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Applying theories from sociology and social psychology concerned with the intersection of culture and cognition to in-depth interviews, this paper empirically explores the Norwegian majority population’s perceptions of cultural diversities using a dual-process (DP) methodological and analytic approach. Globalization has produced a mix of new anxieties, opportunities, and curiosities, leaving most people juggling conflicting objectives of self-preservation and selfrealization, and making cognitive self-regulation and behavioural flexibility valorized skills of contemporary life. Instead of identifying xenophobic and cosmopolitan attitudes at opposite ends of a spectrum, the current paper argues in line with current research and theory in studies of DP cognition that they commonly co-exist, albeit in separate automatic and discursive cognitive systems, within the same individual. As a result, people’s perceptions of cultural and ethnic diversities tend to be ambivalent and contextually malleable – for example, in cases where their deep dispositions appear incompatible with their own self-concept or dominant cultural expectations. Most centrally, the current research proposes concrete strategies to elicit responses from both cognitive systems in the context of interpretive interviews. Secondly, the paper proposes clues that help to identify from which cognitive system interviewees’ conflicting cosmopolitan and xenophobic attitudes originate, thereby enabling researchers to further delineate the specific characteristics of these attitudes, including the mode of cultural learning through which they form, their flexibility or robustness to change, their role in behaviour motivation, and the extent to which they are conscious and controllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the last four decades, applied social psychology has sought to apply theories to 'real world' social problems, hoping for some insight into intractable social issues. This paper reviews applied social psychology discourse on the application of theory in the resolution of social problems, with a focus on the 'post-crisis' literature. This analysis suggests that much of applied social psychology lacks serious theoretical analysis and has yet to use the kind of theory needed to understand social problems. While exceptions to these trends are noted and discussed, current mainstream applied social psychology, as exemplified by a survey of recent texts, seems highly individualistic, rarely focused on important social issues, and generally atheoretical. Two themes, which run counter to these trends—the emergence of critical psychology and renewed attention to the limits of generalizability, along with the importance of knowing contexts—may set the agenda for further theoretical efforts in applied social psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins with a critique of orthodox renditions of the social unconscious which (a) retain divisions between a personal sphere and a social sphere, and (b) which are said to be in conflict with each other. The ways in which these are instituted in various psychoanalytic and group-analytic theorizations are briefly delineated. Next, the two versions of the social unconscious (an orthodox and a radical) that are found in Foulkes are described. Elias's notion of process reduction is then used to deconstruct the philosophical basis of the orthodox version of the social unconscious. The thoughts of Radical Foulkes are extended by drawing on Elias and Matte-Blanco, bringing the notion of power into the theoretical schema. This is followed by an examinantion of the impact of the notion of power on Foulkes's conception of the communicational field. Finally, the article describes the consequences of the impact of power on the construction of the psyches of individuals as well as interpersonal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents parallels between network exchange experiments and N-person cooperative games with transferable utility, to show how game theory can assist network exchange researchers, not only in predicting outcomes, but in properly specifying the scope of their models. It illustrates how utility, strategy and c-games, concepts found in game theory, could be used by exchange theorists to help them reflect on their models and improve their research design. One game theoretic solution concept, the kernel, is compared to recent network exchange algorithms as an illustration of how easy it is to apply game theory to the exchange network situation. It also illustrates some advantages of using a game theory solution concept to model network exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the journal Social Compass, a bimonthly review devoted to sociology, sociography, social psychology and statistics issued by appointment of the International Catholic Institute for Social-Ecclesiastical Research in Geneva, Switzerland.