Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Social loafing wikipedia , lookup
William E. Cross Jr. wikipedia , lookup
In-group favoritism wikipedia , lookup
False consensus effect wikipedia , lookup
Communication in small groups wikipedia , lookup
Shelley E. Taylor wikipedia , lookup
Carolyn Sherif wikipedia , lookup
Social dilemma wikipedia , lookup
Social perception wikipedia , lookup
Albert Bandura wikipedia , lookup
Self-categorization theory wikipedia , lookup
Social tuning wikipedia , lookup
BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference 10th and 12th September 2003 Hosts: Department of Psychology, University College London and Department of Social Psychology, London School of Economics and Political Science Conference Abstracts 1 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Section 1: BPS Social Psychology Conference 2003, Paper Abstracts Intimacy In Men’s Talk: A Meta-Textual Analysis Konstatinos Arfanis and Professor Charlie Lewis, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University Traditional accounts of masculinity suggest that men find it difficult to engage in intimate talk. In this study on interpersonal skills within the workplace and work-home relationships, eighteen men were interviewed on three different occasions, 2-3 months apart. The interviews were analysed in terms of men’s references to intimacy in conversation and the confidences shared within the interview itself. This analysis focused particularly on a set of meta-accounts in which men discussed the kinds of contexts in which they would or would not produce intimate disclosures. Paradoxically, intimacy as likely to be shared with strangers as it was with intimates, confirming the idea that many men find intimacy difficult with those closest to them. The paper explores some of the reasons underlying this paradox, focusing on strategic implications of managing intimate disclosures. 'Race' and the Human Genome Project: Constructions of scientific legitimacy Martha Augoustinos and Patricia McCann Mortimer, University of Adelaide, South Australia At the public announcement of the completion of a draft map of the human genome (June, 2000), Craig Venter, Head of Celera Genomics and chief private scientist involved with the Human Genome Project, claimed that 'race' was not a scientifically valid construct. This statement, based on an analysis of the genomes of five people of different ethnicities, has not served to end the considerable discussion and debate surrounding the concept of 'race'. Using a social constructionist and critical discursive approach, this study analyses text and talk associated with the debate on the scientific validity of the concept 'race'. Given the problematic and highly contested nature of this concept, the present research examines, closely and in detail, a range of ways in which constructions of truth are worked up in scientific discourse. In particular, we analyse the ways in which empiricist and contingent repertoires within scientific discourse are mobilized to establish and contest claims of objectivity and facticity. We also examine a range of rhetorical devices deployed by protagonists in the debate to warrant particular truth claims including quantification rhetoric and the 'Truth Will Out Device' (TWOD). We conclude that despite the promissory representation of the HGP as having produced scientific evidence to discredit the biological legitimacy of 'race', the concept is likely to persist in both popular and scientific usage. Nostalgia as a Self-Relevant Emotion: Triggers, Content, and Functions Denise A Baden, Tim Wildschut, and Constantine Sedikides The aetiology, content, functional and affective parameters of nostalgia were explored in a survey of 123 undergraduates (mean age 20). We found that nostalgia was a common emotion, with 80% of memories involving the self in a central role, or sharing the main role. Redemption themes dominated the content of nostalgic memories (85%) and the tone was one of predominantly one of celebration rather than loss. The most common trigger of nostalgia was negative mood and the most common result was an increase in positive affect. When asked to describe some of the functions of nostalgia, the responses loaded onto 3 main factors – 2 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 connectedness, selfhood, and positive affect. Lastly we found that those who scored highly on both the loneliness scale and the nostalgia proneness scale had higher self-esteem than those who were lonely but not nostalgic. Based on these results, we challenge the rather negative view of nostalgia present in the literature, conceptualising nostalgia instead as a self-conscious and positive emotion, which implicates the self in social context. We propose that nostalgia is a self-regulatory, coping mechanism. By reliving the positive affect associated with the memory of the warmth and security of important, but bygone, relationships, nostalgia buffers the individual against the undesirable consequences (e.g., drops in self-esteem and affect) of threats to the self such as loneliness. Follow up studies are in progress that experimentally manipulate loneliness and nostalgia to further test this hypothesis. Self-discrepancy relevance and its relationship to discrepancy magnitude, identity motives, and negative emotions: A study of body-image selfdiscrepancies Inge Brechan and Helga Dittmar, University of Sussex In accordance with self-discrepancy theory, body-image self-discrepancies have been found to be associated with negative emotional states. More recently, Higgins (1999) proposed that for self-discrepancies to have an effect they must be considered personally relevant by the individual holding them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the magnitude and relevance of bodyimage self-discrepancies and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, self-discrepancy relevance is proposed to be influenced by the degree to which the discrepancy is associated with self-esteem and other identity motives. Fifty-two students completed a questionnaire including measures of unaided recall of body-image self-discrepancies and magnitude and relevance of the discrepancies. It also included measures of depression and anxiety, and to what degree a reduction of each of the discrepancies would contribute to the identity motives of self-esteem, distinctiveness, continuity, efficacy, purpose, and closeness. Hierarchical regression revealed that the relationship between self-discrepancy magnitude and symptoms of depression and anxiety is completely mediated by discrepancy relevance (depressio Furthermore, the interaction between discrepancy magnitude and relevance proved to be non-significant when controlling for a quadratic effect of discrepancy relevance ). The contribution of identity motives, as well as self-discrepancy magnitude, to selfdiscrepancy relevance was evaluated as between-subjects effects, using hierarchical regression, and within-subjects effects, using multilevel regression. In both analyses selfBS WS BS WS=.13, BS WS=.22, p<.01) contributed to explaining self-discrepancy relevance. Baby Love - Self-Evaluation Processes Of Teenage Mothers Hilary Bruffell and Evanthia Lyons, SPERI, University of Surrey Guildford This paper is concerned with examining Link et al’s (1989) ‘modified labelling theory’ in the case of young mothers. In particular it examines the extent to which the predicted negative effects of stigma on members of the group are inevitable. The issue of teenage pregnancy has become increasingly prominent in government 3 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 policies. The majority of research in this area focuses on the predictive factors of teenage pregnancy with a view to developing preventative measures (e.g. Hudson and Ineichen, 1991). It is also based on an untested assumption that teenage motherhood has negative consequences on the young mother. These are thought to result from either young mother’s acceptance of societal negative representations or the material circumstances often associated with young parenthood. As against this, a small body of work suggests that not all young women find the experience of motherhood a negative one. (e.g. Lesser, Anderson & Koniak-Griffin 1998). The paper is based on the data obtained from semi-structured interviews of 10 young mothers, with babies aged between 2 and 12 months. The data has been analysed using IPA (Smith 1991) and has been informed by theories of stigma and temporal and social comparisons (e.g. Crocker, J. & Major, B. 1989). Findings suggest that young mothers do not necessarily experience motherhood as a negative event. Instead motherhood seems to enhance their self-efficacy. By engaging in temporal comparisons and downward social comparisons young mothers maintain a positive self-concept. Furthermore, our data suggests that although our participants were aware of the negative evaluations of young mothers held by some groups in society, they managed to discount them by using different strategies. Psychological Well-Being And Identity Issues Among Adolescents In Greater London Peary Brug, Department of Health & Social Care, Royal Holloway, University of London and European Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations Utrecht This paper will present data which expands on earlier research (e.g., Sam (2002), looking at the relationship between psychological well-being and issues of identification among early adolescent school children, from various ethnic backgrounds. The study is an expansion of the social identity research (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1986) that focuses on the relationship between psychological well-being (as measured by mental health and self-esteem) and several predictors: ethnic identity, acculturation, parental closeness, and school satisfaction. It is expected that the predictors will differ in their predictive strength on psychological well-being depending on such factors as ethnic background, gender, and age. Some predictors (e.g., ethnic identity) should have greater significance than others (e.g., acculturation), as found in earlier work (Verkuyten & Brug, 2001) given their relative importance to the individual. It is also expected that some predictors will have differential predictive strength on various sub-domains of psychological well-being, such as scholastic selfconcept, and emotional soundness. The paper will present data from some 500 public school students from various ethnic backgrounds in the Greater London area. Coping with Multiple Problems: A Case Study of Lone Parents Alexy Buck Many literature reviews and studies in social psychology and psychology have focused on the experience and consequences of growing up in a one-parent family (Amato, 1993, Amato and Keith, 1991, Richards, 1999, Burgoyne et al, 1987, Hetherington et al 1988, Deutsch, 1983). Fewer studies have been conducted on the experience of being a lone parent and there is little empirical evidence on the nature or range of problems lone parents face in their day-to-day lives, how they deal with them and the type of organisations and people they approach for help. As the percentage of dependant children living in lone parent families has more than tripled in Britain over the last 30 years (Office for National Statistics, 2001), it is this type of empirical data that is required for evidence-based policy on lone parents. This paper 4 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 presents such data, drawing on a large-scale and multi-disciplinary survey of 5,611 people representative of the population of England and Wales. The problems recorded in the survey range from money and debt, employment, housing, divorce and relationship breakdown, domestic violence, and education to homelessness problems. 223 lone parents were identified in the survey. They were likely to be female, to be living in rented accommodation, to have a low income, not to be in employment and to be in receipt of benefits. Furthermore, lone parents were significantly more likely than other family types to have experienced problems, especially in relation to domestic violence, divorce, money and debt, rented housing and neighbours. We found that lone parents sought advice for their problems more often than other family types, and that they found dealing with their problems particularly stressful. They did, however, believe that their life had improved as a consequence of dealing with their problem. In conclusion, the presentation will discuss the implications of the findings within a policy context. Who Are We And Who Are You? The Strategic Use Of Forms Of Address In Political Interviews Peter Bull, Department of Psychology, University of York & Anita Fetzer, University of Lueneberg, Germany The aim of this paper is to examine how politicians use the indeterminacy of personal pronouns as a means of evading awkward questions in televised interviews. In spoken English, the pronoun “you” may refer to the speaker, to the hearer, or to a group of people of any size. This analysis investigates how politicians make strategic use of the indeterminacy of the pronoun “you” as a means of avoiding giving their personal opinions on political issues through responding in terms of the collective “we” (typically, the party which the politician represents). It also seeks to show how interviewers adopt linguistic strategies to counter this evasive technique, and to assess how effective interviewers are in this respect. The analysis will be based on televised political interviews from the last two British General Elections (1997, 2001) and on a recent interview given by Tony Blair to Jeremy Paxman on the Iraq crisis (6th February, 2003). Results will be set in the context of the theory of equivocation devised by Bavelas et al. (1990), of Goffman’s (1981) analysis of “footing,” and of linguistic theories regarding forms of address. It is intended to illustrate the talk with videorecorded extracts. Bavelas, J.B., Black, A., Chovil, N. and Mullett, J. (1990). Equivocal Communication. Newbury Park: Sage. Goffman, E. (1981). Footing. In E. Goffman, Forms of Talk, pp. 124-159. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Changing Children’s Attitudes Towards Disabled Peers through Extended Contact L Cameron and A Rutland, Department of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury Government is increasingly committed to inclusion of disabled children in mainstream schools (Meeting Special Needs: A Programme of Action). However, it has been shown that inclusion in mainstream schools can have negative consequences for the self-concept and emotional security of disabled children (Santich & Kavanagh, 1997; Stinson, Whitmore & Kluwin, 1996). These negative consequences could perhaps be avoided if, prior to disabled children arriving at a school, non-disabled children are encouraged to be more positive towards disabled children. The aim of this study is to examine whether an extended contact intervention (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe & Ropp, 1997, Liebkind & McAlister 1999) could be used to encourage a more positive attitude towards disabled children. The structure of extended contact was varied with extended contact being presented to participants as either neutral, 5 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 interpersonal (Brewer & Miller 1984, 1988) or intergroup, where typicality of group members is emphasised (Hewstone & Brown, 1986). Participants aged between 5 and 11 ( N = 69) took part in a 3 (between subjects, type of extended contact) x 2 (within subjects: time of interview pre vs post extended contact) mixed design was used. Results show that extended contact did increase positivity towards children with disabilities, and this effect was significantly greater in the intergroup contact condition. Thus our findings support the notion of extended contact and the need to emphasise typicality when attempting to reduce prejudice. The Effect Of Threats On National Identity And Other Related Elements Within The Identity Structure Theopisti Chrysanthaki and Evanthia Lyons, University of Surrey Most motivational theories (Tajfel, 1978; Tajfel &Turner, 1979; Brewer, 1991) seem not to acknowledge that different group memberships might serve different motivational functions and that the content and structure of different social identities may be complex and overlapping especially under the context of threat. Given the flexibility and complexity of identity structure, one may question the assertion that only need for positive distinctiveness and self-esteem motivations guide social identification processes. Furthermore, such a theoretical position raises questions about how the content and structure of identity changes when one or more related identity elements (i.e. elements deriving from cross-cutting memberships) is threatened. In line with Identity Process Theory (Breakwell, 1986), the present study attempted to conceptualise how threats to different principles of one identity might affect the principles relating to other identities. A mixed-factorial design (N=259 Greek University students) was employed; the between-subject factor was threat to distinctiveness and continuity of national identity; the within-subject factor referred to pre-post threat measurements of salience of national, religious, and student identity elements, levels of distinctiveness, continuity, self-esteem and self-efficacy. The findings indicated that identity systems are more flexible, fluid and complex than most motivational theorists suggest. Supporting IPT claims about related elements in identity structure and distinct motivational states for identities, all three elements were highly related (pre-post threat), while each identity was uniquely predicted by its own motivational principles. Continuity best predicted all three identifications while religious continuity and identification increased, ameliorating the threat on national continuity and national identity. Deviance And Sanctioning In Low And High Status Groups Julie Christian, University of Birmingham, Paul Hutchison and Dominic Abrams, University of Kent Two studies examined reactions to the presentation of desirable and undesirable members of low and high status groups among participants who differed in their level of ingroup identification. In Study 1, psychology students (N = 148) were informed that they compared either favourably (high status) or unfavourably (low status) with other social science students on a relevant dimension. Results indicated that high identifiers were more negative in their evaluation of an undesirable ingroup member under low status than high status conditions. Under low status conditions, high identifiers were also more positive than low identifiers toward a desirable ingroup member but more negative toward an undesirable ingroup member. No such differences emerged under high status conditions. In Study 2, which also investigated reactions to outgroup members, students (N = 286) were informed that their own university compared either favourably or unfavourably with a nearby university on a 6 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 relevant dimension. As well as replicating the effects obtained in Study 1, the results also indicated that high identifiers favoured a desirable ingroup member over a desirable outgroup member, but favoured an undesirable outgroup member over an undesirable ingroup member. This ‘black sheep’ effect emerged only under low status conditions. Additional analyses examined the impact participants believed the desirable and undesirable targets would have on the image of the ingroup and outgroup, and their willingness to exert conformity pressure on the targets. Discussion focuses on the motivational processes underlying the management of deviant and undesirable group members. Beliefs About Religious Martyrdom And Terrorism: The Moderating Effects Of Social Identity Marco Cinnirella, K. Humayun Ansari and Christiana Sampson, Royal Holloway, University of London Data from two empirical studies are presented, focusing on beliefs about religious martyrdom, terrorism and social identity (ethnic, national and religious) held by British participants of south-Asian origin. In the first study, in-depth interviews and selfcompletion questionnaires were used with a volunteer sample of 80 practising Muslims residing in the UK. A further study employing a quantitative questionnaire was administered to 97 south-Asian participants on university campuses in the UK. In the first study, religious identity emerged as stronger than either ethnic or national identity (supporting Jacobson, 1997), and in terms of acculturation, many participants appeared to adopt a 'separation' strategy (see Berry, 2001 and Farver et al., 2002). Religious and national identity measures were found to correlate with a number of attitudinal indices of support for martyrdom, violence and terrorism. Open-ended data suggested complex multi-dimensional understandings of concepts such as jihad, suicide and martyrdom. These findings were largely mirrored in the second study, with university students in south-east England. The data emerging from the second study, in addition, suggests that the strength of all three identities (ethnic, national and religious) may moderate attitudes towards the events of September 11, 2001, often in complex ways. The findings of both studies are related to previous research on ethnic and national identity and broader theorising about social identity. Women With Responsibilities, Adolescents With Needs: Positioning Theory, Young Mothers And Support Services Neil Cooper and Sylvia Burnett This paper draws on the data of an action research project to investigate the causes and effects of teenage parenthood as an aspect of social exclusion and discrimination for young people. The qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with a small number of young mothers commenced in September 2001. The research interviews include narratives in which young mother's situate themselves in relation to their children and their family, individual professionals, organisations and agencies, partners and other young people. Drawing on Positioning Theory (Davies and Harré 1990; Harré and van Langenhove 1999), the needs of young mothers will be shown to be constrained by cultural stereotypes, policy documents and practice guidance. Analysis of interview discourse will demonstrate how young mothers position themselves to accept the positions created for them by these wider discourses but also how they challenge and transform them. Examples will be given of how young women position themselves as mothers with responsibilities, adolescents with needs and young people in transition. It will be demonstrated that the framework offered by positioning theory highlights the dynamic 7 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 relationship between young mothers and support services in which responsibilities and rights are unstable rather than fixed and that these positions are related to powerlessness and empowerment. Davies B and Harré R. (1990) Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, vol. 20, pp. 43-64. Harré R. and Van Langenhove L. (1999) Positioning Theory. Oxford. Blackwell. Keeping It Under Your Hat: Inhibiting The Linguistic Expression Of Stereotypes And Biases Karen Douglas and Robbie Sutton, Keele University The linguistic category model (LCM: Semin & Fiedler, 1988) proposes that communicators use different levels of language abstraction ranging from concrete (e.g., “Jamie is smiling”) to abstract (e.g., “Jamie is happy”) when they describe other people’s behaviours. Current theories suggest that communicators’ beliefs about targets influence their language abstraction so that they use more abstract language to describe expected or stereotypical behaviours and more concrete language to describe unexpected or counter-stereotypical behaviours. Theories also suggest that communicators transmit their beliefs and stereotypes through language abstraction without knowing they are doing so. Complementary to this view, Douglas and Sutton (2003) have shown that communicators are able to recruit language abstraction when they have a conscious goal to manipulate their audience – for example when describing behaviours favourably or unfavourably to potential recipients. The research presented here demonstrates that communicators can also inhibit the effects of biased beliefs on language when they consciously intend to do so. Overall, the research suggests that language abstraction is used more flexibly than current theories would suggest. Results are discussed in the context of contemporary theories of communication and implications for stereotyping research are also discussed. The Third-Person Effect: Social Distance in Intergroup Contexts Tracey J. Elder, Karen M. Douglas and Robbie M. Sutton, Department of Psychology, Keele University The third person effect (TPE) is the tendency for individuals to assume that persuasive communications have a stronger effect on other people than on themselves (Davison, 1983). Research on the TPE has found that when the definition of others becomes more socially distant or broad, the TPE increases (Gibbon & Durkin, 1995; Gunther, 1991). For example, group members accentuate the similarities between self and in-group members and the differences between in-group and out-group members (Duck, Hogg & Terry, 1995). The present research reexamines this 'social-distance' effect and considers whether in some cases it may be reversed. In the first study male and female participants were given a message arguing that women were better drivers than men, or vice versa. The results indicate that for a pro-ingroup message, the TPE was reversed with self and in-group members perceived as more influenced than outgroup members and society. However, for the pro-outgroup message the traditional TPE was found. In the second study, minimal groups were created in order to eliminate the effects of prior stereotypes about naturally occurring groups such as men and women (cf. Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament, 1971). A dot-estimation task was used to arbitrarily assign participants to two distinct groups - overestimators and underestimators. Results replicated those found in the first study. We discuss the perceived consequences of media messages in intergroup settings. 8 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Fear Thy Neighbour? Cross-Sectional And Longitudinal Tests Of The Integrated Threat Model Anja Eller and Dominic Abrams, University of Kent Four field studies (one longitudinal) will be presented, testing Stephan and Stephan’s (2000) Integrated Threat Model (ITM). The ITM proposes that four types of intergroup threat (realistic threats, symbolic threats, intergroup anxiety, negative stereotyping) mediate between a host of antecedents (ingroup identification, relevance of social policies, intergroup contact, knowledge of outgroup, prior intergroup conflict, relative group status) and prejudice. The model also holds that realistic threats are not predictive of prejudice toward dominant groups while symbolic threats are not predictive of prejudice toward subordinate groups. Participants were German high school students (study 1; N=708), British university students (study 2; N=73), American language school students (study 3; N=100), and Mexican company employees (study 4; N=206 at T1, 67 longitudinally). Results largely confirmed the predictions and quality of contact and intergroup anxiety emerged to be central variables in the model. Moreover, the supplementary hypotheses were supported: Realistic, but not symbolic threat predicted outgroup evaluations in the American language school study and symbolic, but not realistic threat predicted evaluations in the Mexican employee study, showing status differences between groups to be crucial. The proposed causal direction of the ITM was not confirmed; in contrast, realistic threat, symbolic threat, and intergroup anxiety appear to be precursors that shape the quality of intergroup contact at later time points. The present research, conducted in three countries, in four different intergroup contexts and with different participant populations, illuminates some of the processes thought to be involved in intergroup contact, threats, and attitudes and provides initial longitudinal evidence related to the ITM. Don't Apologise: Perceptions Of Perpetrators' Actions And Emotions By Members Of A Wronged Group Pablo Espinosa, Roger S. Giner-Sorolla, and Rupert Brown, University of Kent Research on the self-focused emotions of shame and guilt has studied how an individual or group feels as the perpetrator of a transgression (Tangney & Dearing, 2002; Lickel, Schmader & Barquissau, 2003), but little attention has been paid to the perception of these emotions by members of a wronged group. We explored wronged group members' reactions to transgressors' hypothetical expressions of shame, guilt, and the other-focused emotion of sympathy (Iyer, Leach & Crosby, 2003). We also checked how participants perceived behaviours consistent with the different self-focused emotions (withdrawing for shame, apologising and making reparations for guilt). Participants were members of a group directly harmed by the recent Prestige oil tanker spill (university and high school students from La Coruña and Ferrol in coastal Galicia, Spain). Hypothetical responses by the incident's perpetrator were presented in a 4 x 3 mixed design, independently varying emotions between participants (shame, guilt, sympathy, and no emotion) and behaviours within participants (reparative, withdrawal, and no action). Both factors and their interaction had significant effects on satisfaction. Shame and sympathy were equally satisfactory, but shame was more satisfactory than guilt. Also, reparative actions were less satisfactory than withdrawal actions, but only when no emotions were 9 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 expressed; both actions were consistently more satisfactory than no action. Although rationally it seems that guilt and reparation represent the more adaptive emotional response (Tangney and Dearing, 2002), a harmed group may prefer shame and its withdrawal action tendencies, although they are less compatible with solving the wrongdoing. Health Related Proverbial Knowledge And It’s Associations With Personality And Health Behaviours Eamonn Ferguson, Duncan Mann and Laura Spalding, University of Nottingham Does knowledge about health influence health behaviour? Factual medical knowledge, while related to personality and ability traits, it is not related to reported health behaviour. However, more culturally based knowledge (e.g., wisdom) is related general life decisions. Therefore, it might be that health specific wisdom (i.e., old wives’ tales or proverbs) is related to health behaviour? A sample of 296 undergraduates completed an index of 16 common proverbs of which 6 have a scientific basis and 10 do not. Participants indicated which they had heard of, the extent to which they believed each to be scientifically true and the extent to which treatment decisions would be guided by each proverb. An overall score was created of how many proverbs had been heard of. Proverbs were then split into two classes, those that had scientific basis and those that did not, and four proverbial knowledge scales were created based on the extent (1) to which each class was perceived as scientifically true and (2) to which each class would be a basis for treatment. Participants also completed a measure of health anxiety, the Big 5 and the use of traditional or complimentary medicine. The results showed that the personality domains of surgency, intellect and conscientiousness were positively related to beliefs about scientifically true proverbs whereas health anxiety was related to beliefs about scientifically untrue proverbs. Finally, beliefs about scientifically true proverbs were related to the use of traditional medicine and scientifically untrue proverbs to the use of complementary medicine. Results are discussed in relation to role and development of proverbial knowledge in medical decision making. What Are Friends For? Practical Uses Of ‘Friend’ Constructions In A Telephone Helpline Alexa Hepburn, Loughborough University This paper considers the practical role of ‘friend’ constructions in helpline interaction. In traditional social psychological work ‘friends’ are understood in terms of a sociometry of attributes and attractions, ties and relations. This research has rarely addressed the practices in which notions of friend and friendship appear. What is the category ‘friend’ for? This paper addresses this question through an analysis of a corpus of recorded and