Us, them and we: How national and human identifications influence adolescents' ethnic prejudice

Although there have been numerous studies on the relations between group identification and ethnic prejudice, it is less clear whether their associations reflect stable individual tendencies or rather situational or temporal fluctuations. This longitudinal multilevel study aimed to fill this gap by examining the between- and within-person associations of identification with the national and superordinate human groups and levels of prejudice against multiple ethnic minorities. A total of 883 Italian majority adolescents (Mage = 15.66, SD = 1.15 at T1, 49.7% females) completed questionnaires at four time points over the course of 1 year. Results showed that national identification was related to more prejudice at the between-person level but to decreases in prejudice at the within-person level. Additionally, human identification contributed to lower levels of and steeper decreases in prejudice at both the between- and within-person levels. Common and unique associations also emerged across different ethnic minority targets, but only for between-person effects. Overall, this study highlights the importance of distinguishing stable individual levels and momentary fluctuations of both ingroup identifications and ethnic prejudice in order to orient future interventions aimed at improving the quality of intergroup relationships.

Not exactly twins: Authoritarians and populists differ in their attitudes toward trust in government, elitism, pluralism, political identification, and identity fusion

INTRODUCTION

Authoritarianism and populism are used regularly to describe the individuals responsible for anti-democratic action. These two constructs share some similarities with regard to how they hinder democracy and at times have been used interchangeably to describe such issues. However, authoritarians and populists may differ with regard to their political identification, as well as how they view the government and the existing establishment.

OBJECTIVES

With a US college sample, this study's goal was to examine how authoritarianism and populist attitudes influence views on pluralism, elitism, trust in government, identity fusion, and political identification (identification with American political parties).

RESULTS

The findings indicated that right-wing authoritarians trusted the government, endorsed elitist attitudes, but were low on pluralism; this pattern was the opposite for those high on populist attitudes. Left-wing authoritarianism was related only to low pluralism. Moreover, low trust in the government partially mediated the link between populist attitudes and pluralism. Results also indicated that right-wing and left-wing authoritarians identified with the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively, whereas political identification was unrelated to populist attitudes. Furthermore, identity fusion partially mediated the link between right-wing authoritarianism and identification with the Republican Party.

CONCLUSION

Authoritarianism and populist attitudes may explain different motivations for anti-democratic thought and behaviors. This study contributes to ongoing debates found in contemporary populism and authoritarianism research as well as different solutions to addressing their rise in mainstream politics.

Damned if she does: The subordinate male target hypothesis and discrimination of social dominant female minority members

According to the subordinate male target hypothesis (SMTH), racism is based on an ethnicity-by-gender interaction, with a stronger link between experiencing racist discrimination and subordinate or dominant ethnic group status for men compared to women. This study reevaluates the SMTH, originally focused on objective discrimination, by applying it to self-reported active harm as a theoretically derived measure of racist discrimination and by exploring interindividual differences in female ethnic minority members' discriminatory experiences. We proposed that social dominance orientation (SDO) among female ethnic minorities would influence SMTH predictions. We tested this using multiple linear regression analyses among a sample of New Zealand Europeans as the majority in New Zealand and non-Europeans as the minority. As hypothesized, male non-Europeans reported disproportionally more active harm than female non-Europeans. Unexpectedly, not only female but also male, non-Europeans high in SDO reported more active harm than non-Europeans low in SDO. Therefore, applied to self-reported racist experiences, oppression of ethnic minorities is driven by interindividual differences rather than by gender. Together, these findings provide evidence that the SMTH cannot be unreservedly extended to reports of racist discrimination and that other processes may underlie these subjective experiences of discrimination that need to be considered in more detail.

Validating the dual evolutionary foundations of political values in a US sample

Psychological research repeatedly identifies two dimensions of political values. Recent work argues that these dimensions reflect the dual evolutionary foundations of human social and political life: a trade-off between cooperation and competition that generates differences in values about social inequality, and a trade-off in managing group coordination that generates differences in values about social control. Existing scales used to measure political values, however, were created prior to this framework. Here, we introduce the Dual Foundations Scale, designed to capture values about the two trade-offs. We validate the scale across two studies, showing it accurately and reliably measures both dimensions. Our results support key predictions of the dual foundations framework and pave the way for future work on the foundations of political ideology.

The psychological causes and societal consequences of authoritarianism

Over the past two decades, citizens’ political rights and civil liberties have declined globally. Psychological science can play an instrumental role in both explaining and combating the authoritarian impulses that underlie these attacks on personal autonomy. In this Review, we describe the psychological processes and situational factors that foster authoritarianism, as well as the societal consequences of its apparent resurgence within the general population. First, we summarize the dual process motivational model of ideology and prejudice, which suggests that viewing the world as a dangerous, but not necessarily competitive, place plants the psychological seeds of authoritarianism. Next, we discuss the evolutionary, genetic, personality and developmental antecedents to authoritarianism and explain how contextual threats to safety and security activate authoritarian predispositions. After examining the harmful consequences of authoritarianism for intergroup relations and broader societal attitudes, we discuss the need to expand the ideological boundaries of authoritarianism and encourage future research to investigate both right-wing and left-wing variants of authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism weakens democratic institutions and fosters societal divisions. In this Review, Osborne et al. describe the psychological processes and situational factors that give rise to authoritarianism, as well as the societal consequences of its apparent resurgence within the general population.

