Protest is a common approach to the pursuit of societal change and a legal and protected procedure under the democratic system. Mobilising people to come together and express their opinion on social issues can, in some cases, push the government to create new policies. It can also attract the broader public to become engaged with particular movements (e.g., animal rights, marriage equality, clean and transparent political processes, etc.).


However, some protests, especially when they involve a huge number of people are seen as a threat to public order. In many countries (e.g., Egypt, Hong Kong, Turkey, Ukraine, and Indonesia), this perceived threat to public order became the justification for handling public protest with a repressive strategy  in the hope that people would withdraw their involvement in the protest. Repression is not only about the physical violence, but also the narratives produced by the government against protestors. For example, this September saw massive student protests in Indonesia, against a new act allegedly weakening the Independent Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). In response to these protests, a repressive approach was employed by the police and authorities, not only against the protestors, but also the ministry of higher education, research, and technology, intimidating university leaders for letting their students join the protest. 


Despite being used by several governments, social psychology studies have revealed that repressive approaches in handling public protests are not always effective. Instead of stopping the protest by activating feelings of fear, repressive or even violent strategies employed by the authorities can drive the action to become more sustainable and garner increased participation and support for the movement. 

When is repression is not effective?
The repressive approach exploits the power to intimidate, press, threaten or even injure. Authorities may take this approach to deal with protest actions, especially when the protest is focused on responding to political issues and perceived to threaten the interests of the political elites.

Evidence shows that repressive narratives or violence conducted by the authorities can increase perceived risks in a protest’s participation. Other than that, repression can also lead to the feeling of fear and being oppressed.  

According to the authority’s perspective, the fear is expected to reduce or even stop the intention to participate in the following protests. Indeed, fear can be a deterrent to protesters, and violence and imprisonment can drive them off the street.  However, repressive acts from the authorities are also able to strengthen the participants’ engagement with the action. Violence and repression can undermine the perceived legitimacy of the state, not just in the eyes of protestors, but in the broader community.  In addition, the shared experience as victims of oppression can grow the sense of familial ties amongst protestors, as shared anxiety or fear  can bring people together and strengthen the bonds of protestors. To put it simply, the previous ties that might be based on the same demands or interests are replaced by a form of kinship ties, adding a new emotional intensity to previous perceptions of solidarity.    

This sense of fusion or family ties creates a feeling of agency for the group, manifested in a strong tendency from every individual within the group to do something more significant on behalf of the group.The participants will be more motivated to protect their own, even risking their own life to become a shield for their fellow protestors.

In the more extreme context, when the kinship bond is built amongst the protestors, and the real threats appear from the authority (e.g., police), then the tendency to make a counterattack will rise and the protest might develop into a riot.  The riot is caused not just by protestors’ escalation of tactics, but by the mutual radicalisation of the police and security forces, who may cease to see the crowds as citizens worthy of protection.

This pattern can be observed in the protest events in Hong Kong. Following the repressive approaches from the police, the protestors’ solidarity seems to be even greater. The individuals who do not know each other personally, through their participation in repressed protests, even become sau zuk (Cantonese term to express a very strong tie, etymologically means ‘hand and feet’) with each other.  It also appears that the broader relationship between the community and the state has become more polarised and oppositional.

In conclusion, activists’ efforts to create an expected social change are of course part of long-term processes. People mobilisating to raise public awareness or to encourage authorities to create more favorable policies often experience a backlash from the government, in the form of stigmatisation or even violence. In many cases, especially in a less democratic country, this repressive approach is employed out of a desire to stabilise the situation. However, an important point to consider is that this approach is often not effective. Instead of stopping their actions, the protestors experiencing collective fear and anxiety may strengthen their feelings of kinship ties and escalate their action’s intensity; the police and state actors may radicalise away from the protection of citizens to commit human rights abuses; and the broader community may come to feel the state itself is less legitimate as an authority.  These are not trivial risks for a government to run.

 - By Susilo Wibisono

When reflecting on what social change and social movements look like, images of activists protesting and engaging in other acts of civil resistance likely spring to mind for most people. However, this isn’t the only way to be a change agent. There are a myriad of ways that people can aide social change without engaging in ‘traditional’ forms of activism. In fact, we can only maximise the impact and potency of social movements if we diversify our tactics and have people ‘fighting the good fight’ in different ways. Below, I outline five common change agent roles and their effectiveness in different domains of the social change process to highlight the varied and equally valuable ways we can all contribute.

The Activist
The term activist can generally be understood as a person participating in collective action to further a cause or issue. Here, I focus on people who operate outside of formal systems or institutions to call public attention to injustice and agitate for social change using conventional and, in some cases, more radical tactics (e.g. Extinction Rebellion protesters blocking off bridges and main roads). When conducted appropriately, these actions can increase public support and discussion of the social issue. However, these approaches can also reinforce stereotypes that activists are ‘extreme’ which, in turn, may deter collective action participation among observers.

The Insider
Although activists can advocate for change outside the system, oftentimes social change messages are better received from ‘insiders’ or people who belong to the same groups or institutions that activists are trying to influence. As criticisms are trusted more when coming from ingroup members, insiders can make social change messages more palatable to the target group and may, in some cases, be able to communicate activists’ messages and concerns in terms that the ingroup can understand and be swayed by.

The Scholar
The Scholar’s role is twofold: to conduct rigorous and ethical research about social issues (e.g. the prevalence and impact of discrimination, the existence of anthropogenic climate change); and share this knowledge to inform public understanding of and discussions about these issues. Scholars can be academics at universities, members of research organisations (e.g. OurWatch), or, in some cases, organisations that share data about the prevalence and impact of social problems (e.g. Children by Choice publishing reports about the prevalence of Domestic Violence among their clients seeking terminations). Scholars’ ability to uniquely access and share this information can help to inform the general public’s understanding of social problems, fight misinformation, convince relevant stakeholders about the importance of an issue, and proffer evidence-based solutions. Indeed, social justice research can be used to successfully challenge and dismantle institutional prejudice and foster transformative social change by informing public policy and interventions.

The Teacher
An oft-overlooked role in social change is that of the teacher: a person who can foster civic engagement through formal education (e.g. primary, secondary, and/or tertiary education) or informal education (e.g. service-learning opportunities). Formal, classroom based educational interventions promote engagement with political issues and voting, while service-learning increases interest and participation in community-based action. Further, educational interventions can also be used to reduce prejudice toward disadvantaged groups. Thus, taking an active role in shaping people’s understanding of politics and social issues can positively influence their attitudes and political participation.