transcribed telephone calls from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s Helpline. Analysis shows that the category ‘friend’ provides at least 3 key things for callers reporting abuse: (a) entitlement to certain forms of knowledge; (b) a motive for making the call, simultaneously neutralising other more noxious motives and identities; and (c) a device for managing the caller’s stake and interest in making the call. The paper therefore develops two related arguments: firstly, the pragmatic function of the term ‘friend’ as illustrated by the details of the analysis highlights the problems with seeing ‘friend’ as a term that simply describes a set of people in a certain relationship with one another. This allows the development of a discursive psychological critique of the way friend as a category has been employed in the 10 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 traditional psychological literature. Secondly the paper shows how both caller and Child Protection Officers employ the category ‘friend’ in orienting to the business of the institution, and how psychological categories are invoked in the process. This second theme would develop the growing literature on the possibility of a discursive psychology of institutions. It is concluded that relationship terms like ‘friend’ are not merely neutral descriptions of various affiliations, but can be seen to do practical things for people in everyday and institutional interaction. Social Influence Effects on Midwives’ Practice Caroline Hollins Martin, Department of Health Sciences, University of York Objective. To measure social influence effects of a senior midwife upon colleagues clinical decisions. Design. Condition 1 involved issue of the Social Influence Scale (SIS) to measure and score midwives’ private responses to 10 clinical decisions. Condition 2 involved an interview during which a senior midwife introduced persuasive variables in attempts to influence SIS responses towards the most conformist answer. Condition 3 involved issue of a workbook replicating interview in absence of an influential person. Experiment 1 = Condition 1 & 2 and Experiment 2 = Conditions 1 & 3. Both use a within participant design with a time gap between conditions. Method. A 10 item SIS was devised to measure social influence effects. Condition 1 = Return of 209 postal SIS. Condition 2 = Interview of 60 (20 E, 20 F and 20 G grade) of the aforementioned midwives regarding SIS items. Condition 3 = 60 matched midwives completing the workbook. Results. In Experiment 1; results of an overall 3 2 ANOVA with groups to conditions yielded a statistically significant result with participants achieving higher scores on the SIS in interview as opposed to anonymous private questionnaire F(1,57) = 249.62, p = 0.001. Experiment 2 yielded a statistically non significant result with participants achieving similar scores in workbooks as anonymous private questionnaires; F(1,57) = 0.31, p = 0.58. No significant group x condition interactions observed in both experiments. Conclusions. Colleagues have a significant impact upon midwives decisions with marked difference between what midwives say they will do and what actually happens in practice. Experiment 2 excludes possibility of an educational process taking place during interview, concluding that factors about the interviewer cause the social influence effect. Understanding The Experience Of Alopecia Through Email Interviewing Nigel Hunt, Nottingham Trent University and Sue McHale, Sheffield Hallam University Alopecia is a chronic disease characterised by hair loss that can affect men, women and children. Its aetiology and subsequent development are not fully understood, but suggested causes include psychological stress (De Weert et al, 1984), physical trauma and genetic predisposition (Green & Sinclair, 2000). Alopecia is an autoimmune disease (Madani & Shapiro, 2000). It can have serious psychological consequences for the sufferer which are not fully understood. Previous research has generally considered psychological problems as secondary to the medical disorder. Our previous research shows that there are a range of personal, social, and medical issues that people consider important (Hunt & McHale, 2000). The study focuses on psychological issues relating to the experience of alopecia. Email interviews were conducted with 30 respondents. The respondents were from various countries and 11 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 had different experiences of alopecia. Participants were asked to respond in detail to several general questions. Further questions were asked in relation to the responses, leading to email dialogue. A number of issues arose. As treatment is largely ineffective, identity change becomes a key issue; hair loss engenders a complicated grieving process for a previous identity, and coping can be an attempt to come to terms with a new identity. Successful coping was discussed by only a small number of respondents. This included behavioural changes to accommodate stress management and acceptance of appearance and identity changes. Treatment for alopecia needs to be broadened to include psychological methods. The email interview was a largely successful technique, allowing participants time to respond to the questions. Control, Vividness and Values: Extending the Model of Worry About Crime Jonathan Jackson, Methodology Institute, LSE This paper reports on the extension of a social psychological model of the fear of crime. A key problem with this field of enquiry is that it has lacked theoretical accounts of how we make sense of our social and physical environment, how we form and manage perceptions of risk, and how these attitudes shape worry about becoming a victim of crime. This is surprising, not least because of various points of contact with a number of literatures that offer useful concepts and perspectives. Drawing together work from sources such as criminology, social psychology and the risk perception research, I present an extension of an existing model of worry about crime (Jackson, 2002). To begin with, this integrative account of the phenomenon is replicated; data are presented from a small-scale survey of a rural area in England (n=1,023; response rate of 22%). Then, I analyse the validity of three developments to the model. The first regards the notion that encounters with disorderly aspects of the social environment increase the vividness or salience of the possibility of victimization; such vividness mediates the relationship between these encounters and perceptions of risk. Secondly, I consider the ability to ‘read’ a neighbourhood, of being familiar with it and its inhabitants, and thus to be avoid to avoid potentially threatening situations. Finally, I hypothesise two roles for social and political attitudes regarding social change, authoritarianism, and law and order: that worry about crime expresses these underlying values and attitudes; and that these attitudes orientate how we make sense, or define, order and disorder in our environment. An Integrated Procedural Framework For Organizational Learning Gregor Jost, Department of Social Psychology, LSE The majority of research into organizational learning has arguably offered theoretically under-specified accounts of the exact nature of the processes involved. While the individual is understood as the principal agent of learning (e.g. Huber, 1991; Dodgson, 1993), the procedural character of the translation of learning from the individual to the group and organizational level remains unclear. Earlier attempts by March & Olsen (1975) and Kim (1993) have presented conceptual overviews, but leave the crucial links between the individual and the collective largely undeveloped. This paper evaluates previous explorations into organizational learning processes and develops a precise language to differentiate between levels of analysis involved. Subsequently, a preliminary process model of learning across levels of analysis (individual, group, organization) is proposed. Information processing is characterized as cognition at the individual level, communication at the group level, and formalization on the organizational level. The transfer of learning is sustained and augmented by feedback from group and organization-wide sources. The individual is 12 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 established as the crucial building block of the sequence, and is conceptually linked to learning lost to the organization. The framework explicates the reassessment of individual knowledge for group and organizational purposes and accounts for different memory systems at different levels of analysis. Implications for empirical research are discussed, such as the collection of data from multiple, level-specific sources. Distinctiveness Threat And Real Vs. Minimal Groups C Kamau and A Rutland, Department of Psychology, University of Kent The present experiment investigated whether extent of identification interacts with whether a group is minimal or real, to determine responses to distinctiveness threat. The study had a 2x2x2 design (real/minimal x threat/no threat x high identifier/low identifier) and the 83 participants were undergraduates. The quasi-minimal group involved 'university student identity' and the real group involved ethnic identity. Threat was presented in the form of bogus academic journal articles, and dependent variables included 'difference between positive self-stereotyping and positive groupstereotyping' as well as 'perceptions of self similarity with ingroup' . Following a median split based on extent of identification, results were that low identifiers in the minimal (but not real) group reacted to threat by enlargening the gap between positive self stereotyping and positive group stereotyping; high identifiers in the minimal group did not show a similar effect. High identifiers in the real (but not minimal) group reacted to the threat by perceiving greater similarity between their selves and their ingroup; low identifiers in the real group did not show a similar effect. Findings were explained in terms of Branscombe et al's (1999) social identity threat framework- but, in addition to their predictions viz. extent of identification, the present study showed that the type of group in question is also important in determining responses to distinctiveness threat. Future research on the effects of threat should therefore examine how the content of a group identity and its meaning (e.g. in terms of its social function) influences extent of identification and reactions to threat. Why Do People Have Different Attitudes Towards Different Types Of Animal Use? A Grounded Theory Approach Sarah Knight, Aldert Vrij, Karl Nunkoosing, and Julie Cherryman, Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth Most studies examining attitudes toward animal use have used quantitative methods and focused on participant variables (such as gender and age) to explain variance in such attitudes (e.g. Driscoll, 1992; Matthews & Herzog, 1997). This study used qualitative methodology to develop a model that explains why people have different attitudes toward different types of animal use. 17 participants completed a questionnaire measuring attitudes towards different types of animal use (for research, in the classroom, for personal decoration, for entertainment, for financial gain, and animal management issues), and Belief in Animal Mind (BAM). After this they took part in a semi-structured interview during which they talked about their views on how animals are used and BAM. The interviewer had a protocol of subject areas to be discussed but participants were encouraged to lead the conversation and introduce new factors that they perceived to be important when thinking about animal use. The interviews lasted between 45-90 minutes and were audio-taped, after which they were transcribed and analysed using Grounded Theory. A model was developed that suggests that characteristics of (i) the species of animal used (e.g. the perceived attractiveness of an animal), and (ii) the type of animal use (e.g. the perceived benefits of an animal use practice), can influence attitudes as much, if not more, than 13 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 participant variables. The model consists of 4 major themes (‘attitudes toward animals’, ‘knowledge of animal use procedures’, ‘perceptions of choice’, and ‘costbenefit analysis’), and it was proposed that a combination of these themes could account for much of the variance in attitudes towards animal use. We propose that the present study adds to our understanding of what people think and feel about animal use. Future research may further investigate the impact of the themes that emerged from our data, moreover, we suggest that other researchers consider using qualitative methodology to compliment quantitative methods and expand our knowledge in this area. The Art of Socialist Seduction: Studies in the Subjective Group Dynamics of Minority Influence Sara A. Kreindler and Mansur Lalljee, Oxford University Drawing on research in both minority influence and social categorization, this paper defines and assesses a comprehensive strategy by which minorities can increase their direct influence by changing their perceived social identity. The Pro-Norm Ingroup Member (PNIM) strategy involves establishing that one is a prototypical ingroup member and that one’s arguments flow from shared norms. In Experiment 1, 138 members of a Canadian centre-left party read a radical socialist message of PNIM or confrontational style. For those who were initially unfavourable towards the message, PNIM messages proved more influential. In Experiment 2, 170 Canadian university students read environmentalist appeals differing in style (PNIM/confrontational) and stance (pro-capitalist/anti-capitalist). PNIM messages produced more influence and were rated more moderate and pleasant. Stance did not affect influence but anti-capitalist messages generated more interest. Results confirmed that the PNIM strategy can significantly enhance minority influence, and may render unnecessary any dilution of message stance. Experiment 3 sought to demonstrate that the strategy’s success is contingent on the construction of a suitable in-group and norms. Oxford University students (N = 167) were encouraged to believe that concern for animal welfare was either normative or non-normative within the student body. They then read a PNIM-styled message arguing for vegetarianism on compassionate grounds. High identifiers were more persuaded when the message appealed to apparently normative values; low identifiers when it did not. This revealed that the PNIM strategy is not merely a stylistic gloss; rather, its performance depends on the transmission of appropriate social identity information. Ethnic identity: The role of peer interaction Virginia Lam, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London This study examines how children's ethnic identities become transparent within the context of their interaction with a peer. 428 7-8-year-olds as same- (white-white, Asian-Asian, black-black) or different- (white-Asian, white-black) ethnic (same-sex) dyads engaged in two peer- preference tasks: To choose from eight pictures of novel peers (4 own-ethnic, 4 other-ethnic) one with whom they would most like to play and one who they predicted would most like to play with them; in both cases they had to justify their choices. Video recordings were taken of dyads' interactions towards resolving their choices and making justifications. Same-ethnic dyads were more likely to prefer a same-ethnic peer and infer that a same-ethnic peer would prefer them. Different-ethnic dyads were more likely to fail to resolve or take longer to do so. Children's behaviour reveals that different-ethnic dyads were likely to initially each choose a same-ethnic peer and to insist on their choices resulting in the failure to 14 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 resolve. Asian-Asian dyads were most likely to use ethnicity to reason for their choices inferring that they and their chosen playmate shared the same religious or cultural background. Those black-black dyads who reasoned by ethnicity were likely to focus on racial characteristics. Representations Of Orgasm In Three Generations Of Women Maya Lavie, Psychology Department, UCL General population surveys indicate that between 5-15% of sexually active women have never experienced orgasm. The exact number of women whom experience other problems with orgasm is not known, but it is assumed to be much higher. This paper draws on a study that examined the ways in which British women make sense of their experiences around the presence and absence of orgasm. The study comprised of 50 semi-structured interviews across three age groups (25-32, 48-55 and 60-67 years old), with women who define themselves as either having problems with orgasm or not having such problems. The data was examined using thematic analysis to ascertain which themes were shared across the sample of women. Particular attention was paid to the role which social factors played in shaping their experiences. The data revealed a complex structure of shared social representation of female orgasm and its implications for women who feel they have problems with orgasms. Women regard the experience of orgasm as both mental and physical, with different functions and meanings related to their identity, relationship and sexual behaviour. This paper provides a critique of the biomedical approach which has defined most of the studies in this area. Instead it draws upon the social construction literature and social representation theory to suggest new ways of understanding the experience of orgasm in the context of the social milieu of these experiences. Development of the Situational Triggers of Aggressive Response (STAR) Scale: Reliability and Validity Data Claire Lawrence, University of Nottingham General models of aggression typically point to potential antecedents of aggressive responses such as frustrations, pain, stress and other situational variables (see Geen, 2001; Anderson and Bushman, 2000). Such models also indicate individual differences as predictors of aggression, for example (Buss & Perry, 1992; Baumeister et al 1996). To date, these two variable sets have been examined separately. The studies reported in this paper bring these two sets of variables together using the Situational Triggers of Aggressive Response (STAR) scale, which specifically examines individual differences in responses to situational triggers of aggression. The STAR scale has been developed using constructs taken from established theoretical triggers of aggression, and a large-scale qualitative study analysing individuals’ triggering factors. The STAR scale comprises three factors that measure triggers of anger and aggressive responses. These are: (i) frustrations, (ii) provocation from others, and (iii) physiological triggers and intense relationship difficulties. Associations with Big 5 personality constructs, trait narcissism, social desirability, stability of self concept and Buss and Perry’s (1992) measure of trait aggression are discussed. In addition, good levels of test-retest reliability are reported. The STAR scale shows consistent individual differences in the ways in which people react to triggers of aggression, and challenges Berkowitz’s (1993) assertion that physical pain generates aggression in the same way as any other provoking factor. The STAR scale potentially has clear uses for examining individuals’ triggers of aggression, and for informing laboratory-based studies involving the provocation of aggression. 15 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Children’s Talk And Their Emerging Ethnic Group Schema: Some Notes From A Methodological Perspective Patrick J. Leman, Royal Holloway and Virginia Lam, Goldsmiths College In this paper we explore some of the methodological issues surrounding research on children’s ethnic group schema. We argue that, (i) the combination of social and developmental processes inherent in the study of children’s ethnic understanding presents a distinctive methodological challenge to researchers, (ii) aspects of reasoning about ethnicity are both implicit and explicit and occur across a range of different forms of social relation and context. In light of these arguments we evaluate some of the alternative measures used in the study of children’s ethnic understanding. Critics of what have been described as “explicit measures” argue that there is a significant danger of social desirability and experimenter expectancy that might mask the true character of a child’s beliefs about ethnicity. Concerns about explicit measures are particularly germane to developmental studies and a considerable body of work on adult-child interaction indicates that children’s reasoning and responses can be greatly influenced by the presence of an adult. However, a shortcoming of more “implicit measures” of children’s ethnic attitudes is that ‘conscious’ or social contextual aspects of reasoning about ethnicity are ignored. Moreover, implicit measures are somewhat limited in their ability to probe the underlying structure of child’s ethnic group schema and reasoning. After considering these observations we present an innovative methodological technique that uses a quasi-experimental study of children’s peer conversations to explore children’s ethnic understanding. The paper concludes with a call for the use of an array of methodological approaches to study the multifaceted phenomena of ethnic group schema. The Cognition of Attitude Development: a connectionist exploration Rob Lowe, University of Wales Swansea Contemporary theory suggests attitudes are the mental association between an attitude object and an evaluation of that object. The strength of this association determines attitude accessibility. Two questions arise: First, what are the cognitive ‘mechanics’ by which object-evaluation associations occur? Second, are such associations plausible (computable) within ‘brain-like’ information processing systems? A connectionist approach was used to simulate attitude development, providing insights into mechanisms underlying attitude formation within a system comprised of neuron-like elements. Simulation data, representing 16 prototype patterns, were generated. Each pattern consisted of four basic parts: object class (e.g. vehicle, hat), type of object within a class (e.g. car, top hat), evaluative feature (e.g. smoky exhaust, frayed brim), and evaluative valence (positive, negative). A network, implementing competitive (unsupervised) learning, was trained with 20 variants (exemplars) of each of the 16 prototype patterns. After training, the network was tasked with classifying a separate set of 1600 exemplars as positive or negative based on object class, type, and evaluative feature alone (i.e. valence part excluded). The network learned to recognise specific consistencies within the data, which enabled the identification of an exemplar’s valence. The trained network correctly classified, as positive or negative, 89.5% of test exemplars. Consistent with theory, accuracy improved as training progressed. The study showed how a neural network structure might identify, store and retrieve attitude-relevant information. The network 16 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 developed representations capturing the co-occurrence of positive features with positive evaluations, and negative features with negative evaluations. The network could subsequently recognise objects as positive or negative from these features alone. Do people think actions are riskier than non-actions? John McClure and Duncan Mills, Victoria University of Wellington This research examines people's judgments relating to two types of risk: risky actions and failure to take precautions that reduce risk. Examples of risky actions are driving at high speed in a city, smoking cigarettes, and building a house on a fault-line. Examples of failures to take precautions include failing to take safety checks on a car, not doing a medical check on large moles on the skin, and not retrofitting a vulnerable building in an earthquake risk area. It is well-known that many activities are risky, but as doctors, health specialists, and prevention advocates constantly attest, some risks derive from people not doing some activity. For example, the risk that people will get ill is increased by not exercising. Previous research suggests, however, that citizens see risk as relating to risky activities rather than inactivities (failures to take preventive action). This study shows whether people place more weight on risk from risky activity than risk entailed by inactivities. The research presents citizens with a range of actions and non-actions that have been designated as risk-related by experts, and obtains their estimates of the risk entailed by those events. It tests the prediction that people give high estimates of risks that relate to risky activities, but give low estimates to risks that derive from inactivity. It then discusses ways of getting citizens to recognize the risks relating to many forms of inactivity. The Effect Of Anonymity On Cyber-Ostracism Emma McHarg and Marco Cinnirella, Psychology Department, Royal Holloway Previous research into group behaviour in online situations has revealed that there are many similarities, and also some differences between online and offline groups. One such area of difference that has recently been discovered is that of ostracism – being socially excluded from groups. Williams et al (2002) found that people who were ostracised in online situations suffered less impact on four dimensions and were more likely to continue making comments than those ostracised in offline situations. The current study used a similar methodolgy to investigate this further, looking at how varying levels of anonymity may affect the impact of ostracism differently. Three conditions were investigated - total anonymity, co-presence and face-to-face. Groups of three people were asked to have a discussion, where two of the people were confederates, and only one was a true participant. In half of the trials, the participant was ignored by the confederates for a short period of time, whereas in the other half, the group continued to have an inclusive discussion throughout the experiment, though the confederates always disagreed with the participant. The effects on the number of comments made by the participant, selfesteem, self-efficacy and perceived group cohesion were assessed. It was expected that participants who were ostracised would manifest lower scores on these measures, compared to those in the inclusive condition, but that this effect would interact with that of level of anonymity (smaller effect of ostracism as anonymity increases). The preliminary findings from this study will be presented. 17 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Dissonance Reduction In The Context Of Group Membership: The Role Of Meta-Consistency B M McKimmie, D J Terry, M A Hogg, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Australia A S R Manstead, R Spears and B Doosje, Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam Despite an early focus on the role of social groups in the arousal and reduction of cognitive dissonance (e.g., Festinger, 1957), subsequent dissonance research has given relatively little attention to dissonance arousal in a group context. Three studies were conducted to examine the role of social support in dissonance arousal and reduction within a social identity and self-categorization framework. The first study manipulated behavioural support for hypocrisy and the salience of an ingroup for participants and the source of support. Results indicated that nonsupport only acted as a dissonant cognition in the high salience condition. The results suggested that meta-consistency (the degree of similarity in attitude-behaviour consistency between two people) is important for understanding the role of social support in dissonance phenomena. A second study examined the relationship between meta-consistency and perceptions of own attitude-behaviour consistency. As expected, metaconsistency was associated with an increase in perceived attitude-behaviour consistency. A third study investigated the impact of meta-consistency on dissonance reduction. As expected, participants in the meta-consistency condition experienced the least dissonance, particularly when the shared group membership was salient. Overall, there was some support for the inclusion of social identity concepts in a reconceptualisation of dissonance theory as social support seemed to operate not just as a consonant cognition as previously argued by Stroebe and Diehl (1981), Lepper, et al., (1970), and Festinger et al., (1956). Finally, in terms of selfcategorization theory, the results demonstrate a new way in which the attitudes and behaviours of fellow ingroup members can be influential. Doing Moral Talk In The Media Andy McKinlay and Colin Elve, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh The importance of morality as a discursive topic is seen from the fact that a variety of discourse analytic studies have viewed it as a background concern for conversational participants. For example, discursive studies of racism have emphasised the way that interviewees orient towards potential problems associated with the ‘wrongness’ of their views. More generally, the issue of morality is also often a background concern in analyses of blame-avoidance accounting strategies. Similarly, recent discourse analytic studies of identity show that constructions of identity are sensitive to potential issues of moral culpability. However, there have been relatively few discourse analytic studies of how people accomplish moral talk itself. For this reason, the present paper presents an analysis of how moral accounting is accomplished in talk. The data are a represented by contributions to the television programme, ‘Any Questions’, in which a panel of ‘experts’ critically discuss contemporary issues in response to questions from the programme audience. A transcript of the programme was analysed using discourse analysis techniques. Analysis revealed that interactants rely on several different discursive strategies in order to establish moral points: (1) ‘principal talk’ in which the panel experts establish their own points of view as flowing from general moral principles, (2) ‘consensus seeking’ in which moral conclusions are depicted as obviously correct because they stem from ‘claims of fact with which people are in general agreement (3) ‘media role-taking’ in which 18 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 interactants rely on the specific context of a television programme discussion in order to establish moral claims. After discussing these examples, the paper concludes by discussing the extent to which media-based interactions are relevant in broader discursive contexts. Generalizing beyond acquaintance rape: The role of benevolent and hostile sexism in accounting for reactions towards women who violate norms and the men who help put them back in their place B Masser, University of Queensland, Australia and R Brands, University of Queensland, Australia G T N Viki, University of Kent and D Abrams, University of Kent Recent research has investigated the role of hostile and benevolent sexism in reactions to acquaintance rape (e.g. Abrams, Viki, Masser & Bohner, 2003). This research demonstrated that benevolent sexists blame acquaintance rape victims because they perceive them as having violated a norm for appropriate behaviour. Hostile sexists indicate a proclivity to engage in acquaintance rape because they perceive that the victim’s resistance is not sincere. The current study aimed, first, to see if the effects observed in Abrams et al. (2003) would generalise beyond acquaintance rape and second, to determine whether the effects observed in Abrams et al. (2003) were driven by the victim’s specific sexual norm violation or by a more general gender norm violation. In three between-subjects conditions (gender norm congruent, gender norm violation or sexual norm violation), each participant was presented with six scenarios focusing on dating, sexual harassment and domestic violence. For each scenario, participants were asked to indicate their perception of victim blame and the likelihood that they would behave like the protagonist in those situations. As predicted, benevolent sexism was related to victim blame, but only in the sexual norm violation condition. In addition, hostile sexists in this condition indicated a greater tendency to behave like the protagonist. There was no effect of scenario type. The results of this study indicate that the negative impact of