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Foran A, O'Donnell AT, Muldoon OT. Affiliative identity, well‐being and eating disorder symptoms during the transition to university. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1002/casp.2685] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/05/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Aoife‐Marie Foran
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology University of Limerick Castletroy Ireland
| | - Aisling T. O'Donnell
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology University of Limerick Castletroy Ireland
| | - Orla T. Muldoon
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology University of Limerick Castletroy Ireland
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Solidarity Matters: Prototypicality and Minority and Majority Adherence to National COVID-19 Health Advice. INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2021. [DOI: 10.5334/irsp.549] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
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Muldoon OT, Lowe RD, Jetten J, Cruwys T, Haslam SA. Personal and Political: Post-Traumatic Stress Through the Lens of Social Identity, Power, and Politics. POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY 2021; 42:501-533. [PMID: 34219849 PMCID: PMC8247337 DOI: 10.1111/pops.12709] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has always been controversial and highly politicized. Here, using a social identity approach, we review evidence that trauma and its aftermath are fundamentally linked to social position, sociopolitical capital, and power. We begin this contribution by demonstrating how a person's group memberships (and the social identities they derive from these memberships) are inherently linked to the experience of adversity. We then go on to consider how it is through group memberships that individuals are defined by their trauma risk and trauma histories-that is, a person's group memberships and their trauma are often inherently linked. Considering the importance of group memberships for understanding trauma, we argue that it is important to see these, and group processes more generally, as more than just "demographic" risk factors. Instead, we argue that when groups are defined by their trauma history or risk, their members will often derive some sense of self from this trauma. For this reason, attributes of group memberships are important in developing an understanding of adjustment and adaptation to trauma. In particular, groups' status, their recourse to justice, and the level of trust and solidarity within the group are all central to the impact of traumatic events on individual-level psychological resilience. We review evidence that supports this analysis by focusing on the exacerbating effects of stigma and social mistrust on post-traumatic stress, and the value of solidarity and strong identities for resilience. We conclude that because of these group-related processes, trauma interweaves the personal with the political and that post-traumatic stress is fundamentally about power, positionality, and politics.
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Identity processes and eating disorder symptoms during university adjustment: a cross-sectional study. J Eat Disord 2021; 9:44. [PMID: 33836839 PMCID: PMC8033728 DOI: 10.1186/s40337-021-00399-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2020] [Accepted: 03/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Young people with eating disorders (EDs) and ED symptoms are at risk during university adjustment, suggesting a need to protect their health. The social identity approach proposes that people's social connections - and the identity-related behaviour they derive from them - are important for promoting positive health outcomes. However, there is a limited understanding as to how meaningful everyday connections, supported by affiliative identities, may act to reduce ED symptoms during a life transition. METHODS Two hundred eighty-one first year university students with an ED or ED symptoms completed an online survey during the first month of university. Participants completed self-reported measures of affiliative identity, social support, injunctive norms and ED symptoms. Path analysis was used to test a hypothesised mediated model, whereby affiliative identity has a significant indirect relation with ED symptoms via social support and injunctive norms. RESULTS Results support the hypothesised model. We show that affiliative identity predicts lower self-reported ED symptoms, because of its relation with social support and injunctive norms. CONCLUSIONS The findings imply that affiliative identities have a positive impact on ED symptoms during university adjustment, because the social support derived from affiliative identity is associated with how people perceive norms around disordered eating. Our discussion emphasises the possibility of identity processes being a social cure for those at risk of ED symptoms.