The Constituent
Constituents, or the general public, are often the numerical majority in social movements. They can include people who are sympathetic to but not committed to participating in actions for social change, or people who disagree with and resist social change messages. Unsurprisingly, constituents can greatly sway the progress of social movements, in that the attitudes and values they choose to adopt or reject influence the outcomes of state and federal elections, the types of laws and policies that governments and industries support, and broader norms in society. Thus, constituents have the power to elect leaders who support social change, call out unfair treatment and subvert anti-egalitarian norms, and support organisations and brands that make ethical choices (e.g. cruelty free cosmetics). Perhaps most importantly, other changes agents must make a considered effort to ensure that constituents have the information and support they need to make informed decisions and use their civic, relational, and economic powers effectively.

Moving Forward
Although the number and nature of these roles will likely vary between movements and socio-political contexts, they represent the diverse yet equally important forms of change agent work that can enhance the impact and effectiveness of social movements. The question now is: what role(s) do you play? How can you harness your unique skills and forms of influence to aid social change? Regardless of your answer, remember that just because you haven’t attended a protest or blocked oncoming traffic doesn’t mean that you aren’t a change agent.

 - By Morgana Lizzio-Wilson

Disruptive protests gain media attention. For many people, this media attention might be the first time they learn of a particular social or environmental movement.

This tactic and resulting media coverage often prompt predictable responses from the public and officials. Why, some ask, are protestors blocking roads instead of standing on the pavement educating people? Why protest if they don’t have a solution?

But herein lurks a pervasive misconception of what activism actually is. Acts of civil disobedience enable awareness of a movement to bubble to the surface of daily life because they are newsworthy. However, this media attention can mask the years of relentless campaigning which builds the scaffolding to sustain these moments of shock. This scaffold is the groundwork done by the foot soldiers of a movement. Work done day after day, year after year, labouring at the often unseen toil that is the bread and butter of activism: recruiting volunteers, educating people and creating solutions.

These tactics aren’t newsworthy. And sometimes to activists, they may feel like failure, creating the justification for the emergence of radical action. Does that mean that this toil was futile? Or, as argued by Extinction Rebellion, that tactics are now only just beginning?

Coordinated acts of civil disobedience do not emerge spontaneously from an empty well.
Take the American civil rights movement. Yes, Rosa Park’s determination to hold her bus seat created an iconic moment which helped galvanise the movement towards its goals. However, Rosa Parks was a long-term activist who, for decades, fought relentlessly against school segregation, wrongful convictions of black men, and anti-voter registration practices.  Many other people had, in fact, held bus seats before her. She was one of thousands, many of whom, like her, were on the verge of exhaustion after perceiving that their years of activism had produced little change.

We could look at any moment of newsworthy radical action and find parallels. Take the Salt March, an iconic moment of disobedience is now inextricably linked to the success of the Indian Independence movement. Organised as a defiant act against British rule in India, it was however, just one of the many tactics used in the 90 long years of struggle.

Here in Australia, recent acts of civil disobedience for climate change action have emerged from a rich and vibrant foundation of environmentalism. Thousands of groups have been running thousands of campaigns across an array of issues. Activists have engaged in radical action against mining, logging and other destructive environmental practices for many years, using a diverse range of tactics for their cause. What were these tactics? Building groups, training volunteers, handing out flyers, organising workshops, visiting politicians, contacting polluting companies, developing policy frameworks.

These tactics can successfully generate change. Almost half of the campaigns focussed on climate change achieved their goals, without the use of civil disobedience.
As social change researchers we look to understand the potential of tactics to generate change. But when we research activism, it is important to look beyond the headlines.

Civil disobedience is not where ‘tactics begin’. As a movement works to raise awareness, create sympathy, motivate intentions to act, and ensure implementation, civil disobedience may instead be the end of the beginning.

 - By Robin Gulliver

When you think about what you might learn by completing a PhD, it’s natural that you might focus on the most obvious outcome: expertise in the research topic. Sure, it is true that by the end of your PhD you will know a lot about your chosen topic but what you might not realise is that, along the way, you will also learn other important skills that are completely unrelated to the research topic. Here are the top 3 things that I learnt:

1. Dealing with uncertainty
By the very nature of a research PhD, you aren’t sure what the outcome of your research is going to be when you start. The reason why you are doing the research in the first place is to answer an as yet unanswered question! Importantly however, you will realise that while sometimes your studies work out and sometimes they don’t, your PhD rolls on regardless of the outcome. So you learn to deal with the uncertainty and push on. This is a great skill to have when you are starting a new job or a new project. During such times you will inevitably feel unsure or uncertain but knowing that, with hard work and perseverance, the moment will pass is reassuring.

2. Dealing with the imposter syndrome
I originally titled this sub-heading ‘Overcoming the imposter syndrome’ but that would not be true. By the end of my PhD I had not overcome the imposter syndrome but I did get to a place where it would not stop me from doing what needed to be done. What I learnt was that EVERYONE suffers from imposter syndrome, from students through to professors. Those that succeed in their careers have simply learnt how to ‘handle it’. Some tips that have helped me to ‘handle it’ are:

• Talking about my fears with my peers
• Accepting my achievements
• Reminding myself that I earnt my place in the program
• Realising that people don’t think you are ‘stupid’ when you ask them questions. In fact they like it when you ask them questions because it shows that you are interested!

3. Time and project management skills
For 99% of people, completing a PhD will be the longest, hardest and most complex project that they have undertaken in their career to date. So don’t underestimate the skills that you gain in terms of time and project management.  You might have to learn some of those lessons the hard-way but by the end of your PhD you will have a greater understanding of what it takes to manage your time and what project management systems (software, lists, charts etc) work for you.

In the end, like an increasing number of PhD graduates, I now have a job outside of academia unrelated to my PhD topic. Not once have I felt that those years were wasted. I use the skills that I learnt and draw almost daily from the countless amazing people that I met throughout my PhD. And mostly I am grateful for the opportunities that completing a PhD afforded me, beyond my topic expertise. And if you ever need to talk to an expert in community engagement with stormwater imagery – you know where to find me ;-)

    -   By Tracy Schultz

​“Tell the truth and act as if the truth is real” – so goes the slogan of Extinction Rebellion (XR), a new international movement started in London in October 2018.  The statement points to a discrepancy between the dire state of our environment and the lack of a real sense of emergency.