both benevolent and hostile sexism generalises beyond acquaintance rape and is related to the violation of specific sexual, rather than general gender, norms for behaviour. . Perceptions of Group Deviants: Investigating the role of the intergroup context G Randsley de Moura and D Abrams, The University of Kent One core aspect of Subjective Group Dynamics (SGD) theory is that the intergroup context will affect group members' perceptions and evaluations of target members, particularly deviants. This was tested in an experimental study with a 3 (Group: OBN vs. Psychologists vs. BAICO) x 2 (Context: OBN vs. BAICO) x 3 (Target: Pro-norm, Norm, Anti-norm), mixed factorial design, with Target being a within-participants variable. Participants (N=125) were randomly allocated to conditions and were provided with information about asylum seeking in the context of either an outgroup with attitudes more open than Psychologists’ (ingroup) norm (i.e. OBN), or an outgroup with attitudes more closed than the ingroup norm (i.e. BAICO). A summary of the attitudinal positions from a small group (putatively representing psychologists, asylum officers, or OBN members) on the issue was also provided. These members had a range of opinion, some normative and some deviant (pro-norm and anti-norm). Participants then completed a questionnaire with a series of dependent measures, including questions pertaining to their perception and evaluation of the target group members. ANOVA and post-hoc analyses demonstrate that reactions and 19 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 evaluations of deviant and normative members were affected by the interaction of the relative position of the target, the target group rated, and the intergroup context. These findings offer support for SGD theory, and suggest that reactions to deviant and normative group members will vary depending on the comparative context. Socialization After An Outsourcing Transfer: Individualised Socialization And Liminal Subjects Stephanie J. Morgan, Birkbeck College Socialization processes are argued to be key to enabling newcomers to become effective members of the organization. However a wide range of variables may impact upon the success of socialization, including whether socialization is institutional or individual, the opportunity for group socialization, and the level of social support received. In outsourcing transitions, staff may be resistant to organizational socialization tactics due to the involuntary nature of the transfer. They also have continued, long-term exposure to their old employer, are transferred in a group, and often have limited exposure to the new organization. Qualitative research was carried out across a range of outsourcing transfers to gain an understanding of how staff made sense of their new relationships and socialization into their new company. This longitudinal study indicates that the nature of outsourcing transfers does impact upon the level of socialization, as no closure can be made on old relationships, and remoteness to the new employer makes understanding organizational goals and values difficult. It is also suggested that the change to a more individualized form of socialization can create difficulties for staff transferred from large organizations who are unused to being proactive. The paper outlines how, in these circumstances, socialization processes will take longer than is currently allowed for in most research. Although different forms of attachment developed over time, a number of transferred staff were classified as liminal subjects, showing a strong dis-identification from both organizations. The issues these findings raise for outsourcing transfers and socialization theory will be discussed. The Interaction Between Implicit And Explicit Attitudes Marco Perugini, Department of Psychology, University of Essex Explicit attitudes have long been assumed as key factors influencing behaviour. A recent stream of studies has shown that implicit attitudes, typically measured with the Implicit Association Test (IAT), can also predict a significant range of behaviours. So far, the emphasis in research has been placed on showing evidence of discriminant and differential validity between implicit and explicit attitudes. This contribution is focused instead on exploring the possibility that implicit and explicit attitudes interact in influencing behaviour. This hypothesis can be derived both if one assumes that there are two independent attitude systems, an implicit and an explicit one, or if one assumes that there is only one attitude system and two different ways of measuring it, one implicit and one explicit. Two studies testing this basic interactive hypothesis are reported. The first study (n=48) is about smoking behaviour, whereas the second study (n=60) is about preferences for snacks versus fruits. In both studies there is evidence for a multiplicative effect between implicit and explicit attitudes, such that when they are both positive their predictive power is greater compared to all other combinations. The results are discussed in light of the importance to focus on congruence instead than only on conflict when investigating the directive influence of implicit and explicit attitudes on behaviour. 20 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 ‘Viagra Stories’: NZ men and women challenge ideas about ‘sexual dysfunction’ Annie Potts1, Victoria Grace1, Nicola Gavey2 and Tiina Vares1 1 Gender Studies, University of Canterbury, New Zealand 2 Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Biomedical approaches to sexual difficulties prioritise the physical aspects of sexuality, locating ‘disorders’ primarily in the anatomy or physiology of the body. In accordance with this reductionist perspective on sexual matters, physicians look to physical interventions (hormones, drugs, and surgery) to treat any ‘abnormalities’. Following the discovery of popular — and profitable — sexuopharmaceuticals such as sildenafil citrate (Viagra) for the treatment of erectile difficulties affecting men, the medical model has gained increasing influence in the domain of sexual health and well-being. However, while medical definitions of — and interventions into —sexual difficulties are underpinned by an understanding of a ‘universal body’ (that is, an essential biological body that transcends culture and history), the accounts of actual users of Viagra, and their sexual partners, do not necessarily subscribe to such understandings. In some cases, the experiences and perspectives of those affected by erectile difficulties directly challenge the reductionist model of sexuality and sexual experience espoused by medicine. In this paper we report on a New Zealand study investigating the social impact of Viagra, involving 33 men and 27 women discussing the impact of erectile difficulties and Viagra use within relationships. The diverse experiences of participants are discussed in relation to two key issues: the notion of ‘sexual dysfunction’ itself, and the idea of drugs such as Viagra acting as a ‘quick fix’ for sexual difficulties affecting men. We argue that the existence of a range of Viagra ‘stories’ disrupts a simplistic mechanistic portrayal of the male body, male sexuality, and ‘erectile disorder’. Argument Quality In Political Communication: Implications For Research Into Attitude Change Caroline Roberts, Department of Social Psychology, LSE. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1981; 1986) states that where an individual is highly motivated and able to systematically process a persuasive message, the extent and direction of any resultant attitude change will depend upon the quality of the arguments contained in the message. The manipulation of argument quality is a central feature of the experimental paradigm of ELM research, allowing the researcher to determine the extent of message elaboration and, thereby, which of four roles a treatment variable has played in the persuasive context. Yet the question of what makes an argument ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ remains a much-neglected issue in social psychological research into persuasive communication. For the authors of the ELM, an empirical method for establishing argument quality is proposed (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). Critics have challenged this method, proposing either message-based alternatives based on structural models of argument (e.g. Areni and Lutz, 1988; Boller, Swasy and Munch, 1990), or arguing that message validity cannot be divorced from the social context of persuasion, where source identity is a crucial determinant of the perceived quality of arguments (Haslam, McGarty and Turner, 1996; van Knippenberg, 1999). This paper critically compares these different approaches, using data from research into attitude change relating to the issue of UK participation in the single currency. Data 21 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 provide considerable support for the latter theory, suggesting that, in the case of a real-world political issue like the euro, perceptions of message validity and the persuasiveness of arguments depend upon a person’s existing target beliefs and social identity concerns. Words And Numbers In Social Research A J Ross*, B Wallace, J.B Davies, D Heim, K J Flatley, S C Hunter, Centre for Applied Social Psychology, University of Strathclyde Integrating qualitative and quantitative methods has been criticised by those who deny a common epistemic framework among data sources. However, this paper argues that viewing survey and interview data as epistemologically dissimilar is problematic, and that distinctions between qualitative and quantitative data should be set aside in favour of a distinction between reliable and unreliable data based on scientific measures of taxonomic reliability. A system for generating results based upon validatory triangulation between different taxonomies is described, drawing on case studies from safety and drug and alcohol research. The case studies illustrate that traditionally distinct research strands (e.g. questionnaire- based surveys and interview methods) are shown to be compatible with each other providing the basis on which numbers are generated is understood. It will be shown that statistical analysis of ‘quantitative’ survey data often serves to obscure the fact that subjective decisions are inherent in the design process. The conclusion from the analyses described is that frequencies derived from ‘qualitative analysis’ can be statistically manipulated in a similar fashion, providing reliability of coding is scientifically demonstrated. This opens the way for validation using a variety of data sources/ taxonomies, an approach which has clear advantages in that all available data may be interrogated to aid understanding of social issues. Individuality And Collectivity: Structural And Attitudinal Investigation Of Social Representations Maria Sakalaki, Panteion University, Athens, Marina Bastounis, University Paris 5 GRASP, Paris, Spiros Ferentinos, Panteion University, Athens This study aims to explore the structural and evaluative attitudinal dimension of the social representations of the constructs of individuality and collectivity in two European capitals. The material was collected by the method of evocation and analysed through the structural approach proposed by Verg's. The sample was composed of 68 Psychology students from the University of Paris 5, and 58 Psychology students from Panteion University in Athens. Participants filled out a questionnaire collectively. Previous examination of Greek and French culture has shown that the former is classified as less and the latter as more individualistic. From this assumption, it was hypothesised that both the structure of representations and participant's attitudinal evaluations of the their own associations to the stimulus words individuality and collectivity, would differ in the two samples, indicating a more positive evaluation of the terms associated to collectivity in the Greek sample and a more positive evaluation of the terms associated to individuality in the French sample. The findings tend to confirm this hypothesis. 22 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Bystanders and human rights appeals: a critical reappraisal of the ‘Passive bystander’ phenomenon. Bruna Seu, School of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London The branch of Social Psychology interested in the ‘Bystander phenomenon’ and helping behaviour is concerned with understanding people’s apathy when confronted with an appeal for help. Despite the apparent diversity in the explanations that mainstream social psychology has given to this question, it is my contention that they all share an individualistic, eurocentric and often mechanistic approach which prioritises cognition and personality traits. I intend to argue that these approaches are inadequate when attempting to explain complex social events and in particular moral apathy. Through the idea of ‘metaphorical bystander’ towards Human Rights appeals I will explore the limitations and alternatives to a traditional social psychological model of social non-intervention. Thus this paper intends to contribute to the development of psychological theory as well as to a deeper understanding of social practice in British complex society. Through an in-depth analysis of people’s responses to images of suffering and humanitarian appeals, I will illustrate how visual images about human rights abuses pass through many discursive layers. It is crucial to explore in depth these discursive layers to get to the '‘vocabulary of denial’ that allows people to ‘turn a blind eye’ to human rights appeals. I will illustrate how psychology itself is used to warrant a position of indifference, as well as commonsensical views of the world. By doing this I am also arguing that in order to fully understand moral apathy and the bystander phenomenon we need to know more about currently available, socially constructed discourses that people use to make sense of the world and justify their actions. Public Attitudes Towards Advances In Genomics Richard Shepherd1, Julie Barnett1, Helen Cooper1,2, Adrian Coyle1, Chris FifeSchaw1, Jo Moran-Ellis2, Victoria Senior1 and Patrick Sturgis2 Psychology Department1; Sociology Department2, University of Surrey Advances in genomics in recent years have led to substantial developments in pharmaceuticals and medicine. However, applications in food and agriculture have met with negative public reactions in Europe and future medical applications may also present major issues of public concern. There is a clear need to understand how people think about and make decisions in this area. Against this background the ESRC has commissioned a major project on public attitudes to genomics. Three substantive questions will be addressed. 1) What is the impact of knowledge on attitudes towards genomics? 2) To what degree are attitudes towards genetic technologies coherent with other socio-political attitudes, attitudes towards new nongenetic technologies and with self-interest. 3) How do contextual factors influence ambivalence of attitudes towards genomics? A range of methods will be employed to address the above questions. Initially, a national baseline survey will be conducted on about 3,500 people in association with the British Social Attitudes Survey. This will be complemented by an intervention study examining the effects of information provision with the sub-sample from the original survey, focus groups and interviews analysed using discourse analysis and other qualitative methods, a textual analysis of representations of genomics, and a series of experimental “vignette” studies. 23 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Daydreaming As A Form Of Self-Regulation: Evidence And Implications Jonathan Smallwood, Caledonian University, Glasgow This paper will discuss the notion that daydreaming, or the direction of attention towards internally generated information, may be a mechanism that people employ as a form of self-regulation. First, evidence will be described which suggests that daydreaming allows an individual to self-regulate their lives. For example, evidence from both laboratory and naturalistic situations suggest that when daydreaming individuals are involved in the processing of information with high personal salience (Klinger, 1978; Klinger et al. 1981) and parallels have also been drawn between the content of daydreams and coping strategies employed by individuals on a day to day basis (Greenwald and Harder, 1995, 1997). Second, the implications of daydreaming as a form of self-regulation will be discussed. Evidence suggests that when a daydream occurs under laboratory conditions, the individual is impaired in their ability to recollect or respond to external stimuli (Smallwood et al. 2003 A & B) and also experience higher levels of physiological arousal (Smallwood submitted A &B). One particular consequence of this style of self-regulation is that the evidence suggests that the individual’s ability to attend to the outside world is impaired and that this may (i) facilitate the process of self-perpetuation of heuristic information identified in the cognitive literature (Lewicki et al 1992) and (ii) play a role in the non-conscious acquisition of social information (Bargh and Ferguson, 2000). Conflict And Congruence Between Attitudes And Moral Judgements Paul Sparks, University of Sussex and Tony Manstead, University of Cambridge Numerous applications of the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) have indicated a predictive impact of moral judgements (on intentions and/or behaviour) that is additional to the influence of other variables (notably attitudes). Indeed, most of these applications appear to treat moral judgements as independent of attitudes. In this presentation, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the interrelationship of these two constructs. In particular, we argue that there are not only good reasons to expect moral judgements to influence people's attitudinal expressions under certain circumstances but also empirical data that would support such a claim. Illustrative data are presented mainly from recent TPB applications (with General Public participants) in the domains of organic food purchase (N = 286) and blood donation (N = 282). The findings indicate, for example, a moral content to 'behavioural beliefs' and a predictive impact of moral judgements on attitudes. The discussion focuses on (i) the important roles of, inter alia, behavioral domain, construct measurement and participant sample, (ii) implications for other areas of psychological research and for the interrelationship of other TPB constructs, and (iii) the value, within applications of the TPB, of examining motives for behaviour that are apparently influenced by judgements of principle, a concern for others and/or concern for other aspects of the animate and inanimate world that are deemed worthy of moral consideration. When worlds divide: Exploring the dissociation between beliefs that the world is fair to the self versus others Robbie Sutton, Karen Douglas, Colleen Brown, Leanne Frodsham, Gemma Nicholls, Emma Yates, and Victoria Yates. Department of Psychology, Keele University, UK "Just-world beliefs" (JWB) are assumed to benefit individuals by making the world seem orderly, controllable, and meaningful, but also to cost society by encouraging harsh responses to the unfortunate (Furnham, 2003; Lerner, 1980). However, recent 24 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 research suggests that beliefs that the world is just to the self, but not that it is just to others, facilitates mental health (Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler, 1996). We report studies that replicate and extend this research, showing that beliefs in justice for the self, but not others, were inversely related to both state and trait anxiety (Study 1), and directly related to life satisfaction and self-esteem (Study 2). More importantly, the present studies also demonstrate the social significance of this self-other distinction. Specifically, beliefs that the world is just to others, but not that it is just to the self, are directly related to harsh attitudes toward the poor (Study 2) and the mentally ill (Study 3). Beliefs in justice for others but not self are also directly related to willingness to donate to clearly deserving victims such as abused children, but inversely related to willingness to donate to potentially blameable victims such as drug addicts (Study 4). These results suggest that the hedonic consequences of JWB arise uniquely from JWB-self, whereas the social consequences of JWB arise uniquely from JWB-others. However, we report a boundary condition for this effect; JWB-self uniquely predicts preferences for long sentences in criminal justice contexts (Study 5). In Study 6, we examine how the self-other distinction is maintained in the context of sexual assault. Implications for just-world theory and further applications are discussed. Effects Of Member Identity And Target Status On Responses To Intragroup Criticism Mark Tarrant and Ewan Campbell, Department of Psychology, Keele University Recent research has begun to elaborate the different ways that group members respond to criticism about their group, and while it has been shown that criticism stemming from fellow ingroup members is tolerated more than that from members of an outgroup (Hornsey, Oppes, and Svensson, 2002), research has not examined in detail the impact of individual variables on such responses. The current study examined the effects of two such variables on responses to intragroup criticism using a 2 (target status) x 2 (participant identification) between-participants design. After exposure to criticism, participants (N = 100) completed a measure of sensitivity (e.g. how threatening, insulting, and arrogant and so on they found the target’s comments) and evaluated the target along a series of trait adjectives. They also rated the constructiveness of the target’s comments and the legitimacy of the target to make the comments (see Hornsey et al.). Results showed that high identifiers and participants exposed to low status targets were more sensitive to criticism than low identifiers and those exposed to high status targets. A series of status x identity interactions were observed for the remaining variables. Follow-up analyses revealed that these effects were mainly due to the responses of highly identified participants: Compared to low identifiers, high identifiers were consistently more tolerant of criticism from high status targets than they were of criticism from low status targets. Such behaviour suggests that compared to high status group members, low status members who criticise the ingroup might be seen amongst high identifiers as violating group expectancies, and in so doing represent a source of threat to the ingroup (e.g. Biernat, Vescio, and Billings, 1999). The Role Of Ambivalent Sexism In The Infra-Humanisation Of Women G. Tendayi Viki and Dominic Abrams, University Of Kent Leyens and colleagues (e.g. Leyens et al, 2001) have reported that people are more likely to attribute uniquely human (secondary) emotions to the in-group than to the out-group. We present two studies that examined whether males and females differentially attribute primary and secondary emotions to women. In Study 1, we predicted that individual differences in hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism 25 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 (BS), rather than participant sex, would predict the attribution of emotions to women. As expected, high BS individuals were more likely to attribute positive secondary emotions to women than low BS individuals. In contrast, high HS individuals were more likely to deny positive secondary emotions to women than low HS individuals. Participant sex was not related to the attribution of emotions to women after the effects of HS and BS were accounted for. In Study 2, we predicted and found that BS (but not HS) was positively related to the attribution of positive secondary emotions to women who conform to traditional gender role expectations (i.e. housewives). In contrast, HS predicted the attribution of negative primary emotions to women who violate traditional gender role expectations (i.e. feminists). Implications for research and theorizing on prejudice are discussed. Talking About Discrimination And Integration: Accomplishing Blame In Talk About Romanies Cristian Tileaga, Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University This paper examines the particulars of 'blame discourse' concerning ethnic minorities in a Romanian socio-cultural context. It concentrates on a detailed analysis of a single case taken from a wider project aiming at comparing the way Romanians talk about the Hungarians with the way they talk about the Romanies, looking at whether Romanians talk about Romanies in a different way from talking about other minorities such as the Hungarians. The paper examines in detail the discourse of a middleclass Romanian accounting for discrimination against the Romanies and for the issue of integration of Romanies into the Romanian society as part of an interview on a series of controversial issues surrounding ethnic minorities. This paper tries to highlight and interrogate the claims that Romanies are to blame for prejudice against them. The analysis has a discursive and conversational analytic focus to examine switches in talk about 'us' to talk that blames 'them'. The analysis examines and illustrates some of the ways in which blame is accomplished and the ideological effects of such blaming. This paper also discusses some of the rhetorical and interpretative resources used to talk about and legitimate the blaming of Romanies. The analysis suggests that talk about Romanies employs a style which, at the same time, denies, but also protects extreme prejudice. In examining the dynamics of 'blame discourse' towards the Romanies, this paper provides further insights into a critical investigation of the social, political and ideological consequences of extreme discursive patterning. The Effects Of Context And Affect On Risk Ratings About Biotechnology. Ellen Townsend and David Clarke, Institute for the study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society (IGBiS) and School of Psychology, University of Nottingham Background: To date little research has focused on the role of feelings in judgements about risk. Moreover no study has specifically examined how feelings shape perceptions of issues likely to have a large impact on society such as agricultural uses of biotechnology. This study examined the effects of context, affect (integral and incidental) on judgements about genetically modified (GM) food in relation to nineteen other current concerns. Design: 20 current concerns including ‘GM food’, ‘human cloning’ and ‘CJD’ were rated using an established psychometric method (semantic differential scales). The Stress-Arousal Checklist (SACL) was used to measure background incidental affect and integral affect (dread) of concerns was also measured. 26 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Methods: After completing the SACL 126 participants (48 male, 78 female - age range 18-86) rated each of the 20 concerns on 23 risk-related semantic differential scales. Results: Relative to 19 other concerns GM food was “not dreaded”, not viewed as “unethical”, was judged as “controllable”, and was seen as the least “risky” of all the issues studied. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed that 2 factors (‘dread’ and ‘unknown)’ explained 50% of the variance in the ratings data. Whilst GM food scored relatively highly in relation to other hazards on the ‘unknown’ dimension; it scored very low on the ‘dread’ factor. Although important factors underpinning risk perceptions differed slightly between stressed and non-stressed individuals the perception of GM food as ‘not dreaded’ was consistent across these groups. Conclusions: Negativity and worry about GM food may not be as high as recent surveys suggest. Telling Lies To Strangers Or Close Friends: Its Relationship With Attachment Style Aldert Vrij, Michelle Floyd, Edel Ennis, University of Portsmouth, Psychology Department The aim of this study was to explore individuals' reported frequency of lying to strangers and close friends as a function of (i) type of lie told (self-centered, otheroriented or altruistic) and (ii) preferred attachment style (avoidant, anxious/ambivalent or secure). Fifty college students completed questionnaires regarding their attachment style and their frequency of lying to strangers or close friends. Results revealed significant differences between types of lies told to close friends and strangers, and significant relationships between types of lies told and attachment style. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. Is It Kind To Be Cruel? Person And Situation Factors In The Intentional Use Of Ambiguity, Interpersonal Deception, Politeness And Advice During Communicative Conflicts Chris von Wagner and Peter E Bull, University of York, Department of Psychology Communicative Conflicts are situations in which the direct communication of honest information causes embarrassment to either the sender or receiver of a message. Three studies investigated the role of gender, and type of communicative conflict. Study I investigated the influence of gender for both message sender and receiver. Study II compared two different Communicative Conflicts, one in which the response might have long-term consequences for the receiver (success on a future romantic date), another in which the sender commented on a past performance with no direct long-term consequences. Study III compared responses in which a direct truth would undermine the receiver’s competence (comment on someone else’s poor performance) with one in which a direct truth would undermine their own competence (i.e. comment on one’s own poor performance). We found that messages by men were perceived to be more direct (Study I), more honest, and less polite (Study I, II) than messages by women, when they commented on a negative performance or attribute of somebody else. Interestingly, this pattern reversed in a situation in which men had to comment on their own poor performance (Study III). Here, messages by 27 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 men were perceived as more equivocal and less honest than messages by women. Furthermore, messages to a male receiver were perceived to be less ambiguous (Study I), more honest and less polite (Study I, II). Messages with long-term consequences were perceived to be clearer and contain more advice (Study II). Flexible Working Arrangements Or Long Hours – What Influences Success At Work? Julie Waumsley, University of Kent at Canterbury Objectives. This research had two main aims. Firstly, the aim was to examine and compare attitudes towards men and women who use flexible working practices with those who work long or structured hours. It also looked to compare attitudes towards employees as a function of the reason as to why they use flexible working practices. Secondly, this research aimed to examine the perceived promotion prospects of men and women who work flexible hours, regular hours or long hours. Previous research has shown long hours to be perceived as increasing productivity in the workplace but also to have a detrimental effect on work-life balance (Waumsley & Houston, 2002). Design. Postal Questionnaire Study with a Large Union. Methods. Respondents were asked to read six vignette descriptions of individuals who used different working hours, and then to rate each employee on a series of scales relating to work productivity, turnover intention, colleague approval, and work-life balance. They were then asked to comment on who they would and would not promote, and why. Results. 