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Abstract
Abstract. This article explores how the populist radical right manage identity talk on an international stage. Speeches from the Europe of Nations and Freedom conference held in Koblenz, Germany, on January 21, 2017, were analyzed using a rhetorical and critical discursive psychology approach. This occasion was a celebratory public display of international solidarity between political actors who privilege national interests, advocate stronger immigration control and are Eurosceptic. Results highlight two interdependent rhetorical strategies that construct an inclusive diverse transnational political community, built on the core shared ideology of exclusionary nationalist nativism. Firstly, “Constructing the Transnational Patriot” works up a superordinate political category often labeled the “patriots” that transcends individual nation-states. Temporal and spatial boundary work was done to construct the political collective as extensive, expanding and enduring. This capacity for the speakers to position themselves as prototypical members of a transnational political community facilitates and demands the second rhetorical strategy, “Ambivalent Diversity.” Here speakers acknowledge and celebrate the cultural diversity of their political collective through a precious “national diversity” between nation-states while simultaneously displaying hostility to cultural diversity within nation-states. Speakers present themselves, and their political collective, as courageous protectors of the segregated national diversity against the threatening collusion between the violent oppressive political “elite” and exploitative immigrants. The speakers hijack the liberal understanding of diversity and reconfigure it in support of an argument defending the victimized majority and national cultural homogeneity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alastair Nightingale
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Psychology Department, University of Limerick, Ireland
| | - Orla Muldoon
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Psychology Department, University of Limerick, Ireland
| | - Michael Quayle
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Psychology Department, University of Limerick, Ireland
- School of Applied Human Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
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Muldoon OT, Trew K, Devine P. Flagging difference: Identification and emotional responses to national flags. JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12657] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Orla T. Muldoon
- Centre for Social Issues Research Department of Psychology University of Limerick Limerick Ireland
| | - Karen Trew
- Department of Psychology Queen’s University Belfast Northern Ireland Belfast UK
| | - Paula Devine
- Department of Psychology Queen’s University Belfast Northern Ireland Belfast UK
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Bradshaw D, Muldoon OT. Shared experiences and the social cure in the context of a stigmatized identity. BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2019; 59:209-226. [PMID: 31556130 DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2018] [Revised: 08/20/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
In an attempt to combat the social isolation and stigma associated with the incarceration of a family member, increasingly efforts are made to support families affected by imprisonment. Many of these forms of support are delivered in groups. Participation in support groups generates benefits, sometimes referred to as the social cure, by enhancing a sense of belonging, social connection, and subjective identification with the group. Where an identity is stigmatized, subjective group identification may be resisted and this could potentially undermine the effectiveness of group-based support. We used semi-structured interviews with 12 partners of incarcerated men participating in group-based support, to explore their identity constructions as well as their perceptions of the value of the support group. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a material-discursive perspective. Findings emphasize the importance of shared experiences as a basis for connection with others in this context where subjective identification with an identity is problematic. Three themes are documented in the data that emphasize shared experience. These themes - Experiences of a 'situation' as the basis for social isolation; Experience of a 'situation' as the basis for inclusion; and Victims of circumstance - all orient to the role of shared experience in participants' talk. The theoretical discussion of these findings highlights the important role of shared experience as a basis for social connections for those affected by stigma. The implications of these findings for supporting families affected by incarceration are discussed, as is the more general potential of group-based approaches for those affected by stigma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daragh Bradshaw
- Centre for Social Issues Research, University of Limerick, Ireland
| | - Orla T Muldoon
- Centre for Social Issues Research, University of Limerick, Ireland
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Economic inequality and the rise of far‐right populism: A social psychological analysis. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1002/casp.2409] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
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Reddy G, Gleibs IH. The Endurance and Contestations of Colonial Constructions of Race Among Malaysians and Singaporeans. Front Psychol 2019; 10:792. [PMID: 31040805 PMCID: PMC6477069 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00792] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2018] [Accepted: 03/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Psychological literature on race has discussed in depth how racial identities are dialogically constructed and context dependent. However, racial identity construction is often not compared across different socio-political contexts. By researching racial identity construction in three different multicultural countries, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, we examined how three racial identities, Chinese, Malay, and Indian, are constructed among Malaysians and Singaporeans in this qualitative study comprised of 10 focus group discussions (N = 39). We applied Dialogical Analysis to the data. This paper shows that both racial ingroups and outgroups constructed all three racial identities, with ingroups constructing their identities more heterogeneously compared to outgroups. Participants also engaged with colonial constructions of the three racial identities. The geographical locations, and therefore their perceptual contexts, of the participants differed. Yet, colonial constructions of race endured in contemporary identity construction and were contested in the group settings. We conclude that the socio-political context as understood by the context of colonialism and post-coloniality influenced their racial identity constructions. Participants, regardless of differences in geographical location, used similar colonial constructions of Malay, Chinese, and Indian identities to position themselves as well as Others in their group interactions. These findings show that there is value in conceptualising the context beyond that which individuals are immediately presented with, and that psychologists should consider the inclusion of cultural legacies of colonialism in their conceptualisation of the present context.