Teachers' anti-black biases in disciplinary decisions: The role of mindfulness

Research suggests that disparities in exclusionary discipline can be explained, in part, by teachers' anti-Black biases in disciplinary decision-making. An emerging body of literature also speaks to the benefits of cultivating mindfulness for bias reduction. The present study adds to the literature by assessing whether mindfulness is associated with differences in teachers' responses to student disciplinary infractions as a function of student signaled race, which was manipulated as a between-subjects factor. We predicted that teachers with lower levels of mindfulness, as measured via self-report, would demonstrate greater anti-Black bias in response to students' disciplinary files than teachers with higher levels of mindfulness. Teachers (N = 179) completed the study via an online research participant platform. Consistent with hypothesis, we found that participants' self-reported mindfulness in teaching moderated their responses to a disciplinary file as a function of student signaled race, b = -1.05, F(1, 175) = 4.50, p = 0.035, η_p² = 0.03, 95% CI [-2.03, -0.07]. Specifically, participants with lower levels of mindfulness rated the disciplinary infraction as more severe if it was enacted by a Black boy compared to a White boy. At higher levels of mindfulness, however, the opposite pattern emerged; participants demonstrated more leniency if the infraction was perpetrated by a Black boy, relative to a White boy. Our research adds to the literature and suggests that improving teachers' ability to remain present in the classroom may improve their ability to make more equitable decisions in managing students' misbehavior.

Dynamic, Yet Stable: Separating Within- and Between-Person Components of Collective Action in Support of a Disadvantaged Outgroup and its Antecedents

Despite an increasing interest in the drivers of intergroup solidarity, the within-person longitudinal relationships between advantaged group members’ engagement for disadvantaged groups and its postulated antecedents remain scarcely tested. In the context of the refugee crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey ( NT1 = 804, NT2 = 702, and NT3 = 624) assessing Poles’ (the advantaged group) willingness to act for Ukrainians (the disadvantaged group), together with three hypothesized predictors—moral convictions, intergroup contact, and politicized identity. Employing a random intercept cross-lagged panel model that separates between- from within-person variance, we found that within-person changes in moral convictions and friendship contact directly predicted subsequent action intentions. Contrary to past theorizing, politicized identity emerged as consequence rather than an antecedent of collective action. Superficial intergroup contact indirectly predicted engagement intentions by facilitating cross-group friendship. We discuss the implications of our findings for current models of collective action.

Disentangling the factors behind shifting voting intentions: The bandwagon effect reflects heuristic processing, while the underdog effect reflects fairness concerns

In today’s elections, abundantly available polls inform voters what parties lead and what parties trail. This allows voters to accurately predict the likely outcomes of elections before the final results are in. Voters may react to these ex-ante election outcomes by shifting their votes either toward leading parties, often termed the “bandwagon effect” or toward trailing parties, often termed the “underdog effect”. The published literature presents different perspectives on the strength of both effects and the underlying psychological processes. Three preregistered studies (total N = 1,424) test the psychological causes of both effects. Exploratory Study 1 relates differences in interpersonal, moral, strategic, and epistemic psychological factors to shifts in voting intentions before the 2019 Polish parliamentary elections. Results suggest that the bandwagon effect reflects a lack of political expertise, whereas the underdog effect reflects fairness concerns. To provide experimental evidence, Studies 2a and 2b manipulate these two factors in a simulated election design. The results confirm that low expertise increases the bandwagon effect and that fairness concerns increase the underdog effect.

The authoritarian incubator: Examining the effect of conversion to Christianity on right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation

Although religiosity correlates positively with authoritarianism, the temporal ordering of this relationship is unclear. Because religious teachings often promote authoritarian values, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) should increase following religious conversion. Yet spiritual beliefs may also promote egalitarianism. As such, social dominance orientation (SDO) might decrease postconversion. We tested these hypotheses using data from a subset of participants who converted to Christianity at some point during a 9-year longitudinal panel study ( N = 536). We also examined a separate subsample who deconverted over the same period ( N = 696). As hypothesised, RWA was stable before conversion, but increased slightly after becoming religious. Unexpectedly, SDO was stable both pre- and postconversion. Conversely, those who deconverted from Christianity experienced declines in RWA both before and after losing their religion, whereas SDO declined only postdeconversion. These results suggest that religious conversion precedes increases in RWA (but not SDO), and that declines in RWA precede deconversion.

The Political Psychology of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to unprecedented and extraordinary conditions. It represents a profound threat to health and political and economic stability globally. It is the pressing issue of the current historical moment and is likely to have far-reaching social and political implications over the next decade. Political psychology can inform our preparedness for the next phase of the pandemic as well as our planning for a post COVID-19 world. We hope that this special issue will play its part in helping us to think how we manage and live with COVID-19 over the coming decade. In this editorial, we review the key themes arising from the contributions to our special issue and, alongside existing knowledge highlight the relevance of political psychology to finding solutions during this time of crisis. The contributions to this special issue and the pandemic raise many classic topics of central interest to political psychology: leadership, solidarity and division, nationalism, equality, racism, and international and intergroup relations. In our editorial, we offer an analysis that highlights three key themes. First, the importance of sociopolitical factors in shaping behavior during this pandemic. Second, the relevance of political leadership and rhetoric to collective efforts to tackle SARS-COV-2. And third, how sociopolitical cohesion and division has become increasingly relevant during this time of threat and crisis.