While the majority of Australians’ understanding of the urgent need for action against climate change is reflected in their various every-day behaviours, there is still a lack of engagement in collective action for the environment. Despite the rise in individuals’ environmentally friendly behaviours, emissions continue to rise year after year.  With 82% of all government subsidy still concentrated in ‘Clean Coal’, it’s clear that public policy still doesn't go far enough.  While it might be more appealing to focus on improving our every-day behaviour as individuals, some argue that the pervasive messaging to get us to live our ‘best green life’ is actually a distraction designed to keep us content and away from collective action.   However, there is a recent collective awakening about the need for systemic change over just changes in individual behaviour.
​
These desperate times see the rise of more desperate measures of collective action such as non-violent civil resistance. Its practices and successes can be traced back to the Suffragettes, the American Civil Rights Movement, and LGBTQ movements. The specifics and strategies of civil resistance movements vary depending on their purpose and contextual factors. 

In this post, we’ll focus on civil resistance in the context of climate change action. The key principles remain similar across the movements:
​

• Non-violent.  This is rule number one. Non-violent campaigns are two times more likely to succeed, and they are more able to attract participants, as peaceful activities are more inclusive towards the young, the old, and the vulnerable.  Also, while the repression of peaceful protestors often elicits sympathy from the public and attracts a higher level of support from the local and global community, violent protests may legitimize the escalation of the authorities’ repression, resulting in higher costs to protestors and reduced support for the cause.  

 

• Mass participation.  When a movement mobilizes a large number of people from diverse ethnic, religious, class and political backgrounds, the movement has increased leverage. Strategically, a high number of protestors will be more effective at overwhelming the capacity of police and the courts to hold activists for long periods. This discourages officers from pursuing charges, thus limiting the punitive power of the state. Cross-group participation decreases the authority’s ability to isolate and repress specific groups. Further, participation of people from different walks of life that dis-confirm stereotypes of environmental activists also improves media optics and makes the movement more resistant to stigmatization. In the event of repression, a more diverse group evokes more sympathy and outrage from observers.   The key challenge of activists is to build bystanders’ solidarity.  Demonstrating the identities and values that activists hold in common with audiences is a critical step on the road to success.

 

• Relevant audiences. Disruption is more effective in capital cities, as these are typically where national and international media are based. Just as labor strikes are effective against companies, closing down capital cities may be effective against governments.  The inconvenience and disruption to the local populace and businesses is unavoidable. This can be harmful to the movement, so it’s important to inform the public about the urgency of the situation and the rationale behind the disruption.  Prolonged disruption should be prewarned so emergency services can be rerouted.  

 

• Law-breaking. Economic cost to the public, the government, and the elites is crucial for forcing attention and response. The intensity of government’s responses vary widely between countries and so do the physical, emotional and economic costs to activists. Willingness to incur personal costs (e.g., arrest) from engaging in illegal activities shows the public and the authorities that you’re serious. But there are risks too.  If the audience isn’t sympathetic and the movement is small, law-breaking risks discrediting your message.  Law-breaking dramatically highlights a difference of values instead of shared values and identity, and that may be alienating to the public and more moderate activists. 

 

• Continuous. To exponentially increase the economic cost inflicted on the government, and communicate the commitment of the movement, disruption has to be sustained until the powers that be are forced to the negotiation table, and the goal is more or less achieved. Disruptive movements run the risk of petering out in the face of stalemates and state repression.  Understanding the need for longevity, movements may benefit from placing great importance on constant recruiting, and on the upkeep of their members’ mental and physical well-being.  

Given the disruptive nature of civil resistance, public opinions can be quite divided.  But if the sizes of the recent School Climate Strikes are anything to go by, the public’s appetite for drastic changes is growing rapidly, and this may come with corresponding greater support, or at least acceptance, of civil disobedience for climate change action.  Environmental movements have to work to ensure that the political capital from mass mobilization for action isn’t wasted, as policy makers attempt to turn the conversation away from addressing climate change towards the law-breaking. Allies, policy makers, and the public have to be continually reminded that the story is about the science, the urgency of change, and the mass support for that change.  Meanwhile, it’s up to the civil disobedience movements to galvanize support by informing the public about the movement’s rationale and considerations, and being inclusive of allies with varying political persuasions and beliefs. Regardless of whether you support civil disobedience or prefer more moderate activism, if there is a time to want more from our political system, the time is now.

   -   Hannibal Thai

"I am vegetarian" - this statement doesn’t just communicate personal eating habits, but also one’s membership in a group of people who distinguish themselves from the meat-eating society through personal values and attitudes. As the proverb “You are what you eat” goes, there are correlations between one’s diet, be it vegan or vegetarian, and one’s personality and values. Recently, there has been a rise in research into the "veggie personality". Veggie is used informally in some countries, such as the UK or Germany to refer to vegetarians. In this context, the term encompasses both vegetarians and vegans.

This article will give a short overview of the current state of research on the so-called “veggie personality”.
Research in the West shows that veggies tend to be educated, young, and female. But why are older people, less educated individuals, and males, significantly less willing to reduce their meat consumption and more likely to hold negative attitudes towards veggies.
 
Veggies buck tradition
Being a veggie means rejecting the consumption of meat or all animal products but in the West these foods often form part of a country’s traditions. Those who hold more tightly to traditions and are less open to new experiences will be more opposed to a veggie diet. This is supported by various studies showing that veggies differ from their meat-eating counterparts (omnivores) in important attitudes and personal characteristics. For example, veggies tend to be more politically liberal and less attached to traditions than omnivores. This may also explain the positive connection between a veggie diet and higher education as compared to less highly educated people, more highly educated people tend to be more politically liberal.
 
Try new things… become a Veggie
Additionally, veggies are more open to new experiences than omnivores. Meaning, they are more curious and unconventional, more likely to challenge existing social structures, and more likely to try new things, like new diets. Therefore, findings that show openness tends to decrease with age may explain why older people are less likely to opt for a veggie diet. 
 
The Veggie worldview and masculinity
Veggies also tend to have more universal world view than meat-eaters. They support values such as peace, social justice, and equality - which they also extend to animals. For example, veggies generally ascribe more complex emotions to animals than do omnivores. They are more concerned about animal welfare, donate more to animal benefit organizations, and make greater efforts to preserve and protect the environment.

The consumption of meat contrasts with the above-mentioned values as it signifies human’s dominion over animals.  Even in modern, largely gender-equal societies, men are more likely to value dominance and power than women are. Veggie men are perceived as less masculine compared to omnivorous men because masculinity is associated with meat. That makes it harder to reduce meat consumption for men ​than for women. More broadly, social and cultural norms contribute to the gender, generation, and political group differences mentioned above, as different groups have different learned rules or standards for their behaviour, including eating.