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Affiliation(s)
- Geetha Reddy
- Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
| | - Ilka H Gleibs
- Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom
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Moffitt U, Juang LP, Syed M. Being both German and Other: Narratives of contested national identity among white and Turkish German young adults. BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2018; 57:878-896. [PMID: 30040129 DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2017] [Revised: 07/03/2018] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Recent discursive research has built on Michael Billig's theory of banal nationalism, arguing that minoritized individuals who explicitly claim adherence to a national group may be further marginalized from a perceived majority who view such acts as socially undesirable. In Germany, a master narrative of muted national pride precludes hot nationalism, while a narrative of integration calls for overt national allegiance from anyone perceived as Other. Integration is demanded not only of recent immigrants, but also of the second generation and beyond, bolstering a related narrative of unquestioned Germanness as ethnically based. We conducted narrative analysis of interviews with white and Turkish German young adults to explore these master narratives, examining national identity through the lens of banal and hot nationalism. We found it is not only hot nationalism that marginalized Turkish German participants, but also the unrealizable narrative of integration. Situated within research into exclusionary notions of German identity, we argue that the integration demand reiterates the narrative of Germany as ethnically homogenous while fostering a feedback loop of contested belonging. With the recent increase in refugees and other immigrants, this critical examination of identity and belonging in Germany offers a timely and underexamined perspective to an important discussion.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Moin Syed
- University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
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Gelech J, Bayly M, Desjardins M. Constructing robust selves after brain injury: positive identity work among members of a female self-help group. Neuropsychol Rehabil 2017; 29:456-476. [PMID: 28393594 DOI: 10.1080/09602011.2017.1308872] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Despite common experiences of identity damage, decline, and deterioration, many brain injury survivors succeed in reconstructing robust identities in the wake of injury. Yet, while this accomplishment greatly benefits survivors' quality of life, little is known about how positive identity work might be facilitated or enhanced in therapeutic institutions. Drawing on data from a women's self-help group, we argue that an egalitarian, reflective, strength-focused, and gender-segregated environment can provide female ABI (acquired brain injury) survivors with a fertile scene for identity enhancement and offer unique opportunities for collective identity development. Sociolinguistic interactional analysis revealed four types of positive identity work undertaken within the group: constructing competent selves; tempering the threat of loss and impairment; resisting infantilisation and delegitimisation; and asserting a collective gender identity. This identity work was facilitated by specific programme attributes and activities and contributed to the global project of decentring disability and destigmatising impairments and losses. We call for increased attention to identity issues in brain injury rehabilitation and argue that gender-segregated programming can provide a unique space for female survivors to construct empowering individual and collective identities after injury.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan Gelech
- a Department of Psychology , University of Saskatchewan , Saskatoon , Canada
| | - Melanie Bayly
- a Department of Psychology , University of Saskatchewan , Saskatoon , Canada
| | - Michel Desjardins
- a Department of Psychology , University of Saskatchewan , Saskatoon , Canada
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Muldoon OT, O'Donnell AT, Minescu A. Parents' and children's understanding of their own and others' national identity: The importance of including the family in the national group. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1002/casp.2308] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Orla T. Muldoon
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology; University of Limerick; Ireland
| | - Aisling T. O'Donnell
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology; University of Limerick; Ireland
| | - Anca Minescu
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology; University of Limerick; Ireland
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Gallagher M, Muldoon OT, Pettigrew J. An integrative review of social and occupational factors influencing health and wellbeing. Front Psychol 2015; 6:1281. [PMID: 26388800 PMCID: PMC4554961 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2015] [Accepted: 08/11/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Therapeutic approaches to health and wellbeing have traditionally assumed that meaningful activity or occupation contributes to health and quality of life. Within social psychology, everyday activities and practices that fill our lives are believed to be shaped by structural and systemic factors and in turn these practices can form the basis of social identities. In occupational therapy these everyday activities are called occupations. Occupations can be understood as a contextually bound synthesis of meaningful doing, being, belonging and becoming that influence health and wellbeing. We contend that an integrative review of occupational therapy and social psychology literature will enhance our ability to understand the relationship between social structures, identity and dimensions of occupation by elucidating how they inform one another, and how taken together they augment our understanding of health and wellbeing This review incorporates theoretical and empirical works purposively sampled from databases within EBSCO including CINAHL, psychINFO, psychArticles, and Web of Science. Search terms included: occupation, therapy, social psychology, occupational science, health, wellbeing, identity, structures and combinations of these terms. In presenting this review, we argue that doing, being and belonging may act as an important link to widely acknowledged relationships between social factors and health and wellbeing, and that interventions targeting individual change may be problematic.
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Affiliation(s)
- MaryBeth Gallagher
- Department of Clinical Therapies, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
| | - Orla T. Muldoon
- Centre for Social Issues Research, Department of Psychology, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
| | - Judith Pettigrew
- Department of Clinical Therapies, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
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O'Donnell AT, Muldoon OT, Blaylock DL, Stevenson C, Bryan D, Reicher SD, Pehrson S. ‘Something That Unites Us All’: Understandings of St. Patrick's Day Parades as Representing the Irish National Group. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2015. [DOI: 10.1002/casp.2236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Aisling T. O'Donnell
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Social Issues Research; University of Limerick; Castletroy County Limerick Ireland
| | - Orla T. Muldoon
- Department of Psychology and Centre for Social Issues Research; University of Limerick; Castletroy County Limerick Ireland
| | | | | | - Dominic Bryan
- Institute of Irish Studies; Queen's University Belfast; Belfast UK
| | - Stephen D. Reicher
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience; University of St Andrews; Fife UK
| | - Samuel Pehrson
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience; University of St Andrews; Fife UK
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Walsh RS, Muldoon OT, Gallagher S, Fortune DG. Affiliative and "self-as-doer" identities: Relationships between social identity, social support, and emotional status amongst survivors of acquired brain injury (ABI). Neuropsychol Rehabil 2014; 25:555-73. [PMID: 25517078 DOI: 10.1080/09602011.2014.993658] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Social support is an important factor in rehabilitation following acquired brain injury (ABI). Research indicates that social identity makes social support possible and that social identity is made possible by social support. In order to further investigate the reciprocity between social identity and social support, the present research applied the concepts of affiliative and "self-as-doer" identities to an analysis of relationships between social identity, social support, and emotional status amongst a cohort of 53 adult survivors of ABI engaged in post-acute community neurorehabilitation. Path analysis was used to test a hypothesised mediated model whereby affiliative identities have a significant indirect relationship with emotional status via social support and self-as-doer identification. Results support the hypothesised model. Evidence supports an "upward spiral" between social identity and social support such that affiliative identity makes social support possible and social support drives self-as-doer identity. Our discussion emphasises the importance of identity characteristics to social support, and to emotional status, for those living with ABI.