1093 people completed the questionnaires, a 22% response rate. Data was analysed using analysis of variance and content analysis. Results indicate that both employees who work long hours and those who work regular hours are perceived to have better work performance than those who work flexible working options. Results also show that long hours of work are perceived to have a significantly more detrimental effect on work-life balance than any other working pattern. Respondents were divided as to whom would be the best candidate for promotion, with equal numbers identifying the long hours candidate as both the best and the worst for promotion. Whilst childcare was considered an acceptable reason for flexible working, hobbies and elder care were considered to be associated with poor promotion prospects. Conclusions. Despite new legislation promoting flexible working, long hours and regular hours workers are still perceived to offer the best work performance. Individual differences in work experience and expectation result in starkly different views about the relationship between long hours and promotion. The impact for flexible working on the psychological contract at work will be discussed. ‘No We’re Not Playing Families’: Negation, Categories And Category Membership In The Organisation Of Talk-In-Play Ann Weatherall and Carly Butler, Victoria University of Wellington Categories and category memberships can be understood as basic resources for the construction of play and of the social world. Thus, studying the properties of children’s games is important for understanding social behaviour and culture in action. The present study draws upon conversation analysis, as it has been used in discursive social psychology, to examine negation and dispute about categories and category membership as interactional resources for the organisation of children’s play. Audio recordings of talk-in-play of six children (aged between six and seven) during school lunch times were used as data. The analysis examines that and how play is jointly accomplished. The conference presentation will focus on the sequential and categorical features of interactional moments when mapping members to category-sets of players is accomplished. The study supports the 28 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 discursive critique of traditional categorisation research.. It also provides a basis for critiquing the notion of individual ‘communication styles’. More generally this work supports the use of conversation analysis for social psychological investigations. End of Section 1 ____________________ 29 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Section 2: BPS Social Psychology Conference 2003, Symposia Abstracts Symposium: Threatened identities and discourse Convenor: Andy McKinlay, University of Edinburgh Participants: Sue Cowan, University of Abertay Jennifer Guise, University of Edinburgh Robin Ion, University of Abertay Andy McKinlay, University of Edinburgh Chris McVittie, Queen Margaret University College Sue Widdicombe, University of Edinburgh Abstract This symposium brings together a set of studies that employ discourse analytic techniques. It examines the ways in which people deal with ‘threatened identities’. These are identities that make available negative inferences about the person to whom such an identity is potentially ascribable, e.g. being someone who is ill, unemployed or who has particular religious views. Each study in the symposium explores what constitutes such a threat in terms of participants’ orientations to what is interactionally difficult about those identities. This is in contrast to other studies that make assumptions about what is problematic about a given ‘threatened identity’. The symposium breaks new ground by providing a synoptic overview of the discursive strategies/resources used by individuals in dealing with the challenges associated with ‘threatened identities’. This overview identifies potential commonalities in the way that people address issues of threatened identity in talk, but also assesses the extent to which such strategies and resources are identity specific. The symposium comprises 5 sessions: four research presentations and a fifth discussion session. Paper 1 examines the ways in which older job-seekers deploy discursive strategies of marginalisation and non-marginalisation in the context of employment. Paper 2 considers the ways in which individuals suffering from chronic illness construct a positive identity. Paper 3 looks at the way people with severe and enduring mental health problems account for being unemployed. Paper 4 explores the way in which Syrian women and men deal with potential threats to identity associated with particular religious beliefs. The four research presentations represent a coherent set of studies, each focusing on an aspect of ‘threatened identity’ from a discourse analytic perspective. Although related, the four research presentations vary in that they study different identities. The discussion session will explore similarities and differences across this set of research findings. This final session will take the form of a round table discussion, moderated by the symposium convenor, in which paper presenters and the audience will be invited to take part. People with mental health problems and their accounts of employment Sue Cowan and Robin Ion Severe and enduring mental health problems have a profound impact on the lives of sufferers. Their effects tend to be felt in a number of different domains from interpersonal relationships through to employment prospects and the ability to care for self. This paper examines the ways in which people with severe and enduring mental health problems address interactionally one of the ways in which their mental health difficulties can impact on their lives. Discourse analytic techniques are used to analyse data drawn from a series of interviews in which individuals with severe and enduring mental health problems account for being unemployed. The analysis shows 30 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 how participants orient to the potential interactional difficulties associated with being unemployed by detailing the ways in which they design their accounts to deal with the possibility of criticism and the negative attributions that may be made in relation to their employment status. These strategies include the formulation of the symptoms of their illness as severe and the construction of self as being a willing and socially responsible individual. The implications of this analysis for mental health practice are discussed. Stroke, accountability and identity Jennifer Guise, University of Edinburgh The aim of this study is to examine interactional difficulties faced by people who have suffered stroke at a young age. A discourse analytic approach was used to examine data that was gathered in one-to-one internet interviews, and in face-to-face groups comprising stroke sufferers and their carers. The findings show that participants oriented to issues of accountability relating to three aspects of their condition: first, for having had the stroke, second, for the extent of their disability, third, for the extent to which they had recovered. This paper illustrates some of the devices used by stroke sufferers to deal with these issues of accountability. In particular, I will show how implicit identities were drawn on to make claims and counter-claims regarding stroke sufferers’ accountability. There will be a brief discussion of the implications of this analysis for healthcare and clinical practice. Identities of the older unemployed: marginalisation versus non-marginalisation Chris McVittie, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh and Andy McKinlay, University of Edinburgh In this paper we examine the experiences of members of one group commonly identified as being marginalized, namely the older unemployed. The aim of the study was to consider the ways in which members of this group negotiate identities of marginalisation and non-marginalisation in the context of unemployment. Participants were 15 job-seekers aged over 40, recruited through local Job Centres. Each participant was interviewed for approximately one hour and interviews were then transcribed. The transcriptions were analysed using discourse analytic techniques. The findings show that some interviewees do construct themselves as victims of processes of marginalisation. This process involves participants in discounting a range of potentially identity-relevant circumstances in order to establish the marginalisation claim. Other interviewees are seen to negotiate identities that avoid ascription of marginalisation. In these cases, participants make relevant a range of personal circumstances that account for their not seeking employment. Both discursive strategies are seen to enable speakers to display a positive identity within the local interactional context. ‘I am a believer but not conformist’: negotiating claims to being religious. Sue Widdicombe, University of Edinburgh My aim is to explore mundane constructions of religiousness and to identify strategies employed to affirm, qualify, deny or reformulate religious identity. The analysis is based on informal interviews with 150 Syrian Muslim and Christian men and women. I show that claiming to be religious is sometimes oriented to as problematic and that participants employ a variety of descriptive strategies to negotiate potentially problematic inferences about their identity. For example, some 31 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 speakers qualified claims to being religious by distinguishing personally relevant and rejected attributes of the category. Other speakers redefined the meaning of religion and hence their claims to be religious by producing an alternative set of criteria. Some speakers employed the formulations 'I am not x but y' or 'I am x but not y' in which one implied construction of religious identity is contrasted with another category label or set of practices that speakers claim is applicable to them. Finally, I identify the sorts of inferential problems that arise from constructing one’s identity as someone who is religious, specifically that others may infer extremism, fundamentalism or intolerance towards other religions. These observations are set in the context of the literature in which socio-political meanings of especially Islam and religious identities have been the focus of empirical attention. Round table discussion The final symposium session will be a discussion of the research finding presented in the four research presentations. The discussion will incorporate: an examination of the similarities and differences in the strategies/resources which participants utilise in constructing their identities, a review of commonalities across the different interactional contexts in which the research is conducted (e.g. interviews, naturally occurring conversations etc.), and a critical assessment of the ways in which different contexts and sources of data impact upon the research findings. One key element of this discussion will be an emphasis on participants’ own views: e.g. do they construct themselves as endangered or not endangered, and how might such constructions function etc. ____________________ Symposium: Narrative analysis and discursive psychology: an exploration of approaches Convenor: Stephanie Taylor, Open University Participants: Stephanie Taylor: [email protected] Jane Montague: [email protected] Sarah Seymour-Smith: [email protected] Rebecca Jones: [email protected] Jill Reynolds: [email protected] Social psychological researchers working with language data are increasingly employing narrative approaches which overlap but are not synonymous with analytic approaches developed in discursive psychology. This symposium aims to explore the connections and tensions between ‘narrative analysis’ and discursive approaches, particularly in research analysing interviews and audio-recorded talk. The first paper, by Stephanie Taylor, presents an overview of narrative analysis in psychology and cognate disciplines, showing how ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ have been variously approached, for example, in terms of process (‘narrating’ and ‘story-telling’) or content or structure. A further distinction is between a narrative as a resource employed by speakers or a construction produced in their talk. The following papers demonstrate different approaches to narrative through their analyses of talk data. In the second paper, Jane Montague employs a conversation analytic approach to investigate speakers’ narration of ‘second stories’ (Sacks, 1992). The third paper, by Sarah Seymour-Smith, presents an analysis of the co-constructed narratives through which ‘coupleness’ is presented in interviews. In the fourth paper, Rebecca Jones 32 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 analyses extended narrative turns as stories through which an interviewee performs an identity as someone ‘shocking’ who knowingly breaches social norms. The final paper, by Jill Reynolds, shows how women speakers flexibly employ alternative narratives to account for singleness. Narrative analysis in social psychology Stephanie Taylor, Open University Social psychologists interested in narrative can look back to the work of Bruner (1990) and also to writing within social constructionism (e.g. Gergen, 1994; Shotter & Gergen, 1989). The latter tradition has been influential in the development of discursive psychology, as, of course, has the work of sociologists like Sacks (1992). However the analysis of talk and text within discursive psychology (e.g. Wetherell, Taylor & Yates, 2001) draws on a wide range of understandings of narrative and story-telling, focussing variously on the process of narrating or the stories which are its product, on narrative as a resource, or on the structure of narratives (Edwards, 1996). Social psychologists interested in talk as data have also looked to crossdisciplinary and applied work such as that following Holstein and Gubrium (2000) and Gubrium and Holstein (2001), and to narrative work in health psychology, sometimes presented as a separate sub-discipline, narrative psychology (Crossley, 2000). A significant body of narrative-based work within social psychology is presented under the umbrella of ‘psycho-social research’ (see Andrews et al, 2000), including the psychoanalytically-informed narrative research of Hollway and Jefferson (2000). This paper presents an overview of these varying approaches and their implications for the analysis of talk data. Following Abell, Stokoe & Billig (2000) and Taylor (forthcoming), it proposes a discursive conception of narrative as both situated construction and discursive resource. Story telling in conversation: how is a second story told? Jane Montague, Open University The co-construction of narrative within conversation is examined in this paper with particular reference to ‘second’ stories. The definition of ‘story’ used here is based on that proposed by Sacks (1992), outlining a second story as being one that immediately follows a first within a piece of talk. In conversation we demonstrate understanding of what is being said in several ways, for example the co-selection of particular words, answering questions, following on with similar experiences and so on. A major source of items that can be drawn upon to demonstrate this understanding, and a main feature of second stories, is the stock of things we already know. The extracts of data discussed here, taken from a series of twelve audio-recorded and transcribed conversations between older women and myself around the topic of personal relationships are analysed within a conversation analytic framework. These conversations were inspired by an interest in examining how, in mundane talk, interactants construct themselves and others in relation to one another. The interactions are littered with instances of stories throughout with both stories and second stories employed as a flexible resource by the interactants. 33 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Co-constructed stories of illness: The power of narrative in the discursive production of 'coupleness' Sarah Seymour-Smith, Open University Much has been said about narrative being the major organising principle in people's lives and how narratives are occasions for the production of identity (Reissman, 1993). However, relatively little research has analysed the rhetorical function of the practical accomplishment of narrative identity in a fine-grained way. This paper employs one discursive psychological approach to narrative analysis in an explication of identity performance in couples’ narrative accounts of illness. The data, eight interviews with couples, is taken from a larger project interested in the discursive construction of masculinity and health. Here I focus on how narrative is a powerful tool that couples employ in my data set to present their relationship in a particular way. With jointly produced narratives it is possible to examine the interactional ways that participants ‘do’relationships in public. I consider participants’ use of three previously established discursive devices: the conversational duet, collaborative talk, and tag questions and assert that previous research using these devices has taken little account of the interactional context in which they are employed. With these devices, and a further device of making special knowledge claims, I argue for their flexibility as couples co-construct their relationships in a way that presents them as being harmonious. Telling shocking stories about sex as a form of identity work Rebecca Jones, Open University Discursive psychologists have argued that identities are not pre-formed but are interactionally produced in talk (e.g. Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998). In this paper I demonstrate that the flexibility of narratives about personal experience can be a particularly powerful way in which identities are produced and displayed. Telling a story entitles speakers to an extended turn (Sacks, 1992) which can provide space for morally complex and risky accounts. I discuss stories told in a single interview from a wider corpus of interviews with women aged over 60 about sex in later life. I demonstrate that the interviewee repeatedly orients to her stories as potentially shocking and that this has a number of significant effects on the interaction. It enables her to breach what she treats as the norms of what is talked about and it gives a high truth-status to her account. In particular, through telling shocking stories about sex the interviewee positions herself in a range of valorised ways, for example, as someone who knows but chooses to breach social norms and as a taboo-breaking disabled person. Single by choice? Variability in narratives of singleness and past relationships Jill Reynolds, Open University This paper uses a feminist discursive analysis to explore single women’s narratives reflecting on their relationships and reasons for being single. Data drawn from interviews with 30 single women aged between 30 and 60 years illustrates variability between and within participants’ understanding of the choices available to them. The flexible use of interpretative resources such as ‘choice’ can be seen to allow people to position themselves differently within their life narratives, at different moments of the interview discussion. The notion of choice can be a cornerstone in an interpretative repertoire of ‘freedom and independence’. It can also conjure up cultural traditions of a woman needing to wait to ‘be chosen’. Women may describe how they made choices not to pursue particular relationships without presenting 34 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 themselves as having chosen to be alone. This paper argues that ambivalence is embedded in western representations of singleness and that the alternative narratives presented by speakers reflect their situated and ongoing work to present themselves positively. ____________________ Symposium: Towards a social psychology of objectification Convenor: Martin W Bauer, LSE Discussant: Gerard Duveen, Cambridge Participants: Hugh Miller Steven D Brown/David Middleton Saadi Lahlou Martin W Bauer Objects and identity Hugh Miller, Nottingham Trent It has previously been suggested that objects play an active part in social interaction and are a suitable topic of investigation for social psychology (Dittmar, 1992, Miller 1995). The present paper uses a variety of perspectives: dramaturgical, symbolic interactionist, narrative, post-modern, and actor-network theory, to examine the role that objects can play in establishing and maintaining identity. It is argued that considering these theoretical perspectives can give a framework for research on the way objects, either through affecting agency or by acting symbolically, interact with social lives and personal identity. The matter of memory: For a psychology of experience Steven D. Brown and David Middleton Memory may be productively studied as a discursive accomplishment. However, approaching memory in this way translates traditional concerns with the adequacy and accuracy of recall into an evaluation of the competencies of speakers to negotiate the inter-actional pragmatics of formulating coherent, well rhetorically organised accounts. We discuss how the performance of memory also depends on embodied relations between persons and artefacts. Our particular concern is how 'agency' is formulated at its strongest at precisely those moments where the participant's accounts are most fragmentary. At these moments, artefacts and other mundane devices for securing social ordering become highly prominent. Objects, activity, attractors Saadi Lahlou (EHESS/ Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale & EDF /Laboratory of Design for Cognition) Object is the most stable element of the psychosocial triangle (ego, alter, object). Humans, alas, are transient. Objects remain, and keep their properties and affordances in between interactions with humans. Objects can therefore serve as "stand alone" guidelines for human activity with objects or between humans, landmarks for human co-operation, and models for transmission or reproduction of human knowledge and practice. Roads and road signs, for example, are concrete systems which guide human transportation behaviour by providing affordances and incitative displays. This is also true of non-material objects, which in the same way 35 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 guide and assist mental activity. Deliberately, human societies use objects as an "external" basis for continuity and social reproduction. One aspect of objectification is thus creating stability of culture and practice in human societies, by materializing the culture into artefacts. Many objects and settings possess the property of "attracting" human behaviour into conventional patterns, therefore facilitating co-operation and compliance to social life. In real life settings, objects are many. The model of "cognitive attractors" describes how objects trigger activity, and what happens in the general case where many objects, with different affordances, compete for attraction. Things, Norms and Social Influence Martin W Bauer, Department of Social Psychology/Methodology Institute, LSE Social influence is a classic topic of social psychology. The focus of this tradition is on the establishment of, conformity to and deviance from, and the modalities of changing norms under minority influence. Dealing with new technologies and other 'objectifications' from within social psychology makes it necessary to extend these paradigms in two dimensions: a) social influence is not just a matter of face-to-face interaction, i.e. the laboratory, but also that of mass mediated communication, and b) social influence happens not only related to norms, but also related to things. Things and norms may be functionally equivalent for ordering social life, so why are they treated so very differently in social psychological theory. As others before, Latour asks ironically, 'how long will the social sciences be without an objects?'. We may ask the same question for social psychology. ____________________ Symposium: Affect and Cognition in the Static and Changing Attitude Convenor: Roger Giner-Sorolla, University of Kent Participants: Gregory R. Maio/Mark M. Bernard/Ali Pakizeh Rob Ruiter, Bernadette Schmitt and Liesbeth Wouters Michelle A. Luke Rupert Brown/Pablo Espinosa Roger Giner-Sorolla Abstract The papers in this session represent a diverse selection of work within attitudes and persuasion that share an engagement with both the emotional and cognitive bases of evaluation. These presentations, taken as a group, demonstrate the value of making distinctions between affective and cognitive elements in the study of the motivational processes underlying attitude change, attitude stability, defensive processing, and attitude accessibility. Another common theme is the interplay between affect and cognition, going beyond basic notions such as "affective primacy" or "cold cognition". A final unifying principle of several of these studies is the use of methods from the social cognitive toolbox such as response latency and electroencephalography to measure affect and cognition implicitly. Summary comments by the symposium's organiser will develop these themes and bring the papers' findings together. 36 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 The Psychological Bases of Social Values: Implicit Components and SelfCentrality Gregory R. Maio, Mark M. Bernard, and Ali Pakizeh, Cardiff University The presented research examined the affective, cognitive, and behavioural bases of values and attitudes. Based on the values-as-truisms hypothesis (Maio & Olson, 1998), we expected that values would have weaker cognitive than affective and behavioural associates. Using a new procedure for assessing implicit foundations of values and attitudes, we obtained support for this view. As expected, additional evidence indicated that more cognitive support exists when the values are higher in self-centrality. The implications for three-component perspectives on attitudes and values are discussed. Guilt And Shame As Motivations To Control Expressions Of Prejudice Roger S. Giner-Sorolla, Rupert Brown, and Pablo Espinosa, University of Kent The relationship between shame and guilt proneness (Tangney & Dearing, 2002), motivation to control prejudice (Plant & Devine, 1998), and overt prejudice against various social groups (McConahay, 1986) was examined. Bringing Tangney's research to bear on Monteith's (e.g., Monteith & Voils, 1998) and Devine's research, we proposed that while negative self-conscious emotions can help people to control overt displays of prejudice, they will be most effective among guilt-prone people, who focus on the negativity of their behaviours, rather than shame-prone people, who focus on the unworthiness of themselves. First, in a correlational study of university students, internal motivation to control prejudice (IMS) was negatively related to overt prejudice independently of external motivation (EMS); guilt proneness also was negatively related to overt prejudice independently of shame proneness. Guilt proneness, but not shame proneness, was related to IMS, although this relationship did not hold for EMS. In a third, experimental study, participants received bogus feedback indicating that they were prejudiced against teacher candidates from one of three outgroups (cf. Monteith & Voils, 1998). This feedback, for two of the groups (Blacks and Muslims) but not the third (lesbians), aroused guilt and shame and tended to encourage symbolic helping of those groups. Guilt proneness was also related to favourable behaviour towards those groups overall, independent of shame proneness. These results replicate Monteith's findings outside North America and show the value of being specific about which negative self-conscious emotions can help in self-control. The Effects of Threatening Health Commercials on Attention: An Event-Related Brain Potential Approach Rob Ruiter, Bernadette Schmitt and Liesbeth Wouters, University of Maastricht The present study tested the effects of threatening health commercials on attention for a parallel task. We measured the electric brain potential (event-related potentials or ERP) of participants while they were watching the commercials and at the same time had to carry out a simple auditory (oddball) tone detection task. Fourteen female participants were exposed to threatening and non-threatening TV commercials about the negative consequences of smoking, unsafe sex, and alcohol abuse in a fully within-subjects experimental design. At the same time, participants listened to low tones (85% prevalence) and high tones (15% prevalence), randomly presented at a rate of one tone per second. The participants’ task was to react to the high tones by pressing a button. In such a task, the ERP shows a specific pattern related to 37 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 attention: the signal recorded around 100 ms after tone presentation (i.e., N100) has been associated with the process of early sensory attention. The signal at around 300 ms after onset (P300) has been related to attention during stimulus evaluation. We observed that the auditory N100 was larger during the processing of threatening compared to non-threatening commercials. This finding suggests that participants paid more attention to the auditory task while watching the threatening scenes than while watching the non-threatening scenes, regardless of the health topic. According to Kahneman’s attentional resources theory the results imply that participants paid less attention to threatening than to non-threatening video scenes in early sensory stages of information processing. Oh The Humanity! Introducing The Humanity-Esteem Construct Michelle A. Luke, University of Southampton & Gregory R. Maio, Cardiff University Past research on the esteem construct has examined liking for the self (i.e., selfesteem; Blascovich & Tomaka, 1990) and one’s social group (i.e., collective selfesteem; Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992), corresponding to two of the three levels of the social self-concept (i.e., personal self and social self) proposed by self-categorization theory (e.g., Turner, 1985). The present research examines liking for people in general (i.e., humanity-esteem), which corresponds to the remaining level. Several studies investigated the antecedents and consequences of humanity-esteem and its attitude structure. Results indicated that humanity-esteem consists of both affect and cognition. Also, humanity-esteem scores are predicted by self-reports of maternal treatment and by exposure to media images of people upholding or threatening universal social values. Furthermore, an experimental study demonstrated that low humanity-esteem caused discrimination. We conclude that humanity-esteem is a useful construct for understanding human behaviour. Affective Evaluations Are Faster -- If the Attitude Is Affectively Based Roger Giner-Sorolla, University of Kent Three studies extended Verplanken, Hofstee, and Janssen's (1998) findings that the affective component of attitude is accessed more readily than the cognitive. Study 1 eliminated a possible confound resulting from the greater evaluative nature of the affective terms used in the original studies, and still found a speed advantage for objects evaluated under affective versus cognitive focus. However, affective focus also gave rise to evaluations more in line with normative evaluation, raising the possibility that cognitive focus merely disrupts evaluation. Study 2 measured the accessibility of cognitive and affective traits, again equalizing the evaluative nature of these traits, and found a speed advantage for affective traits, although the attitude objects in this study turned out to be mainly affectively based. Study 3 used a mixture of affectively and cognitively based objects and found no overall speed advantage for affective terms; furthermore, there was a speed advantage for affective terms among strongly affectively based items, but not among strongly cognitively based items. These results suggest that while affective material may be accessed more quickly than cognitive, this is most true when the overall evaluation is based on affect rather than cognition, and will be compared to Giner-Sorolla (2001)'s parallel findings that affectively based evaluations are fastest when the attitude is most extreme. ____________________ 38 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Symposium: Exploring the ‘contexts’ of social psychology: The neglect of time and space in intergroup relations Convenor: Robert D. Lowe Discussant: Nick Hopkins Participants: Mark Levine Beverley Clack Susan Condor/Clifford Stevenson/Jackie Abell Robert D. Lowe John Dixon/Mark Levine/Rob McAuley Abstract This symposium evinces the importance of ‘contextual’ practice, but proposes that certain conceptions of context have been prioritized over others. A recognition of the importance of context is not novel to social psychology. Israel and Tajfel’s text ‘The Context of Social Psychology’ (1972) in particular emphasized the potential hollowness of a social psychology that forsakes it. However, in practice, social psychology tended to prioritize particular forms of context, to the relative neglect of others. For example, within the Social Identity Theory literature there has been the prioritization of the immediate oppositional context of groups, without due reference to historical or physical setting in which that opposition occurs. This symposium will consider alternative ‘contextualizations’, considering the particular significance of space and time to intergroup relations. Though inherent in all social action, from the thirty-minute laboratory trial to racial segregation in Twentieth Century South Africa, the locatedness of the subject in time and space has often been removed from the psychological literature. Symposium participants will address the implications of spatio-temporal contextualizations: from the reexamination of classic psychological studies, to the possibilities of alternative research perspectives. In the first paper, Levine interrogates the implicit temporal assumptions of two classic studies. This reassessment of familiar studies challenges common interpretations, highlighting the costs of temporal neglect in social psychology. The focus shifts to space in the second paper. Clack examines the phenomenon of micro-segregation in apparently integrated locations. Novel methodological techniques allow space to be examined on a non-aggregating and revealing scale. Condor, Stevenson, and Abell examine the manner in which temporal comparisons, rather than the more traditional focus of inter-category comparisons, can be utilized within social judgements. They examine the context of constitutional change in the UK. In the fourth paper Lowe examines the role of spatio-temporal frames of reference within identity constructions. The signification of spaces is investigated in accounts of public demonstrations. In the final paper Dixon, Levine and McAuley draw out everyday experiences of public space. Interview data examines ‘place impropriety’: the (in)appropriateness of behaviours within particular social spaces. 