In summary, the "veggie personality" encompasses a range of personality traits, political, and moral attitudes including being politically liberal, having high openness, valuing social justice and equality. These moral concerns are also extended to animals which make the consumption of meat and animal products incompatible with the “veggie personality”.  Many aspects of the veggie personality run counter to traditional normative framing of masculinity. Thus women are overwhelmingly more likely to reduce their meat consumption compared to men. As society moves away from archaic notions of gender roles and embraces more universal values, hopefully we will achieve the much-needed reduction in global meat consumption.      

• By Elena Gessau Kaiser

Elena Gessau Kaiser came from the University of Würzburg in Germany to intern with the Social Change Lab and Kelly Fielding for 6 weeks from March - April, 2019.  She road-tripped from Adelaide to Darwin with her boyfriend Paul in their trusty Pajero - the Punisher.  Elena likes rock climbing and salt in her food. She’s hoping to start her Masters in Psychology in Germany in October. 

According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), one-third of women globally have experienced some form of domestic abuse at some point in their lives. Domestic violence has become a global epidemic, and it’s not just a problem for women. Men too can be victims of domestic abuse.
 
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to combating domestic violence is that a significant majority of the victims are afraid to speak out — with less than 40 percent of survivors seeking help of any kind. Domestic violence can take many forms but at its core, it’s all about power and control.
 
Tech abuse, a new breed of domestic abuse enabled by technology, is on the rise as exhibited by the increase of news stories and articles focusing on how abusers use technology to coerce and control their victims. However, while technology can be used by abusers to violate, exploit, monitor, coerce, threaten, and harass their victims, it can also be a helpful resource for survivors of domestic violence.
 
Double-Edged Sword
Technology has the potential to be a double-edged sword for those experiencing domestic violence. Victims of domestic violence can use tech solutions to protect themselves from tech-facilitated domestic abuse. In this article, we’ll look at how technology can be used to facilitate abuse and how survivors of domestic violence can leverage it to regain control of their lives. Read on to find out more.
 
Five Examples of Tech-Enabled Domestic Violence
Let’s start with examples of how technology can be used to facilitate domestic abuse. It is not surprising that technology now plays a major part in domestic violence given the ubiquity of digital communications. Some of the most common instances of tech-facilitated domestic abuse include:

1. Stalking and harassment on social media. This includes stalking of current partners, friends, children, and family members.  
2. Surveillance software or spyware installed on the victim’s phone without his/her/their consent and used as a means to control them.  
3. Tracking of the whereabouts of the victim via smartphone GPS or GPS installed on a vehicle.  
4. Control of the victim’s email or online banking accounts.  
5. Threatening calls, texts, or emails.

 
The act of harassment, tracking, and monitoring through technological devices can heighten the victim’s sense of isolation and imprisonment in the relationship. Even after the relationship has ended, technology-enabled domestic violence can make a victim feel as though the abuser is omnipresent in his or her life. So, what can survivors of tech-enabled domestic violence do to regain control over their lives?

Five Ways to Regain Control From Tech-Enabled Domestic Violence

     1.   Ensure That There Are No Bugs in Your Device
Often, abusers install surveillance apps and spyware onto their victims’ devices (smartphones and computers) so that they can track their whereabouts and know what they are up to at all times. If you are in suspicion that someone has installed tracking software or spyware on your device, restore factory settings to get rid of it.
     2.   Sweep for GPS Trackers in Your Car
 If you are not a car expert, it may be hard to detect any physical modifications to your car. Hire a professional (a mechanic, for instance) to sweep for bugs and GPS trackers in your vehicle.
     3.   Encrypt Your Communications  
Always use encrypted communication platforms when possible. A majority of messaging apps such as Viber, Telegram, and WhatsApp have encryption features that make it impossible for stalkers and abusers to access your messages even if they take control of your phone.
     4.   Secure Your Online Accounts
 This includes your email, online banking, and social media accounts. Perpetrators of domestic violence often use social media to stalk their victims. Use two-factor authentication to prevent the intrusion of your online accounts.
     5.   Secure Your Bank Account
 As stated earlier in the article, domestic violence is all about exerting tyrannical power and control over others. When an abuser takes control of your finances, it's easy for them to keep you under their control. That’s why survivors of domestic violence should strive to secure their bank accounts and maintain financial independence.
 
Domestic violence is a global epidemic affecting millions of people in different parts of the world. Domestic violence ruins lives and, in some cases, it takes them. Today’s technology gives abusers a myriad of ways to stalk, isolate, and control their victims. The good news is that survivors of domestic violence can use the same tech to fight back and regain control of their lives.

    -   By Ophelia Johnson @https://www.techwarn.com/
 
Note – Techwarn reached out to socialchangelab.net about publicising some of the problems and solutions available for  technology facilitated abuse.  We don’t know Ophelia personally, but we are excited to support awareness-raising in this important area.  Thanks for your contribution Ophelia and Techwarn!

In the early stage of my career, I attended an evening social event arranged as part of an annual meeting of a flagship society in social psychology. Along with a couple of hundred social psychologists and many non-psychologists (if I recall correctly, we shared the event with insurance conference attendees), I sat down to enjoy what promised to be roaring, hilarious comedy show. However, first came the warm-up comedian.

His entire act consisted of jokes about gay and lesbian people. He played on stereotypes, tugged at emotions like disgust, and flamboyantly acted out stereotypic caricatures. My fellow social psychologists and I sat with stunned expressions. I decided to leave, and my route out took me past the stage. Without forethought and in front of everyone, I caught the attention of the comedian and asked, “Do you have a different act? This one is awful! Don’t you have something that isn’t offensive, that doesn’t play on stereotypes?” He responded, “Oh, are you a lesbian?” I stormed out of the room. Others told me that he hobbled to a finish, and the main act that followed was great.

Meanwhile, I was shook. I did not regret speaking up. In addition to being personally committed to egalitarianism and non-prejudice, I knew that research had shown repeatedly that disparaging humor about groups creates, maintains, and perpetuates bias and discrimination. However, what would people think of me? Would I be branded a troublemaker, overly sensitive, and overemotional?

No doubt, part of what spurred me to confront the comedian derived from the fact that I had recently embarked on research concerning the power of confrontation for curbing group-based biases. I have continued this line of research, along with many other researchers, across the past 15 years or so. We now know a good deal about how to navigate successful confrontations.