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Affiliation(s)
- R Stephen Walsh
- a Department of Psychology , University of Limerick , Limerick , Ireland
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Lowe RD, Muldoon OT. Shared national identification in Northern Ireland: An application of psychological models of group inclusion post conflict. GROUP PROCESSES & INTERGROUP RELATIONS 2014. [DOI: 10.1177/1368430214525808] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The common ingroup identity model (CIIM) holds that viewing former outgroup members as part of a larger shared ingroup can allow social categorisation to be harnessed for social cohesion. The ingroup projection model (IPM) suggests that even where shared identification occurs, social divisions can be transposed into superordinate groups. Here we explore the potentially inclusive national identity in a region (Northern Ireland) which has historically seen a high polarisation of identities. Using three data sets ( N = 2000; N = 359; N = 1179), we examine the extent to which a superordinate inclusive national identity, Northern Irish, is related to conciliatory attitudes. We find a common ingroup identity is linked to more positive social attitudes but not to more positive political attitudes. We conclude by considering the complexities of applying psychological models in the real world where structural and historical social divisions and vexing oppositional political questions can be transposed into new social and political orders.
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Dimitrova R, Chasiotis A, Bender M, van de Vijver F. Collective identity and wellbeing of Roma minority adolescents in Bulgaria. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2013; 48:502-13. [DOI: 10.1080/00207594.2012.682064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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Understanding the impact of political violence in childhood: a theoretical review using a social identity approach. Clin Psychol Rev 2013; 33:929-39. [PMID: 23988453 DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2013.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2012] [Revised: 06/20/2013] [Accepted: 07/15/2013] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
The present paper reviews the literature that has assessed the psychological impact of political violence on children. Concern for those growing up in situations of political violence has resulted in two areas of research within psychology: the first considers children as victims of conflict and considers the mental health consequences of political violence. The second considers children as protagonists or aggressors in conflict and considers related moral and attitudinal consequences of exposure to political violence. These two literatures are most often considered separately. Here the two strands of research are brought together using a social identity framework, allowing apparently divergent findings to be integrated into a more coherent understanding of the totality of consequences for children and young people growing up in situations of armed conflict.
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Joyce C, Stevenson C, Muldoon O. Claiming and displaying national identity: Irish Travellers’ and students’ strategic use of ‘banal’ and ‘hot’ national identity in talk. BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2012; 52:450-68. [DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.2012.02097.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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Burns M, Stevenson C. Deconstructing national leadership: politicians' accounts of electoral success and failure in the Irish Lisbon Treaty referenda. BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2011; 52:122-39. [PMID: 21988737 DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02060.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
The Self Categorization approach to national leadership proposes that leaders rhetorically construct national identity as essentialized and inevitable in order to consensualize and mobilize the population. In contrast, discursive studies have demonstrated how national politicians flexibly construct the nation to manage their own accountability in local interactions, though this in turn has neglected broader leadership processes. The present paper brings both approaches together to examine how and when national politicians construct versions of national identity in order to account for their failure as well as success in mobilizing the electorate. Eight semi-structured conversational style interviews were conducted with a strategic sample of eight leading Irish politicians on the subject of the 2008/2009 Irish Lisbon Treaty referenda. Using a Critical Discourse Psychology approach, the hegemonic repertoire of the 'settled will' of the informed and consensualized Irish nation was identified across all interviews. Politicians either endorsed the 'settled will' repertoire as evidence of their successful leadership, or rejected the repertoire by denying the rationality or unity of the populace to account for their failure. Our results suggest national identity is only constructed as essentialized and inevitable to the extent that it serves a strategic political purpose.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michele Burns
- Department of Psychology, University of Limerick, Ireland
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