39 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Neglecting sequence in social psychology: why time matters Mark Levine, Lancaster University This paper will begin with Abbott’s (2001) observation that an algebra of linear transformations underpins the ‘cases and variables’ approach of most social psychology. Abbott argues that, if the social world is to be made to ‘fit’ these linear transformations, then we have to assume that ‘ the order of things does not influence the way they turn out’ (p51). The paper will demonstrate how this assumption results in the neglect of sequence in social psychology. This sequence myopia is demonstrated with reference to two classic research paradigms: Milgram’s ‘obedience to authority paradigm’ and Tajfel’s ‘minimal group paradigm (MGP)’. The recovery of sequence can transform the way the obedience to authority experiments are understood. We are directed away from seeing obedience as a product of an ‘agentic state’ and towards the importance of the role of sequential structure in producing self-implication in acts of atrocity. In Tajfel’s minimal group studies it is suggested that aggregated statistical techniques and empirical design factors strip out important sequence information from the MGP. This absence of sequence information may contribute as much to the well-known MGP finding of gratuitous ingroup discrimination as the traditional explanation of mere group categorisation. The paper will conclude with some observations about the hidden impact of linear temporal assumptions on social psychological theory and practice. ‘Eating together apart’: Patterns of segregation in a multi-ethnic cafeteria Beverley Clack, Lancaster University Intergroup contact reduces prejudice and plays a role in creating positive intergroup relations – which is why segregation, its antithesis, is generally viewed as a negative phenomenon. Although legal systems of segregation have been abolished in most societies, research conducted in the USA and Europe shows that ethnic and racial isolation remains common in institutions such as education and industry. It is often also a feature of the residential organisation of towns and cities. This work suggests that levels of racial and ethnic isolation may be higher than some social psychological research implies and, by implication, that intergroup contact may be as much ‘illusory’ as actual (Taylor, Dubé, & Bellarose, 1986). Developing this theme, the present research examined patterns of ethnic interaction and isolation in an everyday public space, namely a university cafeteria. The research employed a novel observational technique in order to examine the extent of racial exposure and to explore the reproduction of segregation in this setting. The analysis, which adapted indices of segregation developed in urban geography and sociology, revealed that segregation took a number of forms. Two implications of these results are addressed. First, we argue that self-report and experimental research on contact needs to be augmented by observational work in everyday settings. Second, we argue that research on macro-sociological processes of segregation must be complemented by research on the microecology of division. The role of temporal comparison in international judgement Susan Condor, Clifford Stevenson and Jackie Abell, Lancaster University Recent research has explored the possibility that social judgements may, on occasions, be formulated through temporal comparisons rather than through intercategory comparisons. This paper examines the ways in which temporal comparisons were spontaneously invoked in the context of national accounting 40 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 amongst adults in England and in Scotland in the context of changes to the UK constitution. Analysis indicated that, far from being antithetical forms of social representation, international comparisons were typically articulated in conjunction with temporal comparisons. For example, temporal comparisons could be used as a basis for establishing comparative national status, for example, through estimates of stages or rates of ingroup versus outgroup development. Second, temporal comparisons could be used to establish or to undermine images of the security of a particular social comparison and to establish the likelihood of or limits to future social change. Third, historical considerations could be used to establish the justice or legitimacy (or otherwise) of existing social relations. Finally, temporal comparisons could themselves constitute the object of debate, with social actors questioning the legitimacy of using particular images of the past in order to legitimate social actions in the present. Temporal and spatial referencing demonstrations and online discussions Robert D. Lowe, University of Lancaster in collective identities: Located The physical contestation of space is a major facet within political demonstrations. In activist literature and accounts of demonstrations, claims for freedom of speech and freedom of passage are often conflated. The impedance of these freedoms by other actors have been held to account for collective identification processes of ingroup and outgroup allocation, and a resultant unity of collective action. This paper accepts these social psychological accounts, but wishes to extend the investigation into the construction of understandings of the location of demonstrations. It takes as its starting point a series of demonstrations within central London, an area through which thousands of people pass everyday, and for whom the spaces have little if any relevance to any act of demonstration. However, the spaces of London are not a neutral backdrop to the power conflicts of protest. In the action of demonstrations, and in discussions of that activity, the places of the demonstrations are mobilized as spatial and temporal anchors for the norms of identity. This paper will interrogate these spatio-temporal constructs in the construction of collective identities. The mobilization of spatio-temporal anchors will be exemplified by data gathered from Internet discussion groups. Despite the prominent metaphor of ‘cyberspace’, a primary feature of the Internet is its apparent detachment from physical location, and its contraction of temporal cues. However, a prominent aspect within the maintenance of online collective identities is the reference to physical location, and temporal sequences of the performance of those identities, suggesting the importance of these factors to social identity processes. Locating impropriety: street drinking, moral order, and the regulation of public space John Dixon, Mark Levine and Rob McAuley, University of Lancaster Since the early 1980s, over 100 local authorities have instituted byelaws prohibiting the public consumption of alcohol in designated areas of British towns and cities. The present research examined how ordinary users of public space understand and evaluate such measures. Interviews were conducted in situ with users (n= 59) of the 41 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Market Square area of Lancaster city centre, a place designated as an ‘alcohol free zone’ since July 2000. A discursive analysis of interview accounts suggested that street drinking was constructed primarily as a form of ‘place impropriety’, a transgression of the moral values inscribed within a given social space. Among other functions, interviewees used this kind of place formulation to define the latitude of acceptable behaviour in Market Square, to warrant their support for the implementation of the alcohol byelaw, and to justify the exclusion of certain categories of person and activity from Lancaster city centre. At the same time, several interview accounts displayed a two-sided character, qualifying support for the byelaw by raising concerns over its potential for infringing civil liberties and promoting an intolerance of diversity. In conclusion, we attempt to situate the study’s findings in the context of a wider transformation of urban public space -- a transformation manifest within ideological dilemmas over the limits of free conduct, the tension between open and closed public spaces, and the distinction between ‘admissible’ and ‘inadmissible’ publics. ____________________ Symposium: Constructing and Resisting European Identity Convenor: Susan Condor, Psychology Department, University of Lancaster Participants: Stephen Gibson Dennis Nigbur Jackie Abell Susan Condor and Clifford Stevenson Abstract The concept of a “European identity” is widely invoked in contemporary political rhetoric. The concept has also been adopted relatively unproblematically as a research topic within the social sciences in general, and in social psychology in particular. However, the construct of “European identity” has rarely been subject to any theoretical – or even serious empirical – scrutiny. On the contrary, researchers tend to assume a priori knowledge, often simply importing generic constructs (for example, from social identity theory) or simply adapting instruments originally designed to measure strength of national identity. Similarly, studies of images of, and attitudes towards, Europe and the EU tend to use standard techniques drawn from social psychological work on national stereotyping. The question of the ways in which people living in Europe may themselves understand the constructs of “European”, “Nationality” and “identity”, and the relationship between them, has rarely been addressed. This neglect has led to three problems apparent in the extant research literature. First is the tendency for research to import a number of unexamined assumptions: for example, that the category of “Europe” may be treated as synonymous with “the EU”, and that a tendency to disclaim European identity may be treated as equivalent to opposition to the EU, which may, in turn, be treated as a function of negative attitudes towards other European countries. A second consequence is that scant concern has been granted to the possibility that attitudes towards the EU, perceptions of Europe, and “European identity” might take qualitatively different forms amongst different groups of people. Rather, any 42 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 comparative research tends to proceed from an assumption that any variations between European identities or social representations will involve differences of degree rather than of kind. Third, researchers have generally adopted a particular moral stance towards the object of their research: European identity (whatever it may be) is generally treated as a “good thing”. Consequently, low levels of measured European identity are often treated as a practical and political “problem”. This “problem” of lack of European identity is, in turn, often attributed to a second “problem”: a surfeit of “national identity”. The present symposium focuses on one particular population that have conventionally been regarded as especially “problematic” in their apparent disinclination to adopt a “European identity”: the British, and, more specifically, the English. In this case, it is possible to identify similar stereotypes and assumptions in both the academic social psychology literature and in the domain of political rhetoric. The assumption that antipathy towards the EU, and a reluctance to adopt an appropriate “European identity”, both stem from a conservative attachment to a specifically national way-of-life on the part of the British citizenry underpins a good deal of formal political discourse. In this symposium, the papers all address “the problem” of British (and especially English) antipathy towards the EU and of “European identity”, but treat this as an empirical problem. Rather than assuming knowledge concerning what people understand by “European identity”, the core symbols and values with which it is associated, and the ways in which this may (or may not) be related to “national identity”, we take these questions as the object of research. The symposium consists of four papers followed by a half-hour discussion session. Stephen Gibson’s paper examines the social psychological literature as a form of social text that actively constructs “European identity” as an object for description and quantification. However, he also exemplifies some points concerning absences in this literature with evidence taken from his own fieldwork with members of the British armed forces. In the second paper, Dennis Nigbur reports a study on undergraduate students, and draws attention to the various ways in which respondents could treat the European Union as a potential threat to both the uniqueness and also the authenticity of contemporary national identity. Nigbur argues that as far as his respondents were concerned, the category of “European” was unable to provide a substitute basis for social identification, being unable to symbolically encapsulate notions of familiarity and distinctiveness in the same way as national identities. In the third paper, Jackie Abell takes up the question of the various ways in which nationhood, Europe and identity may be symbolically portrayed. She reports data from a study of adults living in England, and focuses in particular on ways in which people may substitute geographical for cultural references when warranting opposition to the EU or disclaiming European identity. Abell argues that the strategic use of geographical rather than cultural references reflects an interactional dilemma, according to which respondents expressing anti-European attitudes need to protect themselves from potential accusations of xenophobic, narrow-minded “nationalism” or “little Englandism”. In the fourth paper, Susan Condor and Clifford Stevenson address three issues mentioned by previous speakers: images of cultural “difference”; images of 43 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 geographical “separation”, and the stereotype of “typical” English insularity. Interviews with young people living in the North and in the South of England are used to explore the ways in which these themes can be used to support a particular form of argument against the EU. Rather than expressing opposition to the EU with reference to a sense of shared national identity, and a concern to defend of “our” distinctive national culture, this form of argument relies on the adoption of personal identity affording a “traveller’s gaze”: a representation of self as an independent thinker and connoisseur of the exotic, whose intellectual stimulation, aesthetic sensibilities and pleasure in travel may be comprised by the homogenizing, modernising tendencies of the EU. Safe European Home? Social Psychology Constructs European Identity Stephen Gibson, Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster This paper reviews the extant social psychological literature to explore the explicit and implicit ways in which “European identity” has been constructed as a “problem” and as a research object. Social psychological work on European identity has tended to proceed from the assumption that national identity poses a potential threat to the development of a European identity and wider processes of European integration. This work frequently casts European integration as desirable, or at least inevitable, in contrast to national identity that, it is assumed, can take more pernicious forms. These assumptions are associated with two related problems in empirical research. First, the same scales are typically used to measure national identity with 'Europe' substituted for the national group label. National and European identities are thus implicitly assumed to involve the same general processes of identification. Secondly, and somewhat paradoxically, European categories and identities are assumed to be of a different order to their national counterparts. Specifically, Europe is assumed to constitute an innocent, inclusive, ‘superordinate’ category that is not subject to the same exclusionary sentiment as national categories. The potential for the category ‘Europe’ also to be associated with oppositional and exclusionary forms of social representation will be illustrated with reference to fieldwork conducted with members of the British armed forces. Being different by being British (or English?): National symbols and character as arguments against European integration Dennis Nigbur, SPERI Surrey, Marco Cinnirella, Royal Holloway, University of London National identities are characterised by a wealth of symbols and symbolic practices, normative social values, and stereotypical traits of character, all of which serve to make the nation both familiar and distinctive. They satisfy the need to belong by making the nation tangible as an ‘imagined community’ and to manage the need for transcendence by associating the national with an internationally distinctive mix of descriptors of nationality. The emphasis of this paper is to illustrate how British student respondents in an interview study used these descriptors both to portray their unique national identity and the threat that European integration may pose to such uniqueness. Symbols, values, and traits were all deployed to establish the authentic character of one’s national identity, to emphasise that a united Europe would have little or no such authenticity, and to express how it would even threaten authenticity at the national level. Moreover, impressions of the existence or nature of this threat seemed to be associated with different ways of relating to one’s own national identity: Respondents variously argued for a stronger and more influential role of their nation in Europe and the world, for a preservation of national uniqueness and the exclusion 44 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 or segregation of European and other foreign influences, or for an integration of national ‘uniquenesses’ in the European Union. It is concluded that resistance to European integration is founded in the perception that Europe cannot allay the needs for familiarity and distinctiveness in the same way as national identities. 23 Miles of Water: Invoking Geography to Manage Dilemmas of European and National Identity in England Jackie Abell, Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster The concept of Europe has been theorised extensively as a political, economic and cultural category within the social sciences, and debates about European identity have often become elided into those of national identity. Typically, researchers have noted how the population of Britain remain, at best, ambivalent towards a European identity, suggesting that such reluctance can be explained in terms of a shared understanding of who ‘we’ (the British) are, in contrast to ‘them’ the Europeans. This paper reports data from a longitudinal study of people resident in England and Scotland, and considers their constructions of nationhood in relation to their constructions of Europe. In particular, the paper considers when and how respondents invoke geographical representations when confronted with dilemmas of social representation. Amongst respondents in England, geographical imagery was typically invoked when talking about self and nation in relation to Europe. In such contexts, a geographical representation of the ‘nation’ (as an island) enables respondents to construct accounts of self and other on the basis of place rather than with reference to the characteristics of populations. Such geographical images may thereby be used to warrant claims concerning the fact and inevitability of ‘difference’ without resorting to potentially accountable stereotypes of national identity or culture. A Rough Guide to Young People’s Opposition to the EU: Personal identity, cultural alterity and the pleasures of travel Susan Condor and Clifford Stevenson, Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster This paper reports some findings from an interview study of a sample of young people resident in the North and the South of England. Despite the heterogeneous nature of the sample, almost all of these young people disclaimed any sense of European identity and expressed some measure of ambivalence or antipathy towards the EU. In this paper we consider one particularly prevalent form of argument, in which expressions of opposition to the EU are not based on the adoption and defence of a collective national identity, but which rather rely on the adoption of a particular form of personal identity, defined in opposition to stereotypic images of “typical” English or British insularity or national chauvinism. This form of account characterises Europe as a geographical area, “the Continent’ from which the respondent’s own country is physically, culturally and historically distanciated. The respondent positions themselves in relation to Europe not as a member of an imagined national community, but rather in the role of imaginary traveller: an independent thinker, seeker after adventure and connoisseur of the exotic, whose intellectual stimulation, aesthetic sensibilities and pleasure in travel is dependent upon Europe maintaining its essential difference from the domestic and the familiar, a role which may be comprised by the homogenizing, modernising tendencies of the EU. _____________________ 45 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Symposium: Current research in Social Representations: applications and critical issues Convenor: Caroline Howarth, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Discussant: Sandra Jovchelovitch, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Participants: Caroline Howarth Juliet Foster Ama de-Graft Aikins Alex Gillespie Asi Sharabi Magdalini Dargentas This symposium brings together new research in the field that seeks both to demonstrate and critically assess the applicability of the theory of social representations and to develop its conceptual and empirical scope across a range of cultural contexts. After an introduction to current critical issues under debate within the field by Caroline Howarth, we shall critically explore two of the more controversial aspects of the theory: a) the relationship between consensual and reified knowledge systems, particularly within the context of health (Foster and Aikins); b) the complex relationship between representation and self-identity, within the contexts of tourism, religion and conflict (Gillespie, Dargenta and Sharabi). Sandra Jovchelovitch, as discussant, will bring the session together focussing on the critical issues raised and areas for further analysis within the field. If “a social representation is not a quiet thing” - are we listening? Caroline Howarth, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Following Moscovici (1972), this paper addresses the questions: What is the aim of research within a social representations perspective? Is it to support or to criticise the social order? Is it to consolidate or transform it? After an introduction to what social representations actually ‘do’, I argue that while the theory appears to have the conceptual tools to begin this critical task, there are serious criticisms and points of underdevelopment that need addressing. In order for social representations theory to develop into a rigorously critical theory there are three controversial issues that require clarification. These are a) the relationship between psychological processes and social practices, b) the reification and legitimisation of different knowledge systems and c) agency and resistance in the co-construction of self-identity. After discussing each issue in turn, with illustrations from social representations research, I conclude the paper with a discussion of the role of social representations in the ideological construction of reality. ‘Expert’ Knowledge and Social Representations Theory Juliet Foster, University of Cambridge This paper will focus on one of the more controversial aspects of the theory of social representations, that of the consensual and the reified universes and the relationship between them. The criticisms that have been levelled at this aspect of the theory will be examined, and, while it will be suggested that many of these seem somewhat misplaced, it will also be argued that alternative conceptions of differing forms of knowledge might have more to offer the development of the theory. In particular the contribution of the recent notion of the representational project (Bauer and Gaskell, 1999) will be evaluated. By way of illustration of some of the issues under 46 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 discussion, the case of representations of health will be considered in more detail. Work from the area of the sociology of scientific knowledge will be examined that details the way in which patients can, in some circumstances, affect the way in which health professionals understand an illness. A recent study into the representations of mental health problems held by clients of the mental health services will also be used to demonstrate how different forms of knowledge are legitimised in different ways, and how they interact with one another. The paper will conclude by considering the implications of these issues for the development of the theory of social representations with regards to its perspective on different forms of knowledge. Applying social representations theory to the African context: epistemological and theoretical challenges Ama de-Graft Aikins, Department of Social Psychology, LSE With a few exceptions the majority of social representations studies have been carried out, as Wagner and colleagues (1999) note, in 'western cultures in conditions of modernity'. Thus dominant concepts generated in the field are rooted within a western epistemology. This is further compounded by the tendency within the field to particularize social representations as unique phenomena emerging in modern detraditionalised societies and significantly influenced by scientific discourse. The particularistic view, which implicitly adopts a tradition-modernity dichotomous framework, not only limits an understanding of the complexities of contemporary conscious processes in western societies but poses critical epistemological problems when transposed to contemporary non-western societies experiencing ‘modernity’ in different ways from the West. This paper argues that for social representations theory to escape the ethnocentrism characterising mainstream social science discourse on knowledge systems and practices of non-western societies, these dichotomous terms will have to be deconstructed. The challenge is approached in two ways. First, the paper proposes that the universal aspects of the theory, which offer general principles for human thought and action should frame conceptual work in non-western contexts. Secondly, it proposes that Moscovici’s hypothesis of ‘cognitive polyphasia’, which captures the essence of the heterogeneity and dynamism of socio-cultural knowledge is operationalised within this universalistic framework. Discussions draw from three areas. First, critical multidisciplinary work which highlight the heterogeneous sources and functions of African socio-cultural knowledge systems, historically and in contemporary times. Second, empirical work in Ghana which uses cognitive polyphasia as a conceptual tool to examine the ways in which different social groups draw on and use different versions of shared knowledge modalities on health, illness and diabetes in everyday relations and practices. Third, social representations work drawing on cognitive polyphasia to map out content and sources of health discourses in both western and non-western contexts. The central aim is to demonstrate how cognitive polyphasia, when operationalised within a universalistic framework, can play a central role in facilitating (a) the applicability of the theory to contemporary non-western realities, and (b) a resolution to the internal debate surrounding the particularity and universality of the theory. Practices of tourism and the construction of the 'cultural' Ladakhi self Alex Gillespie, University of Cambridge This paper concerns the social construction of the representation “Ladakhi culture” amongst Ladakhis, in north India. I present a methods, called dismantling, which 47 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 attempts to recover the process of social construction from cross sectional discursive data. Using this method, “Ladakhi culture” is shown to be constructed via the surplus meaning that Ladakh has had for tourists, and the resultant actions of tourists. In this sense, “Ladakhi culture” is a power-laden construction. I then introduce the distinction between using and mentioning a representation, which has been mentioned by Potter and Wetherell (1987), and Caroline in her introduction. This distinction is used to frame an analysis of Ladakhis’ resistence to “Ladakhi culture” on the one hand, and an analysis of how Ladakhis use “Ladakhi culture” to resist the representation of Ladakhi as “backward” on the other. This reveals a nonfoundational system of knowledge, where the same representation is both used for resistance and is mentioned as the object of resistance. Accordingly it is problematic to designate “Ladakhi culture” as simply power-laden or ideological. I conclude by considering various ways in which we can bring power into the purview of a critical social representations theory, arguing that we should pay particular attention to specifics of what representations afford, deny and conceal. Taking the Perspective of the Other: From Cognitive Ability to Communicative Activity. The Case of Israeli and Palestinian Children Asi Sharabi, Department of Social Psychology, LSE As in most mainstream cognitive psychology research, the vast majority of role taking studies seems to be overwhelmingly individualistic and overly cognitivised. For the present investigation that seek to understand the mechanisms of perspective taking within a highly complicated and emotionally-loaded context such as the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, the existing theoretical and empirical bulk of research is obviously insufficient and a new approach is essential. Drawing on G. H. Mead’s various writings (philosophy, social psychology and ethical theory) and the theory of social representations this paper makes a distinction between role taking ability and activity; competence and performance. It is argued that perspective-taking activity is a problematic construction, which is always situationally and culturally dependable. Hence, the focal task is to explore the systems of ideas, images and beliefs (social representations) that mediate perspective taking. A sample of 93 Jewish-Israeli children, aged 11 to 12, participated in the research. The children, drawn from three social groups who differ in cultural and geographical background (kibbutz, settlement and city), took part in drawing, written assignments and group discussions. The preliminary findings from this study will be presented here. Social representations of cremation, dynamics and identity issues Magdalini