Confrontation of stereotypes and prejudice is important for two reasons. First, confrontation can help people become aware of their own biases. Often people may not realize they have said or done something that reflects stereotyping or prejudice, and they may be personally motivated to change when a confrontation helps them to become aware of their biases. Second, confrontation makes social norms against bias salient. Even if someone personally has no problem with their biases, a confrontation can signal that such biases are neither socially acceptable nor tolerated. For “the average person” (e.g., excluding extremist hate groups), note is taken of the norms, and the desire to fit in can encourage less biased responding.

The bottom line from confrontation research is that confrontation curbs people’s expressions of bias. For instance, studies have shown that participants who are confronted about their stereotypic inferences (for example, assuming a Black man who is described as being around drugs a lot is a “drug addict” or “criminal” rather than as a “pharmacist” or “doctor”) feel disappointed with themselves and guilty. These emotions motivate them to recognize situations in which they may respond in biased ways later and to redirect to respond in non-biased ways.

However, findings also suggest that some confrontations are more effective at curbing bias than others. When Blacks confront racism, or when women confront sexism, people may dismiss the confronters as overreacting. However, when Whites confront racism, or men confront sexism, they are taken more seriously and are ultimately more effective at curbing others’ bias. This research underscores the critical role that allies can play. People may think, “What would my saying something actually do?” Studies show that speaking up can do much good.

We also find that confrontations of racism curb bias more readily than do confrontations of sexism. Whereas social norms against race bias are very strong, many people (men and women alike) assume they cannot possibly be biased against women (“But I LOVE women!”). Consequently, studies indicate that providing people with evidence that their inferences, judgments, or behaviors actually are unfair and discriminatory is critical to the effectiveness of confrontation in the case of sexism. In my lab, we think of this as a greater burden of proof being required for effective confrontations of sexism.

Finally, studies have revealed one should be assertive in confrontations, and that confrontations with a motivational framing are more effective than simply pointing out bias. For instance, saying, “That’s prejudiced” may even backfire, because people react poorly to having their non-prejudiced self-image impugned. However, what does work is framing a confrontation as having the choice to be fair and egalitarian. For instance, if someone says something stereotypic about Latinx people, you might say, “You may not be aware, but that’s just a stereotype of Latinx people that we see in social media. We can treat people equally by not stereotyping Latinx people in that way.” This sort of statement may lead to dialogue in which the stereotype, fairness, and treating people equally can be discussed further.  

Knowing about these findings is important because people are more likely to confront bias if they believe that other people can and often do change. Getting a confrontation started can be challenging; perhaps the opportunity slips by while we consider our words. However, confrontations can occur through conversations that start with, “Wait, what did you say?” and then continue with dialogue that unfolds with the use of assertive but non-threatening language.  People also can prepare themselves for confrontation by practicing or role-playing confrontation scenarios.  

At this point you may ask, “All of this is fine and good, but what about the costs you mentioned earlier? I can’t afford to be thought of as a troublemaker or as oversensitive!” Studies do indicate that people confronted by a stranger evaluate their confronter more negatively and are less desirous of future interactions, relative to someone who did not confront. However, these negative interpersonal outcomes do not interfere in the least with bias reduction.  So yes, there are social costs, which means a question remains: is it more important for you to be liked as much as possible or to have a chance to change their behavior?

So if you are seeking change, be a confronter. As American novelist Margaret Halsey wrote in 1946 in relation to racism, “One of the less dismaying aspects of race relations in the United States is that their improvement is not a matter of a few people having a great deal of courage. It is a matter of a great many people having just a little courage.”

 - Guest post by Margo Monteith

Margo J. Monteith grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, attended Moorhead State University (B.A.) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Ph.D.). Her academic posts have been at Texas Tech University (1992-1994), University of Kentucky (1994-2006) and Purdue University (2006-present).

This post is previously published on the Society of Personality and Social Psychology; Character and Context Blog

Historically, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy with a prime minister serving as the head of government since the democratic revolution in 1932. However, throughout the almost 90 years since the revolution there has been a tradition of military seizure of power from the civilian government. As part of this tradition, Thailand has now been governed by a military junta for more than 5 years.

The most recent political turmoil began in 2005 when the previously popular, second term prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra sparked a large public protest due to his financial dealings. The prolonged protest steered Thailand back under military rule and Thaksin ended up fleeing the country. This event led to political friction for the Thai people between the so-called Yellow and Red shirts (those who were against the Shinawatra family versus those who supported them, respectively). Alternating protests against one another continued over eight years, followed by a series of violent responses from the government against their opponents.

After a few years without military control, political turmoil peaked again in 2013 due to the announcement of a proposed amnesty bill by the Yingluck government in an attempt to help bring her brother Thaksin home. This ignited a large demonstration by the opponents (the Yellows) which advocated for, and eventually led to, another military coup.

Until that point in time, Thailand’s politics were informally seen as a two-party system. However, party identities of Thai people were not only tied by personal attitudes and ideologies, but were also tied to morals and non-political identities such as social class. As a result, disputes over politics could potentially put a person at risk of losing friends or jobs.

This year (2019), after 5 years under the military regime, Thailand managed to hold another election. One of the important occurrences during this election was a dramatic drop in popularity of the two major political parties. According to unofficial election results1, both parties had lost about 40% (16 million votes) of their supporters compared to the previous election in 2005. The lost voters had swung to support several newly formed parties. Of those new parties, Anakodmai (meaning ‘new future’) was the most popular party2 which successfully won 80 seats in the parliament in its first election. The party was portraying itself as a fresh ‘new blood’ party and offered to be an alternative choice for people who had lost trust in old-style politics.

The success of this new party has unleashed the country from a two-party system. Even though Thailand’s democratic status is still unstable and ambiguous, the 5.8 million votes (out of about 35 million eligible votes) Anakodmai received are at least indicative of ongoing political transitions. At the moment there is not enough data on what motivated Thai people to change their political identity and support. However, this phenomenon suggests that political identity change is possible3 even in a country that has suffered from seemingly unsolvable conflicts. Perhaps a brand-new, alternative choice might be a factor that helped facilitate the process of change in political identity under difficult circumstances.

 - By Gi Chonu

Footnotes:
1 Official results of the 2019 general election have not yet been released.
2 Anakodmai is the only popular party led by a civilian who has never been appointed to a previous political position.
3 Chonu, G. K., Louis, W. R., & Haslam, S. A. (2019). Comparative Motivations behind Political Identity Change versus Continuity. Manuscript in preparation.

