capacity of both properly developing moral agents and developed moral agency ( Blair, 2008 ; Hume et al., 1978 ). This view stands in tension with the belief that some individuals diagnosed with autism—which is typically characterized as a deficiency in social reciprocity (including empathy)—are moral agents. In this paper we propose to explore this tension and perhaps trouble how we commonly see those with autism. To make this task manageable, we will consider whether high functioning individuals diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder are capable of empathetic responses. If they are, then they possess a capacity that, on the view above, is required for moral agency. If they are not so capable, and yet sometimes engage in moral behaviour, this casts some doubt on the claim that empathy is required for moral agency. This second possibility will necessitate an exploration of the capacity of some individuals with autism to engage in moral behaviour, giving us further grounds to re-see these individuals as moral agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that recent sociological theory has become increasingly bifurcated into two mutually incompatible styles of theorizing that I label formalist and behavioral-realist. Formalism favors mathematization and proposes an instrumentalist ontology of abstract processes while behavioral-realist theory takes at its basis the “real” physical individual endowed with concrete biological, cognitive and neurophysiological capacities and constraints and attempts to derive the proper conceptualization of social behavior from that basis. Formalism tends to lead toward a conceptually independent sociology that in principle requires only minimal reference to the empirical and ontological storehouse of other disciplines, while behavioral-realist theory leads to an interdisciplinary sociology that can be located within a hierarchy of behavioral sciences, leading to questions regarding the relationship between sociology and other disciplines as well as issues of transdisciplinary unification and possible interdisciplinary reduction. I explore the consequences of this split for the project of explanatory sociological theory within the context of how it has manifested itself in sociological network theory and social psychology. I close with a critique and assessment of formalist tendencies in sociological theorizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new approach to the demarcation of social emotions, based on their dependence on social appraisals that are designed to assess events bearing on social concerns. Previous theoretical attempts to characterize social emotions are compared, and their inconsistencies highlighted. Evidence for the present formulation is derived from theory and research into links between appraisals and emotions. Emotions identified as social using our criteria are also shown to bring more consistent consequences for social behavior than nonsocial emotions. We conclude by considering ways of validating and refining our classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to self-categorization theory (SCT), incidents of crowd violence can be understood as discrete forms of social action, limited by the crowd's social identity. Through an analysis of the riot at Woodstock 1999, this paper explores the uses and limitations of SCT in order to reach a more complex psychology of crowd behavior, particularly those instances that appear unmotivated, irrational, and destructive. Psychological and sociological literature are synthesized to explore the role of communication in establishing social norms within the crowd. Several modifications to current crowd psychology are proposed, including a false consensus effect of motivation and the mediation of personal and social identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of research papers about social psychology. They include "Accounting for one's behavior--What really determines its effectiveness? Its type or its content?," "A New Understanding of Terrorism Using Cognitive Dissonance Principles," "A Multicomponential Model of Shame," "The Habitus Process: A Biopsychosocial Conception" and "The Habitus Process: A Sociological Conception."