Dargentas, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales This study is a part of a larger research study, relevant to the social representations of death. The theoretical framework we refer to is that of social representations and their dynamics, related to identity questions. Through the social representations of cremation in Greece, we attempted to examine the subjects’ identity defense strategies towards a practice characterized by its novelty. In fact, cremation is characterized by its novelty in the Greek context, as it is, at present, forbidden. However, its institutionalization seems to be necessary given the problems caused in a practical level by the traditional way, i.e. that of burial; that of treating the dead bodies. Thus, it turns out to be the focus of a debate between citizens, the state, and the church. We attempted to examine 3 hypotheses: 1. if social representations of cremation is related to cultural and identity aspects; 2. if the question of cremation’s institutionalization reinforces this cultural and identity dimensions; and 3. if those dimensions would be likely to be given more by subjects having a majority status 48 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 (orthodox), than participants having a minority status (catholic). Participants answered to 4 open-ended questions about their views on cremation. Our sample is made of 123 subjects, catholic (minority status) and orthodox (majority status). The findings confirm these hypotheses and allow us to explain social representations’ dynamics through identity issues. This kind of research underlines the need of further exploration of cultural dynamics and social change in social psychology (Kashima, 2000). It also allows us to discuss about the following topics: the methodological problems encountered by researchers when studying topics relevant to death, and the interest to develop some research currents in social psychology relevant to the psychology of religion (Gorscuch, 1988). ____________________ Symposium: Going online: Emerging meanings and uses of the internet and new media in everyday life Convenor: Sonia Livingstone, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Participants: Nadia Olivero Mark D. Griffiths/Mark N.O. Davies/Darren Chappell Vivi Theodoropoulou Magdalena Bober Sonia Livingstone Abstract In most Western countries and increasingly elsewhere, the internet is ceasing to be a medium only for the privileged ‘early adopters’ and is reaching the mass market, although access remains heavily stratified. As work, leisure and educational markets continue to expand, over the coming decade the internet will become taken for granted in our homes and meaningfully embedded in the routines of daily life across the industrialised nations. Moreover, interactive and online channels of information and communication are no longer restricted to fixed PC platforms, but are becoming increasingly available on digital television, mobile phones, games machines, and so forth. Arguably, the means by which people communicate, participate, learn, work, shop – in effect, conduct their everyday lives – are undergoing significant change and few if any domains are left untouched by the increasing mediation of everyday life. However, while popular hype and anxieties have been quick to anticipate both utopian and dystopian futures as a result of technological change, social science has been slower and more cautious in its exploration of these potential changes. A sometimes conflicting, sometimes complementary range of disciplines – economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, linguistics, media studies, information studies, and social psychology – is now seeking to establish a multidisciplinary framework within which to (1) challenge the technological determinism common in popular and policy discussions, (2) extend existing or develop new theories and methods to examine the social uses and consequences of new forms of information and communication, and (3) produce rigorous empirical research to ground theoretical speculation and policy initiatives. Recognising that social psychology has a long history of contributing to social research on mediated communication, the challenge here is to extend that contribution beyond the hitherto 49 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 predominant focus on mass communication (typically, as opposed to face-to-face communication) so as to encompass the growing range of communicative forms. How are people actively pursuing, or evading, new opportunities for communication, entertainment and engagement, and what constrains or hinders their uses of new technologies? This symposium presents empirical research which explores social psychological aspects of this new, media-rich, interactive environment. Each paper is, in different ways, concerned with the emerging balance between processes of appropriation (in which new information and communication technologies tend to be incorporated within pre-existing systems of social meaning and practice) and processes of change (in which such themes as trust, privacy, control and identity are transformed within the new, mediated environment). Each paper addresses a distinct domain – ecommerce (Olivero), online gaming (Griffiths et al), interactive television (Theodoropoulou), content creation on the world wide web (Bober) and online communication (Livingstone) - thereby offering a snapshot of current empirical research on the meaning and uses of new media technologies in everyday life. By putting them together thus, the symposium aims to draw out broader, cross-cutting questions of theory and method so as to facilitate the contribution of social psychology to this new and exciting field of multidisciplinary research and policy debate. Risk awareness and need for privacy in e-commerce exchanges: Towards the end of trust? Nadia Olivero, Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy [email protected] Marketing and public policy literature on privacy in e-commerce maintained that concerns about on-line privacy can be addressed through the use of fair information practices. A widespread assumption is that by providing consumers with more control over their information firms can elicit disclosure and build trust relationships. The present paper aims to clarify the relation between trust and control in the negotiation of privacy. Findings from qualitative interviews and experimental results illustrate that social psychological changes in consumers’ awareness challenge the effectiveness of marketing strategies. The awareness of the market value of information and the perception of increased risk motivate a need for emancipation from external power, which is expressed through the emerging demand for active control and the decrease of the level of trust in e-commerce relationships. Demographic factors and playing variables in online computer gaming Mark D. Griffiths, Mark N.O. Davies and Darren Chappell, Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University Despite the growing popularity of online game playing, there has been no primary survey of its players. Therefore, an online questionnaire survey was used to examine basic demographic factors of online computer game players who played the most popular online game Everquest (i.e., gender, age, marital status, nationality, education level, occupation, etc.). The survey also examined playing frequency (i.e., amount of time spent playing the game a week), playing history (i.e., how long they had been playing the game, who they played the game with, whether they had ever gender swapped their game character), the favourite and least favourite aspects of playing the game, and what they sacrifice (if anything) to play the game. Results showed that 81% of online game players were male, and that the mean age of 50 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 players was 27.9 years of age. For many players, the social aspects of the game were the most important factor in playing. A small minority of players appear to play excessively (over 80 hours a week) and results suggest that a small minority sacrifice important activities in order to play (e.g. sleep, time with family and/or partner, work or schooling). New media – old habits? The case of the first generation digital TV audience in the UK Vivi Theodoropoulou, Department of Media and Communications, LSE The paper outlines patterns of use and consumption of the first generation Digital TV (DTV) audience in the UK. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative findings deriving from a UK-wide survey and in-depth interviews with Sky digital subscribers, the paper discusses the reasons why the early DTV users acquired a DTV subscription, how they use the new medium and how they incorporate it into their domestic culture. It is demonstrated that even though DTV introduces changes, it is generally consumed in a conservative fashion, as people employ and transfer old skills, perceptions and habits rooted in their experiences with analogue TV into their DTV consumption. Young people’s personal homepages: Production, meanings and practices Magdalena Bober, Department of Media and Communications, LSE The paper investigates the production of personal homepages by young people from a cultural studies perspective, focussing on the emerging meanings and practices surrounding homepage production. Homepages will be described as ‘a cultural artefact in the making’. The research explores how meaning is being produced in the process of learning web design, how new aspects of creative production (such as updating and having a global audience) are being integrated in the design process and how codes and conventions of web design are being established. The paper also considers the implications of web design giving young people an opportunity to become producers of cultural material in their own right. Research methods include a discourse analysis of the homepages of young British people and, furthermore, data collected during email interviews with the homepage authors. Children’s privacy online Sonia Livingstone, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Drawing on the findings of an in-depth ethnographic-style project exploring children and young people’s use of the internet at home, this paper focuses particularly on the experience and practices relating to privacy in everyday life. Although in principle privacy is valued and protected in society, in historical and social terms children’s privacy is increasingly restricted. It is argued that the media – especially the internet – provide some key opportunities for privacy; yet policy initiatives designed to keep children safe online are (for good reasons) beginning to constrain even these opportunities. The project’s findings reveal how children and young people understand and exercise their notion(s) of privacy. Their uses of the internet are analysed both in terms of privacy defined negatively, as escape or withdrawal from public/family life, and positively, as an occasion for identity/lifestyle experimentation. A range of everyday tactics by which children micro-manage their privacy online are identified. Finally, the implications for conducting research on, and for regulating, children’s use of the internet are discussed. ____________________ 51 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Symposium: Can Social Psychology Contribute to Policy? Convenor: Diane Houston, Kent Participants: Sonia Livingstone Zoe Ashmore Alan Lewis Diane Houston Reflections on researching policy-relevant issues in the field of children and the internet Sonia Livingstone, Department of Social Psychology, LSE In recent years I have been researching children and young people’s use of old and new media, focusing especially on the internet. Beginning as a purely academic enterprise, I have found myself increasingly drawn into the policy community concerned with regulating children’s media access and use. This is challenging not least because all three key terms "children, media and new" are catalysts for public anxiety and hyperbolic expectations, both optimistic and, more often, pessimistic. In this paper I reflect on the difficulties of contributing to evidence-based policy in this area. These include not only some obvious culture clashes between academia and the policy world but, more importantly, differences in the expectations placed on research in terms of (1) the influence of values in framing research, (2) the emphasis given to contextualization, (3) the restrictions imposed by research ethics on what is researchable and (4) differing conceptions of the role of causality/media effects in defining the nature of findings. Add to this the way in which the children/media question is implicitly positioned in public debate as a focus for more fraught, politicized tensions between the freedom of expression lobby versus those espousing a moralistic/conservative family agenda, and one begins to understand why, from the initial framing through to the final dissemination of research findings, the academic’s path is strewn with pitfalls. Reducing Anti-Social Behaviour: How Can Psychology Contribute? Zoe Ashmore, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and Youth Offending Services The reduction of anti-social behaviour is an important goal for the government. The Queen's speech outlined their intention to legislate on the matter in this parliament. The author proposes that psychologists' understanding of behaviour, particularly criminal behaviour places them in a unique position to advance knowledge and understanding of effective practice in how to best tackle the problem. The current measure of anti-social behaviour in England and Wales is taken from the British Crime Survey and is based on perceptions which are affected by factors such as where you live, age and gender. The definition of anti-social behaviour is wider than the measure, overlapping with some criminal behaviour. The limitations of measurement and definition are discussed. Major areas where psychology can contribute such as sound measurement; useful definitions and effective strategies are outlined. Tackling anti-social behaviour is seen as a preventative strategy to reduce offending, particularly for young people. 52 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Morals, Markets and Money Alan Lewis, Department of Psychology, University of Bath Whether psychologists like it or not, few policy makers know much about psychology; although more and more of them believe a little psychology is probably a good idea, there is often a vast difference between the advice they are expecting from psychologists acting as consultants and what they actually get. If they have a coherent view about human nature at all and how people will behave it is most likely to be based on the assumptions of rational economic man, seeking to feather his own nest. This belief may not be expressed explicitly but it is widely held and informs policy making at different levels. In my autobiographical presentation I will say a little about how I have tried to challenge these assumptions, offering alternatives which stress the role not only of attitudes, values and beliefs but also the conflict between selfishness and the consideration of the welfare of others. More recent work has tried to point out that psychologists are not mechanics who can come in and fix things and that the consultants and the policy makers both must see themselves as part of the social construction of the continuing round of problem identification and resolution. Examples will be presented on various aspects of social responsibility. Women's work-life decisions in early parenthood: psychology and policy Diane Houston, Department of Psychology, University of Kent The paper will describe a longitudinal study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council's Future of Work Programme. The study was conducted in order to examine the determinants of women's intentions about work and childcare when they were pregnant with their first child. Over 400 first-time mothers took part in the survey and completed questionnaires during the third trimester of pregnancy, and again when their babies were six, twelve and twenty four months old. The findings from this research have been published in academic journals and presented to policy makers. The relevance of theoretical work to policy and the tensions between presenting findings which are theoretically interesting and policy relevant will be discussed. ____________________ Symposium: Societal Psychology and Illness Convenor: Bruce Bolam, University of Nottingham Participants: Flora Cornish Richard de Visser Ama de-Graft Aikins Bruce Bolam What sex workers do with "rights": Uses of mediational tools in sex workers' collective action for health Flora Cornish, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Collective action for health promotion is a process through which community members collaborate to make health-enabling changes to their environment. An activity-theory perspective on collective action points to the central role of cultural tools in mediating between persons and their environments. In the empirical context 53 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 of a community-led HIV-prevention project for sex workers in Calcutta, this paper examines the tools that sex workers develop and use to change their environment. To do this, I draw on observations of community meetings, group discussions among sex workers, and interviews with sex workers employed by the project. I argue that practical organisational tools (e.g. procedures for holding a meeting) and conceptual tools which create future goals (e.g. "workers' rights") are just as important as tools directly related to health promotion (e.g. condom-negotiation strategies). I discuss the varying ways in which tools are creatively put to use by sex workers, finally focusing on the conceptual tools of "workers' rights" and "legalisation" which imagine a changed society in which sex workers are granted full legal and social recognition. I reflect on the complexities of interpretation and intervention when this vision of this future, in my view unrealistic, has very concrete and positive uses in the present. Young Men, Masculinity, and Health Richard de Visser, Centre for Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London Between adolescence and adulthood, boys are expected to become men, and the formation of a masculine identity is a major developmental task. Young men are active in this process - their ideas about masculinity shape their behaviour, and their behaviour shapes their conceptions of masculinity. In developing the masculine identity and testing their competence, many young men engage in healthcompromising social behaviours. However, not all men engage in healthcompromising behaviours, and not all _masculine_ social behaviours are detrimental to health. This paper describes the early stages of a qualitative study of masculinity and health behaviour among men aged 18-20 living in London. The study examines how young men think and talk about masculinity, and the ways in which their conceptions of masculinity are related to a range of heath-related social behaviours, including alcohol and drug use, (dangerous) driving, and sexual behaviour. The study involves interviews and group discussions with a sample stratified to incorporate men with different levels of socioeconomic opportunity and men with different ethnic/racial backgrounds. This will allow an examination of how 'classed' and 'raced' masculine identities are related to various health-related social behaviour. Social representations of diabetes in rural and urban Ghana: a critical social psychological examination of illness action and scope for intervention Ama de-Graft Aikins, Department of Social Psychology, LSE Current chronic illness research in the sub-Saharan African region, attributes poor illness management to either ‘traditional’ cultural beliefs or poor individual knowledge and prioritises educational interventions. These cultural and individualistic analyses neglect the integrated ways in which cultural, social and psychological factors frame illness experiences and engender multiple meanings and action. Using diabetes care in Ghana as a case study and working within the framework of social representations theory, which places emphasis on the sources, contents and functions of practical social knowledge, this paper argues for and demonstrates the usefulness of a critical social psychological approach to the challenges on the field. Semi-structured individual and groups interviews were carried out with rural and urban Ghanaian diabetes sufferers, relatives/carers of sufferers and lay healthy individuals with two aims. First to examine how different versions of social knowledge, and sufferer and lay responses to illness experience informed illness action; secondly, to examine the scope for practical long-term interventions. Analysis highlights that all groups make sense of diabetes and illness experience by drawing interchangeably from four shared knowledge modalities: common sense, scientized, religious and emotional. 54 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Of these common sense, scientized and emotional dimensions play a functional role in illness action, mediated by illness experience and social relations. Common sense notions of health and illness and scientized understandings of diabetes frame illness action goals that merge with biomedical goals, specifically, controlled diabetes through drug and diet management. These goals are compromised by structural (lack of and high cost of biomedical care and good quality foods), community/family (lack of support; stigmatisation) and emotional (fear of physical disruption, hope for a cure, depressive responses to community/family) dynamics. Drawing from applied social psychological work in low-income countries, the paper discusses the scope for developing interventions that address individual/group, community and structural determinants of health particular to the research settings. Individualisation and inequalities in health: A qualitative study of social class based health identities Bruce Bolam, University of Nottingham Epidemiological research attests to the continuance, and growth, of social class based inequalities in health within western nations. However, the noted German social theorist Ulrich Beck (1992) claims that traditional sources of social identity such as social class have become ‘zombie categories’ as these late modern societies undergo a process of individualisation. This paper explores these issues with regard to social class based health identities, presenting a critical discourse analysis of indepth qualitative interview and focus group data generated in interaction with a small, but diverse, sample of participants living in Bristol, England. Analysis revolves around the contested status of class as a concept for organising health identities. Resistance to class and the presentation of ‘hard lives’ associated with working class health identity is considered before documenting acceptance of class and the realisation of the ideal of health associated with middle class health identity. In closing the paper, findings are considered in relation to the individualisation thesis. ____________________ Symposium: New issues in the social psychology of consumer and economic behaviour: identity processes, well-being and welfare Convenor: Helga Dittmar, Social Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Sussex Participants: Stefanie Sonnenberg Nick Anderson Helga Dittmar Judita Janković Ragna Garðarsdóttir Michelle Mahoney/Paul Webley Małgorzata Górnik-Durose Abstract This symposium intends to offer an overview of recent applications of social psychological frameworks to understanding new issues in consumer and economic behaviour. Its seven contributions address three interrelated themes, moving from the role of identity processes in individuals’ dealings with money and consumer goods, to a consideration of the rise of materialistic values and their potential impact on subjective well-being, and finally towards an analysis of the consequences of new 55 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 economic arrangements that may affect individuals’ satisfaction, trust and welfare. The papers have considerable conceptual span, and report on empirical work that uses diverse methodologies, often presenting multi-study programmes. The first theme examines the role of identity in diverse areas of consumer behaviour. While not a new theme in itself, the applications introduced in the first three papers offer novel insights. The first (Sonnenberg) studies identity concerns in people’s attitudes, usage and decision-making regarding money, the second (Anderson) aims to understand why consumer goods are important to people through examining their identity motives, and the third (Dittmar) offers a new conceptualization of “addictive buying”, or buying consumer goods to excess, as an attempt at identity-seeking. The second theme is concerned with the increasing importance of materialistic values, and their possible impact on consumers’ subjective well-being. Previous research has demonstrated mainly negative associations, but the two papers addressing this theme show that the relationship between materialistic values and well-being may differ depending on such social psychological factors as the congruity or conflict between different aspects of consumers’ value systems (Jankovic) or individuals’ motives for wanting material wealth (Gardarsdottir). In addition, their comparisons between the UK and countries where materialism and affluence are fairly recent phenomena (such as Croatia and Iceland) offer good theory-testing “conditions”. The third theme focuses on new economic arrangements and individuals’ responses to them. The first paper on this theme (Mahoney & Webley) addresses the role of transparency in consumer-institution relationships for consumer satisfaction and trust, examining the demand for, and reaction to transparency. The second (Lunt) examines public responses to issues concerning risk and welfare and analyses the impact of changes from public to private welfare provision for individual’s selfinterpretation and autonomy. Although not arranged as yet, it may be possible to invite a discussant to offer a final discussion of the themes that relate and distinguish these contributions. Money and ‘Self’: Towards a Social Psychology of Money and Its Usage Stefanie Sonnenberg, University of St Andrews This paper explores the relationship between identity issues and monetary attitudes/behaviour across a series of methodologically diverse studies. It is argued that psychological approaches to the study of money, despite their efforts to the contrary, frequently concur with traditional economic models of human behaviour in so far as they rest on a similarly static, de-contextualised notion of the ‘self’. This paper aims to substitute these implicit assumptions about the nature of selfhood with a social psychological account of the ‘self’ and, therefore, with an explicit focus on subjective identity processes. First, findings from an exploratory interview study are used to demonstrate that a) identity concerns are central for people’s understandings of money and that b) money meanings and usage relate to identity across different levels of abstractions (i.e. personal, social, human). Second, two experimental studies (based on the Social Identity model of the ‘self’) illustrate that attitudes towards money can vary as a function of both social identification and the comparative context in which a given identity is salient. Finally, an exploration of the relationship between identity concerns and decision-making processes within a Prisoner’s Dilemma-type setting indicates that identity, and the social knowledge derived from it, plays a crucial role not only 56 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 with regard to how people attempt to meet their goals in this context, but also in terms of how these goals are defined. The broader implication of these findings with regard to ‘rational choice’ models of human agency are discussed. Shopping for Identity: Using Identity Motives to Understand Consumer Behaviour Nick Anderson, Research Psychologist at Unilever, Port Sunlight & Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton There exists a growing body of research exploring the symbolic links between material possessions and self-identity, and the way in which possessions play an integral role in self-identity construction, maintenance, and communication. The current paper attempts to locate and integrate the underlying motivational drives for self-identity with the ownership and preference for particular consumer goods by developing a model of identity motives that draws on Identity Process Theory and previous qualitative work on the meanings and functions of material possessions. The model presupposes eight different identity motives that are directly related to the symbolic meanings of possessions (distinctiveness, affiliation, intimacy, past & future continuity, efficacy, the search for an ‘ideal’ self, and self-esteem). This paper discusses results obtained by measuring consumers’ self-discrepancies with regard to these eight motives and compare them directly with the symbolic meanings that their favourite consumer possessions afford them. Data were collected from a sample of adult consumers (n=250) and a sample of adolescents (n=200). The evidence shows links between the symbolic value of categories of consumer goods and identity motives, with distinct and consistent differences with regard to gender and age. Buying to excess: Conceptualising “addictive buying” as identity-seeking Helga Dittmar, Social Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton It appears that an increasing number of people buy consumer goods to such uncontrolled excess, with severe financial and psychological consequences, that their behaviour can be considered “addictive”. This paper draws on a range of empirical studies – consumer mail survey, questionnaire studies with students in diverse countries (UK, US, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Iceland, Slovenia, Turkey), study of consumer research panelists for a large multinational corporation, UK adolescents in sixth form colleges – to address three issues. (a) Systematic variations in the prevalence of excessive buying are assessed with respect to gender, culture and age. (b) Cultural and age-cohort variations in materialistic values are examined as a possible context that may foster or hinder excessive buying, in the sense that materialism can be seen as a value commitment to identity construction through material goods at the level of culture or sub-culture (in the case of UK age cohorts). (c) A two-factor model of excessive buying is tested, which proposes that increasing discrepancies between consumers’ actual and ideal identity predict excessive buying tendencies, in conjunction with materialistic values. It is concluded that identity-seeking is an important component of excessive buying. 57 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Value (in)congruence of materialistic values and subjective well-being in a cross-cultural context Judita Janković, Social Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton Previous research on materialistic values focused primarily on the relationship between materialism and subjective well-being (SWB), proposing that high levels of materialism are associated with reduced SWB. However, recent research suggests that SWB may be moderated by the (in)congruence between an individual’s value orientation and the values endorsed by the immediate environment (e.g. Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000; Burroughs & Rindfleisch, 2002). This hypothesis is examined in a cross-cultural context, in samples of University students from Croatia (N=192), the UK (N=218) and Germany (N=119). The samples consist of psychology and economics students in all three countries. The rationale behind choosing psychology and economics students is the assumption of different value orientations endorsed by these students that motivated them to take up these study subjects. Specifically, psychology students are assumed to have been motivated by empathy needs, care for others, and altruistic values, whereas economics students are assumed to have been motivated by personal achievement, material attainment and leadership values. Hence, the value orientation and environment fit was tested across three countries (cross-cultural comparison), as well as between different student sub samples within the three countries based on their study subject (psychology and economics). Level and impact of materialism is examined also with respect demographic consumer indices (such as mobile telephone, credit card, and car ownership, Internet shopping). The Impact of Materialistic Values, Income and Money-Motives on Subjective Well-Being: A comparison between UK and Iceland Ragna Garðarsdóttir, Social Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton Findings from two studies will be presented, the first a secondary data analysis of the European Values Survey 1999 and the second a questionnaire study. They aim to bring together two research areas that were previously virtually unconnected: the impact of materialistic values on the one hand, and the effect of income (as an indicator of actual wealth) on the other as factors that impact on life satisfaction. Furthermore, the second study integrates a third factor: a range of different motives for wanting to make money. Building on Srivasteva, Bartol & Locke (2002), it is expected that a negative association between materialistic values and indicators of subjective well-being only holds true for individuals with certain motivational profiles. The two studies compare samples from two cultures, Iceland and the UK. The UK is a classic representative of western, economically developed mass consumer societies whereas Iceland was chosen for two different reasons. One reason is its inhabitants’ high rates of self-reported happiness and life satisfaction. The second reason is it’s newly found affluence and high materialism. If levels of life satisfaction, income and materialism are particularly high in Iceland, it offers an ideal comparison with the UK to examine the extent to which relationships between the core variables studied generalise across different cultures. 58 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Consumer Satisfaction and Trust: The Impact of Transparency Michelle Mahoney and Paul Webley, Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter Transparency refers to the accessibility of the processes involved in decision-making, in addition to the outcome and to information itself. Transparency is a topic, which many institutions, authorities and companies world-wide are having to face. Despite this topicality, there has been little research into its impact from institutions’ or consumers’ perspectives. This paper uses socialisation and role identity theory to provide a conceptual framework that can help in understanding the demand for, and reaction to, transparency in the consumer-institution relationship. Based on this approach, this paper examines the potential impact that transparency could have on consumers’ satisfaction and their trust in the institution. Personal Identity and Meaning of Material Possessions Małgorzata Górnik-Durose, Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia, Poland Two studies were conducted to examine a relationship between identity and the meaning of material possessions. First study concentrated on potential connections between a type of personal identity, characterised by a tendency to differentiate or to integrate with a social context, and attitudes towards material goods. It showed that the stronger tendency to differentiate was the more important were these goods. In the second study personal identity was treated as a core element of a general sociocultural orientation of an individual, i.e. individualism and collectivism. Taking into consideration differences between individualists and collectivists in relation to various aspects of social life it was assumed that the social orientation could influence the way people perceive, treat and value material goods, i.e. their level of materialism. Data were collected from Polish and British subjects. They were analysed by multiple regression using as regressors: (a) indicators of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, (b) belonging to individualistic (British) and collectivistic (Polish) society, (c) estimation of subject’s own material resources and (d) levels of material satisfaction. The results were clear and straightforward: individualism, on both personal and cultural levels, especially in its vertical form, was positively related to various aspects of materialism, whereas collectivism, especially horizontal was related negatively or did not have any significant effect on indicators of materialism. Materialism in its various aspects was also strongly, but negatively related to material satisfaction. ____________________ Symposium: Implicit Social Perception Convener: Richard J Crisp, University of Birmingham Participants: Roger Giner-Sorolla Geoff Haddock Joseph M. Ungemah Adam Rutland/Lindsey Cameron/Alan Milne/Peter McGeorge Greg Maio Richard J. Crisp 59 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Abstract In this symposium we discuss recent work exploring the impact of cognitive processes on social perception. The first three papers are concerned with moderators of implicit and explicit evaluative, self-evaluative, and attributional judgements. Giner-Sorrolla and Wilson consider how consistency amongst different components of attitudes can affect explicit and implicit evaluative judgements. Haddock examines how self-evaluation can be shaped by temporal judgements contingent upon attributional focus, information accessibility, and self-enhancement strategies. Ungemah then adopts a dual-processing model for considering the schematic and individuated processes that can determine attributional processing in social decisions. The second half of the symposium focuses on the development and moderation of intergroup attitudes. Rutland et al. consider the development of implicit intergroup attitudes and self-regulation strategies. Maio reports on studies exploring the effects of attitude ambivalence on the processing and consequences of exposure to anti-racist advertisements. Crisp then discusses work that has used cognitive and neuropsychological paradigms to examine the malleability of implicit prejudice as a function of cognitive load and differential inter-category distinctiveness. Finally, Devine discusses the emergent themes and important future issues related to the underlying processing tendencies in social perception illustrated by this work. Implicit attitudes and explicit attitude components Roger Giner-Sorolla, University of Kent at Canterbury and Timothy D. Wilson, University of Virginia Two studies examined the contributions of four attitude components -- cognitive, evaluative, hedonic affective and self-conscious affective – to individual differences in the implicit evaluation of food objects. In spite of substantial correlations between specific emotional associations and explicit evaluation, neither study found evidence that such associations are related to implicit evaluations. Study 1 found that overall evaluation was the best predictor of attitudes measured by implicit evaluative priming; Study 2 found that cognitive attitude was the best predictor of attitudes measured by the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998). Across both studies, participants high in evaluative-cognitive consistency and with high eating concerns showed stronger relationships between implicit and explicit evaluation. We discuss implications for the nature of implicit measures and for understanding the affective component of attitude. Time is on my side: Temporal self-appraisal, attributions, and information accessibility Geoff Haddock, Cardiff University Research on temporal self-appraisal theory (Ross & Wilson, 2002) has considered how individuals process information about their past selves in a way that makes them feel good about their current self. The present set of studies explored the degree to which attributional focus, information accessibility, and self-enhancement strategies influence feelings of closeness to past events. In Study 1, participants recalled a recent positive life event before thinking about how either they personally or others were responsible for the event’s occurrence. As expected, participants felt temporally closer to the event when they had thought about internal attributions. In Study 2, after recalling a recent positive life event, participants recalled one (or six) reasons describing how they personally (or others) produced the event. The results revealed that participants used the content of retrieved attributions in deriving their temporal judgment. Study 3 replicated the procedure of Study 2 but used moderate 60 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 versus extreme negative events. The results revealed that temporal judgments were again affected by attribute type and content, but only for moderately negative events. The implications of the findings for tenets of temporal self-appraisal theory are discussed. The effects of implicit priming on social decisions Joseph M. Ungemah, University College London The paper presents one study from a series of experiments exploring the relationship between attributional and stereotype processes in social decisions. Subjects were presented with a hiring scenario that required a selection between two job candidates, differentiated by a greater percentage of positive characteristics (schematic candidate choice) or the possession of key job prerequisites (individuated candidate choice). A previous study in the series discovered that certain environmental factors (e.g. anxiety) and biological attributional preferences would increase the use of schematic, stereotypic thought. The present experiment introduces stereotypic and categorical primes into the research paradigm. Priming stereotypic worker traits resulted in a tendency towards a biological attributional preference, which in turn influenced job candidate choice in favour of the schematically superior individual. Although directionally similar, racial category primes were not significantly influential for either attributional preference or candidate decision. The paper concludes by acknowledging that both individual differences and environmental constraints are important in determining the extent of attributional processes in social decisions. Self-regulation in childhood: On the development of implicit and explicit intergroup discrimination Adam Rutland and Lindsey Cameron, University of Kent at Canturbury Alan Milne and Peter McGeorge, University of Aberdeen Existing research indicates that adults self-regulate their expressions of prejudice (Monteith et al., 2002; Plant & Devine, 1998). Little is known about the manifestation of self-regulatory processes in children. Research, using self-report measures, has typically found strong explicit intergroup bias in young children and a decline during middle childhood (Brown, 1995). However the sole use of explicit measures increases the likelihood of socially desirable responses. Unlike previous research the present studies also used an implicit measure based within the response-latency paradigm. Drawing on notions within social identity and self-awareness approaches, this paper contends the decline in explicit bias during middle childhood originates from children self-regulating their attitudes according to prevailing normative beliefs. We conducted two studies into the development and self-regulation of ethnic and national intergroup attitudes. In both studies approximately one hundred and sixty children (6-8 years, 10-12 years, 14-16 years) were randomly allocated to a high public self-focus or a low public self-focus condition. Public self-focus was manipulated using a video camera, with the camera ‘on’ in the high condition and ‘off’ in the low condition. Each study included an explicit trait attribution measure and a reaction time measure - the ‘Implicit Association Test’ (IAT; Greenwald et al., 1998). Results showed children moderated their explicit ethnic, but not their explicit national outgroup bias under high public self-focus, especially when aware of the prevailing social norm. Implicit and explicit measures were disassociated, with all age groups showing implicit ethnic and national bias. These findings suggest children act in accordance with the normative context and self-regulate their explicit intergroup attitudes. 61 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 To like or not to like: Implicit and explicit reactions to positive outgroup messages Greg Maio, Cardiff University The present studies tested whether the effects of anti-racism messages on intergroup attitudes are not as positive as they may seem because of negative effects on people who are ambivalent toward ethnic minority people. This hypothesis received support from several experiments that examined the effects of anti-racism messages on explicit and implicit attitudes toward ethnic minorities. The experiments also revealed that measures of subjective ambivalence consistently moderated the impact of the messages on explicit attitudes, whereas measures of objective ambivalence consistently moderated the impact of the messages on implicit attitudes. Social categorization and the malleability of implicit prejudice Richard J. Crisp, University of Birmingham Recent work has established the malleability of implicit prejudice contingent upon the processing of evaluatively disconfirming information (e.g., being exposed to outgroup members in positive contexts). The work reviewed here suggests that, in addition, such automatic attitudes can be moderated by changes in perceived category structure. Experiment 1 established that the same dual-process approach that characterises work in the stereotyping domain can be applied to work on implicit intergroup evaluations. We show that recognition of evaluatively congruent and incongruent evaluations are moderated by cognitive load. In Experiment 2 we extend this work with the adaptation of a neuropsychological paradigm. We observed that patients with frontal lobe damage (an area of the brain associated with executive function and inconsistency resolution) appeared to show the same person perception processing tendencies as non-patients under cognitive load. In Experiment 3 positive information related to outgroupers appeared ineffective at changing implicit attitudes, possibly due to a negativity bias in social perception. Finally, in Experiments 4 and 5 we propose that changing the nature of inter-category representation (overlap) would have consequences for the strength of stereotypically positive and negative associative links with ingroups and outgroups. We support this idea with a direct manipulation of category overlap (with recognition memory and response time measures) and with a manipulation of multiple shared and non-shared categorization (with a recall measure of processing). The implications of these findings for extending models of conflict resolution (such as the Common Ingroup Identity Model) to include consideration of implicit processes are discussed. ____________________ Symposium: Constructing Otherness: The Foreigner/Immigrant in Europe Convenor: Xenia Chryssochoou Discussant: Martha Augoustinos Participants: Laurent Licata/Olivier Klein Margarita Sanchez-Mazas/Frederic Van Humskerken Xenia Chryssochoou Tilemachos Iatridis 62 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Abstract The study of discrimination and exclusion in social psychology has been traditionally based on the seminal studies conducted principally in the United States in relation to Race. Thus, Otherness has been conceptualised in the framework of racial relationships in the historical and social context of the North American continent. While inspired by this tradition, it is important in social psychological research to investigate the phenomenon of exclusion within the particular social context in which it takes place. This symposium aims to contribute to such a debate by looking at how the image of the Other, the Foreigner is constructed in the context of a multicultural Europe, which is not any more an immigrant provider but is transformed to an immigrant reception continent. This phenomenon of immigration comes to be anchored within a past of national construction and for some countries on colonialism and is constructed now in the context of European integration where the issue of citizenship faces new challenges. In the symposium these issues will be debated. The first presentation by Licata and Klein will discuss how in remembering their colonial past, people address current issues within which the image of the Other is constructed. The second presentation by Sanchez-Mazas and Van Hunskerken, will bring the discussion within the context of European Integration and will show through experimental and correlational data how xenophobia, implying the rejection of foreigners’ rights, and new racism implying the rejection of different cultural values, are intertwined and embedded in the contents that define the national ingroup. The third presentation by Chryssochoou will further discuss how the image of the immigrant/asylum seeker is constructed in the media and public discourse within a national context where the Nation-State seems not anymore able to protect its symbolic and physical boundaries. Finally, Iatridis will draw upon experimental studies in Greece to show how the context in which people express their attitudes and affect towards immigrants characterises the normative conflict people face and results in a hardening of exclusion. Martha Augoustinos will lead a debate on these issues bringing in the discussion the experience of her own research in Australia, a country that, although unlike Europe is based on immigration, is however facing now new multicultural challenges. Crossed perspectives on a common past: ex-colonials and ex-colonised remembering the Belgian action in Congo Laurent Licata and Olivier Klein, Université Libre de Bruxelles This paper examines the construction of otherness in a context characterised by the collective memory of colonial relationships between groups. Belgian (N = 18) and Congolese (N = 14) people who have lived in Congo before independence (1960) were interviewed. Questions focused on (1) the first colonial period, from 1885 to 1908, when Congo was seen as the private property of King Leopold II, and (2) the Belgian colonial period, from 1908 to 1960. For each of these periods (remote and close past), participants were invited to express their perception of the Belgian action in Congo, of Congolese reactions to this action, as well as of the colonisers/colonised relationships. Content analysis using a software (Alceste) was performed on the material that was also subsequently discourse analysed. We observed, among the Belgians and some Congolese, a recurrent paternalistic representation typical of colonialism: the Congolese is attributed childlike traits while the Belgian is described as benevolent and rational. Conceptions of "the Other" expressed by the Belgian colonials and the Congolese are not always clearly antagonistic: the latter sometimes adhere to representations that justify the system that dominated them. In addition, we notice defensive reactions among the former colonials against recent critiques addressed towards the Belgian colonial past. Both groups revisit the past with 63 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 reference to the independent Congo's history. Hence, collective memory serves to justify past social practices as well as to protect the group’s social identity. When sketching their past, social groups are addressing present challenges. The image of “the Other” emerges in this context. The Foreigner and the Other: Two solitary paths of exclusion in today's Europe Margarita Sanchez-Mazas and Frederic Van Humskerken Université Libre de Bruxelles, [email protected] The present communication approaches the issue of "otherness" in its intrinsic association with social identity concerns. " Otherness " will be conceptualized in terms of a social-psychological process of simultaneous construction and exclusion, so that the construction of the outgroup draws upon the specific contents that are retained to define the ingroup (Jodelet, 1998). Hence, when the ingroup is framed in terms of national belonging and citizenship, the outgroup is defined primarily as a foreigner who is not entitled to benefit from national's rights. As it will be illustrated through experimental work (Sanchez-Mazas, 1994), the classical logic of xenophobia is highly concerned with "immigrants' " rights. Yet, in the framework of the emergence of the European Community and foreigners' access to political rights, cultural concerns are brought to the fore and contribute to redefine "immigrants " in terms of cultural " Otherness ". Drawing upon correlational research (Sanchez-Mazas & Van Humskerken, in preparation), we will illustrate the notion that in the European immigration countries, the figures of the Foreigner and of the Other reinforce each other in the present-day, so that a logic of xenophobia (concerned with the rights of foreigners) and a logic of a new racism (concerned with the cultural values of the " Other ") appear to be closely intertwined. In discussing our findings, we will propose the notion that the construction of an outgroup has to be related to the prevailing frame of reference (political, racial, cultural...) adopted by the members of the ingroup (Jahoda, 1991). The coexistence of diverse frames of reference in today's European context allows the simultaneous use of different modes of exclusion. The debate about cultural diversity in Britain: Immigrants and Asylum-seekers in media and public discourse Xenia Chryssochoou Social Psychology European Research Institute University of Surrey. [email protected] This paper argues that the question of immigration in Great Britain opens a debate on multiculturalism and concerns more generally the representation of the NationState as culturally diverse. The “threat” that immigrants and asylum seekers represent does not only refer to arguments about competition for resources or to the different cultural values that these people represent but also to the fact that their presence changes the scenery of the Nation-State which seems no longer able to protect its symbolic and physical boundaries. Furthermore, these categories, that in fact refer to different groups of people (economic migrants or people seeking refuge from persecution), are constructed in similar ways in media and popular discourses and are used interchangeably. These arguments are supported by an analysis of the way the terms immigrants/asylum seekers are used in the British press between September and December 2002 (230 publications approx.). The context in which each term has been used and the attributes associated with them were considered. In addition, during the same period, 120 British people from the South of England responded to a questionnaire asking them to associate words with either the word immigrants or the word asylum seekers. Their responses have been analysed in relation to socio-demographic factors, beliefs about acculturation, level of threat, 64 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 tolerance to foreigners, social distance, political beliefs and newspaper readership. All these factors influence the construction of the categories immigrants/asylum seekers. This analysis revealed that the terms immigrants/asylum seekers are used both by media and public interchangeably and refer to desperate people that are determined to escape poverty. The discussion concerns how peoples’ representation of immigration crystallises their fears about social changes and challenges to the national framework. Just foreign or of lower class? Perceptions of immigrants within different discriminatory contexts Tilemachos Iatridis Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens Greece. [email protected] The main argument of this paper concerns the importance of the situational context in which discrimination against immigrants takes place. In two experimental studies conducted in Greece, participants were asked to express their attitudes and affects towards immigrant/foreign targets in different situational contexts. The targets (in a between subjects design) were either a general category of foreigners-immigrants or information was given concerning their origins (from the Balkans, Third World Countries or the EU) and their socio-economic status (this variable was added in the 2nd experiment). Before expressing their attitudes/affects participants were asked to give a series of pro or anti arguments (between subjects factor) in relation to the Human Rights of immigrants or to their position and role within the Greek society. Further they were asked to name the groups they had in mind when performing this task. If the image of foreign immigrants in general became more positive after participants were asked to discriminate overtly (anti immigration arguments) this was not the case when their socio-economic status was explicitly mentioned, thus suggesting that the salience of the status contributes to the rationalisation of immigration. The results highlight the importance of the interaction between the salience of the status of immigrants (socio-economic and origins) and the different ‘conflicts’ people face when expressing their attitudes in relation to immigration. These results will be discussed within the framework of theories of overt and subtle racism (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995) and the concept of normative conflict in Conflict Elaboration Theory (Pérez & Mugny, 1993). ____________________ Symposium: Beyond The Condemnation-Tolerance Models of Heterosexism Convenor: Peter Hegarty, University of Surrey Participants: Peter Hegarty/Felicia Pratto/Anthony Lemieux Diana Milillo/Diane Quinn Ian Hodges Nicola Tee Abstract Within social psychology, heterosexism is usually defined as a one-dimensional variable ranging from condemnation to tolerance of lesbians and gay men (e.g., Herek, 1998). This approach has been often critiqued by radical scholars (e.g., Kitzinger, 1987). However, such critiques rarely come from quantitative researchers in the field. The present symposium highlights two themes that are not captured by the tolerance-condemnation axis; heterosexist ambivalence and heteronormativity. 65 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 First, much like earlier shifts in racist ideologies, we argue that many heterosexual people now give lip service to sexual orientation based equality, but continue to harbor negative feelings towards lesbians and gay men. These lead to ambivalence in opinion statements (Hodges) and behaviouroid measures (Hegarty, Pratto, & Lemieux). Second, we argue that tolerance is a limited pro-lesbian/gay ideology because of the continued operation of heterosexist norms. We expose these shortcomings by focusing on the implications of voicing discomfort about heterosexual spaces (Hegarty, Pratto, & Lemieux) and the relationship between heterosexual identity and other ideologies such as ambivalent sexism (Milillo & Quinn). Heterosexist norms and heterosexist ambivalence: Drinking in Discomfort Peter Hegarty, University of Surrey, Felicia Pratto, University of Connecticut, Anthony Lemieux, University of Connecticut Public opinion data in the United States shows a marked shift in favor of lesbian and gay equality, but no shift in overall negative affect towards lesbians and gay men. We propose that this creates heterosexist ambivalence such that straight people will often endorse egalitarianism but not practice it. We test this claim experimentally. In experiment 1 participants were presented with vignettes about a gay man who felt discomfort in a straight bar, or a straight man who felt discomfort in a gay bar. Both targets stifled their discomfort. Participants rated targets’ actions as equivalently appropriate and produced counterfactuals that undid targets’ discomfort by its direct expression. In Experiment 2, targets were described as expressing their discomfort directly. Here, the straight target’s actions were rated as more appropriate than the gay targets’, particularly by participants with negative attitudes to gay men. Counterfactuals also suggested that gay men were more obliged than straight men to shield others from discomfort arising from contact between sexual orientation groups. Disentangling Sexuality from Sexism: Lesbian, Bisexual and Heterosexual Women’s Perceptions of Sexism Diana Milillo and Diane Quinn, University of Connecticut We distinguish how women’s varying intimate involvements with men affect what lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual women perceive as sexist. We hypothesized that heterosexual women hold a stake in garnering the rewards that accompany hostile and benevolent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996), and thus perceive both forms less readily than lesbian and bisexual women. The 195 heterosexual women in the study endorsed both hostile and benevolent sexism more than the 98 lesbian and bisexual women as predicted. While completing the ASI, lesbian and bisexual women were less likely to be thinking about male relationship partners than heterosexual women. Finally, lesbian and bisexual women had higher gender identification than heterosexual women, which negatively related to their endorsement of sexism. Instead of explaining these group differences in a way that render sexual minorities non-normative, we posit that investigating normative heterosexual ideologies proves useful in explaining differences in perceiving sexism (Hegarty & Pratto, 2001). Explaining ‘New’ Homophobia: A Q-Methodological Study Ian Hodges, University of Westminster The key aim of this study was to extend established (psychometric) understandings of homophobia in a double sense; firstly to offer participants an opportunity to 66 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 account for their beliefs, values and so on regarding sexuality and sexual identity in a way that is less constraining than traditional psychometric strategies. Secondly, to present a means of understanding homophobia which does not preclude reports of ambivalence and other complexities, thus avoiding the bipolarisation which may result from the construction of scales. Seventy five participants completed a Qsorting task which involved the arrangement of statements regarding sexuality and sexual identity along a continuum from strong agreement to strong disagreement. These sorts were then subject to a Q factor analysis and the resulting factors interpreted. The results indicated a fragmentation of homo-negative forms of thought. While one factor was recognizable as representing more traditional homophobic beliefs (c.f. traditional scales), some of the accounts interpreted here deployed contrasting logics and rationalities. It is argued that such positions of ambivalence might tell us something about the ways in which anti-lesbian and anti-gay prejudices are shifting in light of recent legal, cultural and societal changes. This study has shown the variety and complexity of forms that homo-negative belief systems can take. Moreover, it may be that the ambivalent accounts reported here indicate a form of homophobia which, while less extreme than those indicated by homophobic scores on traditional scales, are nonetheless pivotal for a full understanding of recent shifts in contemporary anti-lesbian and anti-gay prejudice. Transphobia: A Neglected Prejudice In Social Psychology? Nicola Tee and Peter Hegarty, University of Surrey There has been little substantive, empirical study of prejudice towards trans persons in social psychology, although there is a wealth of (often conflicting) anecdotal data about this form of prejudice (e.g., Greer, 1999, Hird, 2001). However, given the consistent relationship between heterosexism and Right Wing Authoritarianism (Altmeyer, 1988), and heterosexism and essentialism (e.g. Haslam et al.) the present research examined if support for trans persons is linked to heterosexism, authoritarianism and gender essentialism. A questionnaire was produced containing RWA, Modern Sexism, and ATLG, as well as three new measures specifically designed to measure attitudes and beliefs about gender and trans persons, support for trans persons’ civil rights and perceptions of similarity between sexual minority groups. Two separate groups of undergraduates (psychology and engineering), (n=150) each completed the measures during single sessions. All the scales proved reliable. Strong positive correlations between RWA, ATLG and attitudes towards trans persons were observed. Correlations with modern sexism were weaker, while the similarity measure suggested a perceived similarity between gay men and lesbians and trans persons, but less so with other groups, such as transvestites. It is proposed that this is an area crying out for further empirical social psychological analysis. The results discussed in