The grass is not always greener in my neighbor’s garden… At least, that’s what people seem to think. In fact, when asked about others’ opinions toward sexual minorities’ issues, people tend to overestimate the level of intolerance in their society regardless of their personal views. In Switzerland, for example, residents thought that most other residents, including their neighbors, were intolerant toward same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting. Yet, this was not the case; Swiss residents were actually much more tolerant than what people thought (Eisner, Spini, & Sommet, 2019; Eisner, Turner-Zwinkels, Hässler, & Spini, 2019).

You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that this perception of intolerance might impact on sexual and gender minorities’ well-being. To illustrate, perceptions of an intolerant climate toward sexual and gender minorities might raise expectations of rejection and, therefore, lead to concealment of one’s sexual orientation/gender identity and internalization of stigma. Moreover, perceptions of an intolerant climate might also affect social change processes themselves. Indeed, if you perceive that others in your society are intolerant of sexual and gender minorities, you might be discouraged from engaging in support for social change: “People aren’t ready for social change, thus, a social movement won’t be successful. So, let’s wait a little bit longer before pushing toward greater equality for sexual and gender minorities”. On the other hand, the intolerance you perceive might make you angry. This may lead you to believe that social change cannot be achieved without action: “This situation makes me so angry, we need to engage now because the situation is not getting better”. Hence, perceptions of intolerance could discourage or encourage support for social change.
 
What did we do?
While perceived climate might be relevant in all social movements, perception of others’ intolerance might particularly impact countries in which there are striking legal disparities. In Switzerland (and this might surprise you) sexual and gender minorities still suffer from many legal discriminations, such as being denied the right to marry and adopt. The legal discrimination goes so far that a single person can adopt a child, but as soon as you are in a registered same-sex partnership, you are not allowed to adopt children anymore. Importantly, while both sexual and gender minorities face many legal inequalities, the legal challenges of both groups are different.
 
The present research was tailored to sexual minorities (e.g. homo-, bi-, pansexual people) since up-coming public voting regarding same-sex marriage affects sexual minorities. We tested the basic question of whether perceiving intolerant others discourages and/or encourages support for social change toward greater equality for sexual minorities in Switzerland. We gathered answers in our online questionnaire from sexual minorities (1220 participants) and cis-heterosexuals [1] (239 participants).

What did we find?
Perceiving others to be intolerant actually has a paradoxical impact on one’s support for social change:

1. On one hand, perceptions of an intolerant climate discourage one’s support for social change because sexual minorities and cis-heterosexual allies feel that a social movement will not be successful yet.
2. On the other hand, perceptions of an intolerant climate encourage one’s support for social change because sexual minorities and cis-heterosexual allies are a) angry about inequalities and existing intolerance, b) feel like social change is not naturally bending toward greater equality and, therefore, needs one’s engagement in it.

Thus, our findings provide evidence that perceptions of an intolerant climate can simultaneously dampen and promote support for social change toward greater equality.
 
What does this mean?
Our research shows that the following detrimental effects of perception of an intolerant climate on support for social change must be key considerations when mobilizing for social change:

1. Sexual minorities and allies must not overestimate the intolerance that exists.
2. Legal disparities should be made salient.
3. It must be emphasized that the involvement of every person is key to achieve greater equality for all. 

  - Léïla Eisner & Tabea Hässler
 
This blog post is based on: Eisner, L., Spini, D., & Sommet, N., (2019). A Contingent Perspective on Pluralistic Ignorance: When the Attitude Object Matters. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edz004
Eisner, L., Turner-Zwinkels, F., Hässler, T., & Spini, D., (2019). Pluralistic Ignorance of Societal Norms about Sexual Minorities. Manuscript under review; Eisner, L., Hässler, T., & Settersten, R. (2019). It’s time, act up for equality: Perceived societal norms and support for social change in the sexual minority context. Manuscript in preparation.

[1] The term cis-heterosexuals denotes heterosexual individuals whose gender identity corresponds to their assigned sex.

Lean in! Take a seat at the table! Show the will to lead! Women are often told that this is the way to get ahead in the workplace and overcome inequality. So, what opportunities are available for women in academia to lean in? We know that, within academia, women are more likely to be asked, and to take on, so-called service roles. These roles might indeed lead to a seat at the table, but research shows that these roles are often under-valued when it comes to career progression. But if you’re asked to take on a leadership role – or if, like me, you actually like academic leadership – how can you ensure that ‘leaning in’ enhances your career?

Here are six ‘top tips’ gleaned from my experiences:

1. Be selective

In academia, women are more likely to be asked to take on more ‘nurturing’ roles. This often reflects commonly held stereotypes about what both women and men are ‘good at’. But I’ve found that academic leadership works best if you’re genuinely passionate about your role. When I took on the role of Director of Education in 2012, I truly believed that we could do things better in the department and wanted to focus my energies to improve the student experience. For other people (and I’m going to name drop some of my amazing colleagues here) their passion might be promoting increased access to higher education (Lisa Leaver – also speaking in Soapbox Science Exeter 2019) or promoting women in science (Safi Darden – one of the amazing Soapbox Science organisers). 

2. Negotiate

If you’re asked to take on a leadership role, don’t be afraid to negotiate (especially if it’s clear that none of your colleagues want the role!). Many women don’t negotiate because they recognise, consciously or subconsciously, that negotiating is fraught for women in ways that it is not for men. Indeed, research suggests that women are equally likely to negotiate than men (e.g., asking for a raise), but are much less likely to be successful. Sadly, you are unlikely to get a pay raise for taking on an academic leadership role, but you might be able to negotiate for other benefits, such as a period of study leave at the end of your tenure or additional research support or access to training opportunities (e.g., the Aurora program).

3. Delegate

Full disclosure here: I am very bad at delegating…but this was one of the key lessons I took from my first leadership role as Director of Education into my second role as Director of Research. There are many reasons why it’s important to delegate: if you don’t, and you try to do everything yourself, you will burn out! But delegation is also about communicating trust and confidence in the people around you – that you believe that they will do a good job (even if it’s not exactly the way you would do it!). Delegation is about empowering others. So, if people offer help – take it!  

4. Say no

Full disclosure again: I find it very hard to say no…but we (women) need to do it more often. Throughout my career, I’ve often been rewarded for saying ‘yes’ – sometimes this has led to new collaborations or opportunities and people like you more if you do. But as you progress in your career, saying no to some things allows you to say yes to other things. In the last year, I’ve had a ‘no support group’ with some of my friends – each week we share the tasks we’ve said no to, and we congratulate each other on how we’ve protected our time or saved ourselves from a future obligation.