this paper are a small step towards reaching this goal. Of greater significance in the long run, is the recognition that transphobia is a prejudice, which requires a better knowledge of both in itself and as one sharing common features with other prejudices. ____________________ Symposium: Social Theory and Social Psychology Convenors: Darren Langdridge, University of Huddersfield University of Northampton and Simon Watts, Participants: Trevor Butt 67 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Peter Lunt Simon Watts Steven D. Brown/Johanna Motzkau Darren Langdridge Abstract The aim of this symposium is to illustrate the application of social theory to social psychology. The dominant paradigm in social psychology is social cognition. There is no doubt that this has led to some very robust findings. However, the search for answers to very specific questions without further theoretical development has led to the fragmentation of the social psychological project (Langdridge & Butt, 2003). This is what Kelly (1955) referred to as accumulative fragmentalism, which entails a misplaced faith in the emergence of meaningful patterns through the collection of more and more data. Instead, Kelly (1955) argued that scientific knowledge is advanced by the adoption of new perspectives. But advocating and adopting new perspectives need not entail yet more critique of extant perspectives (Stenner, 2002). In this symposium we seek to introduce a number of possible new perspectives to further ‘unsettle’ (Brown, 2002; Lunt, 2002; Stenner, 2002a, 2002b) the status quo from an as yet relatively untapped theoretical resource: social theory. It should be emphasised that this symposium does not seek to critique ‘traditional’ social psychology and set up yet another camp of social psychologists informed by social theory. Instead, the symposium seeks to move beyond the traditional-critical divide and offer new theoretical perspectives relevant to the whole social psychological project. The papers introduce the thought of a number of key social theorists, past and present. The first paper by Butt entails a return to the work of Mead. Whilst many contemporary psychologists regard Mead as a sociologist, Butt reminds us of the psychology he advocated which resists the Cartesian dualism implicit in much modern psychology and recognised both natural and constructed aspects of human nature. Lunt introduces key concepts from the work of Jürgen Habermas. These include concepts and themes of reason, identity and public opinion. The third paper by Watts provides an introduction to the thought of the German social theorist Niklas Luhmann. The importance of meaning, self-reference and the concept of interpenetration will be discussed as a means of elucidating Luhmann’s conception of the relationship between individuals and their social environments (or psychic and social systems as Luhmann would call them). The fourth paper by Brown & Motzkau introduces the thought of one of the most influential poststructuralist philosophers in recent years – Gilles Deleuze. Key ideas, such as immanence, virtuality, the machinic and territorilisation, are discussed and analysed for their value in the social psychology project. Finally, Langdridge uses the work of Paul Ricoeur on the social imaginary to critique the current crisis in social psychology. Drawing on Ricoeur’s work a dialectical relationship is proposed to bridge the gap between social cognition and critical social psychology. Aspects of Ricoeur’s work on hermeneutic phenomenology are introduced to provide an example of the successful integration of opposed traditions. George Mead: Social Psychology¹s Lost Leader Trevor Butt, Centre for Constructions and Identity, University of Huddersfield Farr (1996) sees Mead as a theorist who should have been central to the development of modern social psychology. However, because of the splitting off of the experimental psychologists (including John Watson) from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, modern psychology developed as a contrast 68 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 to Mead¹s approach. Contemporary psychologists regard Mead as a sociologist because some of his thought was rescued for sociology in Blumer¹s symbolic interactionism. Mead advocated a psychology that resisted the Cartesian dualism implicit in so much of modern psychology. As a convinced Darwinian, he recognised both the natural and constructed aspects of humankind, seeing consciousness as a property that emerged from social interaction. With a focus on Mead¹s central concept - the philosophy of the act - this paper examines the implications of Mead¹s thought for some of the contemporary debates in social psychology. Critical Theory and Social Psychology: autonomy, intersubjectivity, rights and sovereignty in Habermas’s Between Facts and Norms Peter Lunt, Department of Psychology, University College London In his early writings, Jurgen Habermas, continuing themes of early critical theorists, suggests that modern industrial democracies face particular issues of legitimacy due to the decline of public participation and the dominance of sectional interests in civic culture and the institutionalisation of communication. There were a number of social psychological aspects to this early theory including an account of the conditions for legitimate public opinion as consensus through the free and open public discussion and an account of crises of legitimation resulting from institutional control of public discussion in the media. Public sphere theory has come under increasing attack. Critics have pointed to problems in Habermas’s account of the history of public deliberation, to problems of exclusion and the assumptions that institutions are incapable of creating the conditions for public participation. In the meantime, in a series of brilliant studies Habermas developed his discourse ethics and theory of communicative action in which he finessed his account of the problematic relationship between institutional rationality and the culture of everyday life. He returned to questions of deliberation, public participation and their relation to legitimacy in Between Facts and Norms. In this book Habermas attempts to integrate insights from systems theory and postmodern theory in his account of the potential of institutional arrangements to balance the contradictory needs of autonomy and intersubjectivity. Habermas has received little critical attention within social psychology despite his concerns with imminently social psychological questions. This paper presents a critical exposition of Habermas’s account of social psychological concepts and themes of reason, identity and public opinion. System-Environment Relationships: Meaning, Self-Reference and Interpenetration in the Work of Niklas Luhmann Simon Watts, Critical Research Group, Dept. of Psychology, University College Northampton Niklas Luhmann is widely recognised in Germany as the most noteworthy of contemporary social theorists (Viskovatoff, 1999). Thus far, however, his work has had a limited (although growing) impact in other countries and, indeed, in disciplines other than sociology. No doubt the usual problems of translation and the sheer density of Luhmann’s work have not helped his cause. Luhmann readily admits that his Social Systems ‘is not an easy book’, nor does he pretend to ‘accommodate those who prefer a quick and easy read’. He more than keeps his word. Add to this Luhmann’s refusal to accept that social systems are in any way “composed of individuals…or psychic processes” (1995: 256) and we have ourselves a recipe that many social psychologists will find foul-tasting. Allow the palate to clear however and one becomes distantly aware that quality ingredients have just ‘passed through’. There are concepts and ideas here that are well worth thinking about. Without 69 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 claiming any particular expertise, then, the current paper will offer a preliminary sketch of meaning, self-reference and interpenetration as they appear in the work of Niklas Luhmann. Deleuze and Social Psychology Steven D. Brown and Johanna Motzkau, Loughborough University This paper outlines a brief introduction to the thought of one of the most influential poststructuralist philosophers of the past few decades – Gilles Deleuze. Best known for his collaborations with Felix Guattari on the Capitalism and Schizophrenia series, Deleuze’s work may be characterised as an extended meditation of the concept of immanence. This polyvocal term can be crudely rendered as a refusal to accept dualism, transcendence or idealism. Deleuze offers social psychology a thoroughgoing materialism which nevertheless is able to demonstrate how abstraction or the ideational animates social practice. Such materialism cuts across the now sterile distinction between realism and relativism. The paper will describe key terms from Deleuze’s work – such as immanence, virtuality, the machinic, territorialisation – and sketch out how the analytic value of these terms for social psychology. Contrasts will be drawn with the use made by social psychology of other cognate thinkers, such as Foucault, and other major social philosophers, such as Habermas. Ideology and Utopia: Social psychology and the social imaginary of Paul Ricoeur Darren Langdridge, Centre for Constructions and Identity, University of Huddersfield Paul Ricoeur is considered one of the greatest living philosophers of language. However, his work has yet to have an impact on psychology and social psychology in particular. This is surprising when one considers the relevance of his work for the social psychological project. In this paper, I outline his work on the social imaginary and use this as a critical hermeneutic to explain the reluctance of social psychology to move beyond the internecine debate between social cognition and critical social psychology. The social imaginary is the ensemble of stories possessed by all societies that serve to mediate human reality. Ricoeur uses this concept to understand and conceptualise the distinction between the real and the imaginary by examining it under two limits: ideology and utopia. The social imaginary operates in two ways, as reaffirmation or rupture. Reaffirmation leads to ideology wherein societies seek to preserve their identity. Rupture concerns the discourse of utopia, which represents a sense of novelty and difference. Ricoeur argues for a necessary dialectical relationship between ideology and utopia to avoid societies being ossified through their engagement with the past or blinded by a practically unrealised vision of the future. I argue that social psychology vacillates between these two positions and, as yet, has not been able to engage dialectically with both. I finish by suggesting that both positions are needed for a successful social psychological project, and that Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology provides an example of the successful integration of opposed traditions. End of Section 2 ____________________ 70 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Section 3: BPS Social Psychology Section Conference 2003, Poster Abstracts Experiencing Failure At School – Identifying Those Most At Risk Poppy Nash, Centre for Reading and Language, Department of Psychology, University of York The proposed paper looks at the type of children who experience failure at school, and the psychosocial implications of these experiences. For example, a child with persistent communication difficulties or dyslexia, may feel inadequate, incompetent and different to their peers. The impact of these experiences is often carried into the playground, where the child can continue to feel stigmatised, socially excluded by peers and be the target of school bullying. The child's experience of school is not only coloured by anxiety surrounding the classroom, but also a sense that they are failing in the playground too. This may be seen in concomitant behaviour problems. Without appropriate intervention, these negative self-perceptions can develop into a cycle of disadvantage and affect the child's whole attitude towards school and motivation to learn. Nash and her colleagues are currently developing a battery of assessments for identifying vulnerable learners both in the classroom and the playground. The proposed paper discusses these measures. It also discusses the effectiveness of their published intervention programme (Nash et al., 2002) in addressing the psychosocial needs of children who are experiencing failure at school. Nash, P., Stengelhofen, J., Brown, J. and Toombs, L. (2002) Improving children's communication, Managing Persistent Communication Difficulties. Whurr, London. Coding Schemes, Observational Studies and Social Psychology Brendan Wallace, Psychology Department, University of Strathclyde One of the most interesting trends in recent years has been the increasing use of computers by qualitative social psychologists. For example, there are now various computer programmes available for content analysis (West, 2001) as well as for more general qualitative analysis or CAQDA (Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis (Lee and Fielding, 1991)). These programmes tend to be based on the same basic theory: that textual data can be ‘coded’ by various coders and then analysed. The Centre for Applied Social Psychology (CASP) at the University of Strathclyde developed and ran the national Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System (CIRAS) project, the confidential reporting system for the UK Railways. In doing this it was necessary to develop new methodologies to deal with large numbers of confidential interviews. The current paper demonstrates how the system was built up, and in particular how the creation of an efficient and reliable taxonomy for coding was essential in terms of achieving a valid and useful system. Differences between the various qualitative techniques developed at Strathclyde and other methodologies are discussed, especially in the emphasis on reliability trials. Finally the implications for the system are discussed in terms of further applications. Specifically, can social psychologists progress from coding texts to coding general adult behaviour (as already takes place in the psychology of facial emotions, cf Tronick, 1980) with computer software? It is suggested that if the answer was to be in the affirmative it might be a powerful new research tool for social psychology. 71 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Lee, R. M. and Fielding, N. G. (1991) 'Computing for Qualitative Research: Options, Problems and Potential' in N. G. Fielding and R. M. Lee (editors) Using Computers in Qualitative Research. London: Sage Tronick, E.Z. Als, H. & Brazelton, T.B. (1980) Monadic phases: A structural descriptive analysis of infant-mother face-to-face interaction. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behaviour and Development, 26, 3-24 West, Mark (2001) Theory, Method, and Practice in Computer Content Analysis. London: Ablex Publishing; Secondary School Students’ Self-Concepts and Aspirations Anni Ahmavaara In the region of East Kent the eleven-plus examination, now called the Kent Test, is still used to determine whether a child will receive his or her secondary education in a selective or a non-selective school. The present research explored the effects of this selection on students’ self-concepts, future aspirations and school satisfaction with a sample of 856 students drawn from two selective and two unselective schools in East Kent. A model that included school type, gender and age as independent variables, Self-Esteem and Belief in Fixed Intelligence as predictor variables, Academic SelfConcept as a latent variable, and School Satisfaction and Future Aspirations as outcome variables was constructed and tested in EQS. After post-hoc modifications the final model fitted data well indicating that students in selective vs. non-selective schools differ from each other significantly on many dimensions. Most importantly, students in non-selective schooling were shown to have less positive academic-self concept and less ambitious future aspirations implying that selective secondary schooling may not bode well for students failing to obtain a place in a selective school. Experiencing covert workplace aggression: A preliminary study using university teaching and research staff Sarah Forrest and Nigel Hunt (Works in Progress) Objectives: Research investigating workplace aggression is becoming increasingly interested in less obvious forms of aggression (e.g. the work of Björkqvist et al., 1994; Kaukiainen et al., 2001). Covert aggression, although more difficult to measure and observe, is thought to be commonplace in most working environments. This small-scale preliminary study aimed to examine experiences of covert aggression among a small sample of university teaching and research staff. Design: Data are drawn from a series of 8 in-depth semi-structured interviews with adults aged between 19 and 42. Methods: The interviews asked about aggressive experiences across a variety of settings. The analysis here is restricted to workplace conflicts. Interpretative thematic analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994) will be used to identify common patterns and processes underlying the interviewees’ experiences. Results: A number of key themes are outlined and supported using extracts from the interviews. The lack of a clear hierarchy within the university working environment was seen to facilitate covert, indirectly aggressive victimisation. The interviewee’s expressed considerable frustration and feelings of anxiety related to this form of workplace conflict. 72 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Conclusions: The results are discussed in terms of the previous literature and the implications of such research. In addition plans are made for future larger-scale research in this area, examining how employees develop different coping styles to deal with workplace stress and covert conflict. Perceptions of aggressive experience: How do we understand and explain aggressive beliefs and behaviour? Sarah Forrest and Virginia Eatough (Empirical Research) Objectives: Research into perceptions of aggression has focused upon instrumental and expressive social representations / beliefs about aggression. This research aimed to re-examine the content and structure of such beliefs, investigating how individuals understand and explain the role of aggression within their lives. Design: Four in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with young adults aged between 19 and 25. Methods: Individuals were interviewed about their aggressive experiences. Interpretative thematic analysis was carried out based upon the Miles & Huberman (1994) technique. This led to the creation of an explanatory model of the processes found to underlie the interviewees perceptions of aggressive beliefs and behaviour. Results: The interviewees appeared to have a dynamic belief system of aggression, which was largely derived from past personal experience. They talked about their beliefs as being highly individualised, and the beliefs often seemed to contain both instrumental and expressive elements. This overarching belief system was largely perceived as determining their behaviour in a given situation, and it was found to be very adaptive in nature. Participants discussed how they sometimes felt limited by their beliefs, and sought to change their beliefs in order to change their behaviour. Conclusions: Perceptions of aggression appeared to be much more complex, contradictory and personalised than the existing literature on social representations / beliefs of aggression suggests. The research is discussed in terms of potential benefits of an idiographic approach to investigating perceptions of aggression, and potential for future study. 'But in a way I'm an adult': Youth culture and the negotiation of identity Eleanor Johnson and Abigail Locke, School of Health and Community Studies, University of Derby This paper approaches youth identity from the perspective of discursive psychology and focuses on how young people construct and negotiate their identities. Through the use of focus group data with adolescents from a secondary school, the construction of youth identity was examined. The management and allocation of blame by the young people onto others was prevalent throughout the analysis and three main themes became apparent. Firstly the pressures of teenage life exasperated by misunderstandings by significant others, such as parents or teachers. Secondly the importance of image within youth identity and how the media portrayal of youth has implications for the negotiation of their own identities. Finally, the third theme considered how constructions of identity are seen as a negotiation between childhood and adulthood, with the young person talking about themselves as being more grown up than significant others give them due credit for. This paper extends previous work on identity by examining aspects of youth culture that move away from deviant youngsters in society (Hester, 1998) and those who do not identify themselves within a specific youth sub-cultural group (Widdicombe & Wooffitt, 1995). 73 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 Place identity in inner-city youths: 'It's all I know' Donna Duffield and Abigail Locke, School of Health and Community Studies, University of Derby Identity is a salient topic in every field, in all disciplines of knowledge (Karnofsky, 2002). Using a discursive psychological approach, this paper explored how young people from inner city areas constructed their identity. Specifically the concern was with the resources that young people draw on to construct their accounts of events. The dominant theme to arise was place identity that was rooted in a sense of belonging and familiarity and the perception of differentiation with other areas. The status associated with living in their area was constructed as the most important aspect. Furthermore they invoked others' reputation of their areas as being relevant to them. The findings were evaluated within the context of both early (Social Identity Theory) and contemporary (discursive) theories of social identity. It was concluded that this research adds weight to the body of discursive work that focuses upon identity as an interactional resource. The wider implications are discussed in terms of what social functions might be accomplished and social relations legitimated in other contexts outside of the interview setting. Differences between English Secondary School Children’s Use of the Internet and Mobile Phones Dominic Madell, Durham University Katz and Aspden (1997) have discussed the “digital divide”, a disparity in the U.S. between those who are online and those who are not. This study was carried out to see if there is a “digital divide” amongst secondary school children in England, and also to see if there were any differences in mobile phone use in this group. Initially, a questionnaire which contained 26 questions about Internet and mobile phone use with “tick-box” responses was used to gain information (although space was also included for participants to write answers not found on the tick-box list) from 1340 students from four mixed secondary schools in different wards of the Teesside area. From the original 1340 participants, 26 age-matched students from each school were randomly selected for comparison. It was found that there were no major differences in the survey data between the schools with different mean GCSE grades and in areas of differing economic prosperity (although there were some minor differences). Furthermore, data collected from the original sample of 1340 participants had indicated that 83% of respondents considered themselves Internet users and that 86% considered themselves mobile phone owners. Taken together, these results do not support the idea of a “digital divide” with regard to Internet and mobile phone use amongst English secondary school children in the Teesside area. Gender Differences in the Use of the Internet by English Secondary School Children Dominic Madell, Durham University The UK government has stated that “Our goal is to ensure that everyone who wants it has access to the Internet by 2005.” (UK Online annual report, 2002). Therefore, this survey of Internet use by 1340 secondary-school students from four schools in the Teesside area of England was carried out, first, in order to assess whether the government is realising this ambition amongst 11-16 year olds, and second in order to determine whether or not gender differences exist in this activity. Furthermore, the data supplied are intended to inform later studies of more specific aspects of children’s Internet use. Generally, it was found that most children used the Internet, 74 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 were quite comfortable with it, and used it for a variety of applications. However, a considerable minority of respondents also considered themselves non-users of the Internet and there were also some gender differences found in the data which suggested something of a male bias towards Internet use. It was concluded that these were issues that needed to be addressed for the purposes of equity and if the government is to achieve its goal of Internet access for all by 2005. A number of suggestions for further research into Internet use by children are also suggested in this paper. Face-to-face vs. Computer-mediated focus groups Donna Reid This study compares face-to-face (FTF) focus groups with focus groups conducted via computer-mediated communication (CMC), using outcome measures. Predictions were derived from past work on other social tasks compared across these media, like decision making. Sixteen groups of three participated in both FTF and CMC focus groups, discussing two topics. Topics and communication media were counterbalanced. Amongst the results it was found that despite CMC groups having twice the amount of time to communicate, FTF groups contributed significantly more words than CMC. When the greater number of contributions of FTF groups was controlled, CMC groups generated more ideas/answers than FTF. These results suggest CMC may be a viable alternative to FTF focus groups. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed. Biotechnology concepts, emotions and imagery: Effects of gender and expertise Alexa Spence and Ellen Townsend, School of Psychology and Institutes for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society, University of Nottingham This study investigated perceptions, emotions and imagery relating to different types of biotechnologies and how these may vary between genders and between those of differing levels of knowledge. A repeated single criterion card sort task was used to elicit information from participants regarding how biotechnologies are perceived and organised conceptually. Information was also gathered on knowledge, emotions and imagery relating to the concepts and on the individual’s gender, religiosity and previous experience with biotechnologies. Data obtained from the card sorting was qualitative and analysed using Nvivo and Verbal Protocol Analysis Techniques. Biotechnology concept groupings displayed parallels with previous research in several aspects, including the separation of product and process, and divisions between plant, animal and human research. Some new common different groupings (e.g. between applications liked vs. disliked and different types of technology) and the examination of associated emotions provided insights into differential attitudes between groups. Further to this, examination of emotions and imagery relating to the different biotechnology concepts revealed differences between genders and between those with differing levels of knowledge. Differences in emotion were found between groups and qualitative differences in the associated emotions were discovered. Findings provide some insight into differences in attitudes and decision making towards biotechnologies displayed by different groups and also highlight the importance of including feelings about biotechnology in future research. 75 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 A discursive analysis of the use of rhetorical strategies in managing children’s food consumption Maria Hunter and Sally Wiggins (all correspondence to the second author please) Encouraging children to eat – and to eat the ‘right’ kind of foods – is a fundamental concern for both parents and health organisations. The volume of academic research in this area, particularly within social psychology, reflects this concern. However, much of the focus has been on either attitudes (of parents or children) or the external pressures on children to eat particular foods (e.g. eating similar foods to their peers). What is missing is research that examines the specific interactions in which food is managed and consumed. This study provides this focus and examines some of the ways in which children negotiate food with their parents during mealtimes. Using a discursive psychological approach on the tape-recorded conversations from family mealtimes, we examine the rhetorical strategies used by the family members to manage the quantities of food eaten by the children. For example, sharing one’s food with others was treated as both a positive action and as a way of avoiding large quantities of food. Requests for water and questioning the qualities of food were further strategies used in the talk. The analysis demonstrates the specific ways in which these issues may be constructed and managed, and the dilemmas that they raise for parents in encouraging children to eat. We suggest that more research needs to be carried out on the daily interactions between parents and children to provide a fuller understanding of food management issues. Prison inmates’ perceptions of aggressive events: The effect of crowding Claire Lawrence and Kathryn Andrews This study examines whether in a male prison, the inmates’ subjective experience of crowding increases (i) the likelihood that events are perceived as being more aggressive in nature, and (ii) whether the protagonists involved are viewed as being more hostile, malevolent and aggressive. In addition, this paper also examines the possible mediating effects of stress, arousal and psychological well-being. Seventynine prison inmates were questioned about their personal space needs, their perceived levels of crowding, their stress, arousal and psychological well-being, and their judgement of an account of an aggressive event. The results confirmed previous findings that crowding is linked to increases in arousal and stress and a reduction in psychological well-being. For the first time, however, this study also found that those inmates who experienced crowding were also more likely to interpret events as being aggressive and violent, and judge that those involved in the incident had acted more aggressively. This relationship was not mediated by any other factor. However, arousal, stress or psychological well-being partially mediated the relationship between personal space needs and the experience of subjective crowding. The implications of this study for social interactionsist explanations of the link between crowding and prison violence are offered. Simplifying Social Decisions Under Environmental Constraint Joseph M. Ungemah University College London The poster explores the relationship between stereotype and attributional processes in social decisions. Presenting the results from one experiment in a series of studies, the poster discusses how environmental constraint and individual differences interact in shaping evaluations of others. Subjects were presented with a hiring scenario and made a selection between two job candidates, differentiated by a greater percentage 76 BPS Social Psychology Section Conference September 2003 of positive characteristics (schematic candidate choice) or the possession of key job prerequisites (individuated candidate choice). The study hypothesised that certain environmental factors (i.e. opportunity, anxiety, and status) and biological attributional preferences would increase the use of schematic and stereotypic thought. Significant main effects were discovered for anxiety and attributional preference, the latter itself influenced by opportunity and status. Environmental constraint was thus demonstrated to affect hiring choice in favour of the schematically superior individual, through both direct and indirect means. However, individual differences in attributional preference are thought to play an important role in mitigating the effects of environmental constraint in social decisions. End of Section 3 ____________________ 77