5. But it is OK to say yes

As I’ve said, I find it hard to say no, and often end up saying yes. I confessed this to my ‘support group’ and my very wise friend noted four considerations when deciding whether to say yes. First, could the person do it themselves, even if it’s inconvenient or difficult? Second, can you do it without neglecting your own responsibilities, relationships, or self-care? Third, are you happy to do it or will you resent it later? Finally, will it help them to be independent or will it make them more dependent in the future? By thinking about these questions, you might find yourself saying yes to optional tasks, but you will be more mindful about it.

6. Do it well
​
To return to the idea of ‘leaning in’, it’s not enough to take your seat and keep it warm. For academic leadership to enhance your career, you need to get stuff done and make a difference. When you take on a role, take time to think about how you can make your workplace a better place (however you define better) and how you can achieve it. Make sure that your achievements are visible (to help your career) and ensure that you’ve put structures in place that will make any impact sustainable after you leave the role (see #3).
 
Being an academic leader is one of the most exciting and rewarding parts of my job – every day I feel like I’m making an important contribution to my discipline and I get to support my colleagues, especially early career researchers, to achieve their goals.   

 - Guest post by Joanne Smith (Twitter: @jorosmith)

Joanne Smith is an Associate Professor and Director of Research in the School of Psychology at the University of Exeter. She was also Director of Education from 2012-2014. Joanne studies how the groups that we belong to influence our behaviour and how we can harness insights from social psychology to promote behaviour change. She studies social influence and behaviour change across multiple domains, with a focus on health and sustainable behaviour. Joanne will take part in our Soapbox Science Exeter event, on Saturday 29th July 2019. There she will talk about “With friends like these: How groups influence our behaviour for better…or for worse”.

This blog post is previously published on Soapbox Science

Have you ever noticed that women are typically the ones spearheading gender equality movements? Think of the suffragettes, the #MeToo, and #TimesUp movements, the March for Women; All fronted by women – but at what cost? Research increasingly shows that relying solely on female leaders is not enough to achieve equality. Perhaps in response to this, there’s been a recent upsurge in male-led initiatives, such as the HeForShe movement, and the Male Champions of Change initiative. Both of these call on men to use their privilege and power to place gender equality on the agenda.
These types of initiatives aren’t just companies taking a stab at something new – they’re backed by social psychological research. For example, two recent studies looking at how leader gender affected individuals’ responses to calls for equality found that men and women were more likely to follow a male leader into action (Hardacre & Subasic, 2018; Subasic et al., 2018). Importantly, the only change between the study conditions was the leader’s name and pronouns (e.g., from “Margaret” to “Matthew”). Below, we talk about some of the reasons why female leaders struggle to mobilise people toward equality.

 “Think manager, think male”: Leadership prototype embodies masculine attributes
In our heads, we hold a 'prototype' of particular categories and roles – a fuzzy set of characteristics, attitudes, and behaviours that define certain groups and occupations. For example, if you were to think of a leader, you might think confident, assertive, and even male. Turns out this “think manager, think male” mindset is pervasive. Numerous leadership theories emphasise the desirability of stereotypically masculine traits in leaders. In fact, female leaders are frequently seen as ineffective because individuals’ ideas of effective leadership overlap with agentic male stereotypes (assertive, dominant), rather than communal female stereotypes (warm, nurturing). Even when female leaders do adopt masculine behaviours (such as those seen as typical of leaders), they face backlash because they’re seen as “violating” their traditional caring stereotype. This signifies a Catch-22 situation whereby female leaders are “damned if they do and doomed if they don’t!”

Female leaders face accusations of self-interest, while male leaders are seen as having something to lose.
It’s also difficult for female leaders of gender equality movements not to appear self-interested and overly invested in their cause (with good reason, given that it IS in their group’s best interests to challenge the status quo!). Essentially, women’s efforts at reducing inequality can be seen as furthering the interests of themselves and their group, and the more women are viewed as trying to benefit their own group, the more cynicism and dismissal they encounter. This can undermine women’s efforts at social change because acts of self-interest are less convincing and influential than acts that seem to oppose one’s best interests. In contrast, because many view gender equality as a zero-sum game, when men challenge gender inequality they’re seen as having something to lose – namely the rights and privilege that accompany their membership of a high-status group. This ultimately affords men greater legitimacy and influence, and therefore greater ability to mobilise followers.

Male leaders possess a shared identity with men and women, while female leaders only share an identity with women.
Possessing a shared identity with those you are trying to mobilise is at the crux of effective leadership, because those considered “us” are considered more influential than “them”. Herein lies another problem for female leaders. In gender equality contexts, male and female leaders both share a cause with women engaged in gender equality movements whilst men benefit from an additional shared social identity with men.. Meanwhile, no such shared identity yet exists for female leaders looking to mobilise a male audience. Instead, they’re seen as outgroup members by men in terms of their gender group membership, but also in terms of shared cause because gender equality is often seen as a women’s issue and of no benefit to men.

Conclusion
Paradoxically, by virtue of their gender and the privileges it permits, male leaders seem to have the ability to undertake gender equality leadership roles and mobilise men and women more effectively than female leaders. Research suggests that, among other reasons, this is due to leadership prototypes typically comprising masculine attributes, female leaders’ inability to escape accusations of self-interest, and male leaders’ possession of a shared identity with both male and female followers. It will be interesting to see how long the male ally advantage persists: in the longer term, effective feminist leadership will presumably eliminate the ironic inequality. 

- Guest post by Stephanie Hardacre (University of Newcastle).

Polarization in society (division into sharply contrasting groups), can be based on race (e.g., White vs Black), nationality (Australians vs Immigrants), religion (Catholics vs Protestants in Northern Ireland), political ideology (conservatives vs progressives), or even a choice in temporary political contestation (Trump’s supporters vs Hillary’s supporters). 

How does polarization develop?

The trajectory of polarization and conflict does not just happen all of a sudden, but rather goes through stages. Professor Fathali Moghaddam has outlined the three main stages of polarization:

1. Group mobilization is when two groups start to perceive an “us” and “them”, and this is coupled with general stereotypes of the other group, which are not yet rigid.
2. Extreme cohesion to “us” involves intense pressure to obey each group’s norms, in addition to aggressive attitudes towards the other groups.
3. Antagonistic identity transformation begins with extreme reactions to perceived threats from other groups. In this phase, people constantly hear about serious threats associated with the other group, creating a cycle of mutual radicalization.   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
Political elections are ripe grounds for polarization as the competition elections allows for each group to intentionally highlight differences that create the “us” vs “them” mentality. In this process biases such as a tendency to interpret evidence as being more robust if it is in line with prior beliefs are used to gather people’s support.
 
Information access and fake news
One process which has the potential to accelerate polarization is the distribution of fake news. During the 2016 US election campaign, hundreds of websites were published in order to strengthen support for one candidate and bring the opposing candidate down. Social media users also propagated a huge number of messages that distorted the facts to voters. However, this is not just a problem in the United States. In Brazil’s 2018 presidential election, a fake voting machine video was retweeted by thousands of social media users after being shared by a right-wing politician. This video was later found to be a hoax.
 
In Indonesia, a politician tweeted about seven containers in one of the ports which were allegedly storing ballot paper pre-marked with votes for one of the candidates. Through his twitter, this politician later asked the police to investigate the information. The tweet raised massive controversy and incited public debates. One group took the information to be fact, while the opposing party reported the politician to the police, accusing him of using technology to spread misinformation.
 
While it is easy to delete a tweet that has been shown to be false, the downstream effect of misinformation is more difficult to fix. It is also challenging to prevent the initial polarization that occurs over a specific issue from developing into more widespread and extreme polarization.

As explained by Professor Moghaddam, extreme polarization develops through extreme in-group cohesion. Ingroup cohesion exacerbates polarization as it creates “social bubbles” in which we only hear information that is in line with our group’s beliefs. Within this process, a closed mindset takes place within a group as a consequence of being bombarded with information with a partisanship bias, or even fake news.  As the fake news provides increasing “evidence” of outgroup threat and ingroup superiority, each side becomes more wedded to its own distorted perspectives. 
 
Preventing the effect of fake news
Stopping fake news from being spread is difficult, and some use it for their own political gain. But, what can people do to protect themselves from the unexpected effects of fake news?
 
We know from studies that education is can be an antidote to fake news. However, we also know that highly educated people can be fooled. For example, some educated people distributed fake news related to politics and religion in the Indonesian elections. Education is extraordinarily important as a buffer against hoaxes and fake news, but the educational process must encourage healthy skepticism for it to be effective.  Without active, educated dissent from misinformation campaigns (even when these favour the ingroup), we can expect the cycle of polarization and mutual radicalization to continue in future.
​

- Susilo Wibisono

​When groups of people actively help each other (“intergroup prosociality”), what is the driving force? Are all types of helping motivated by the same psychological processes? In a recent paper, we delved into these questions by reviewing what we know of intergroup prosociality from a psychological perspective
 
Benevolent support or political activism?
 
When we think of all the ways that people show concern for others, we may start listing things like donating to international aid campaigns, listening to stories of suffering with empathy, or marching in a rally to bring about more equitable conditions for a disadvantaged group. Do all of these stem from the same values or beliefs? In this paper, we argue that there are two different ways people engage in inter-group prosociality - benevolence and activism.
 
Benevolence aims to compassionately alleviate the suffering of others. Acts such as charitable giving, or listening empathetically to the painful experiences of others would fall under this category.
 
Activism aims to create change in social and political systems to bring about greater equality. The focus here is the recognition of harm and disadvantage brought on by systems, and working to challenge these systems through group-level action. Many types of collective action fall into this category.
 
This distinction forms the basis through which we view how groups of people engage in various forms of prosociality. But of course, there are complexities!
 
For example, how should charitable giving be categorised? – Is it benevolence, activism, or both?
 
While charitable giving has been mostly studied in a way that lends itself to the benevolence definition we provided, charitable giving can also be motivated by motives to bring about equality, and giving to charities that are most likely to bring about structural social change.  This argument complicates our traditional view of charitable giving and presents evidence that charitable giving can be both!
 
And what about intergroup contact – What does it have to do with intergroup prosociality?
 
Intergroup contact refers to exchanges between individuals of two different groups, and when it is positive, it has been shown to reduce the prejudice of advantaged group members towards stigmatized groups. Positive contact could be argued to be associated with benevolence rather than activism.
 
Yet recent research on contact has shown that positive contact between advantaged and disadvantaged groups, while reducing the prejudice of advantaged group members, also weakens the disadvantaged groups’ motivations to engage in activism on their own behalf. In this way, contact can reinforce the inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged groups.
 
So what is the solution? Is the choice between mobilizing the disadvantaged group or reducing the prejudice of advantaged groups? Not necessarily. Recent work shows that when the advantaged group acknowledges the inequality and explicitly supports social change, it promotes both groups’ activism as well as positive attitudes. This type of contact has been termed supportive contact. 

Finally, is there a distinction between allyship and solidarity?
 
Although the terms are often used interchangeably, we make the argument that it might be useful to think about how the motives for the two are different. In Allyship, the advantaged group is helping the disadvantaged group because of some benefit to themselves, for example for their own political aims, to conform to their own group’s norms, or to act out their values. However, when one group stands in solidarity with another, it can mean that they feel identified with that group. In other words, allies might feel part of a larger group together with the people they are helping (“we are all Australian”, or “we all want gender equality”).  If there are two different types of motives, we can look at which ones are more common, last longer, or are more likely to spur real change.  For example, maybe allyship motives are more common, but solidarity motives are stronger and more likely to lead to social transformation!
 
The paper also highlights an exciting and emerging trend in solidarity research to move beyond advantaged and disadvantaged group dynamics, and look at how disadvantaged groups engage in solidarity with each other.
 

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/spc3.12436
​For those interested in intergroup relations, this paper details the many ways groups engage in prosociality with one and other. It provides a detailed review of the research and a helpful way to understand and distinguish between benevolence and activism when we consider the ways groups engage in helping with each other.  We look forward to any feedback!

 - Zahra Mirnajafi

This blog post is based on: Louis, W. R., Thomas, E., Chapman, C. M., Achia, T., Wibisoni, S., Mirnajafi, Z., & Droogendyk, L. (2019). "Emerging research on intergroup prosociality: Group members' charitable giving, positive contact, allyship, and solidarity with others." Social and Personality Psychology Compass 13(3): e12436.

Activists are time and resource poor. They create social change by making quick decisions in stressful conditions, and often suffer disproportionately for their efforts.

Given the urgency of our social and environmental challenges, linking activists with the latest research on topics ranging from how to engage in effective communication, to tactical decision making, to activist self-care, is more important than ever. Yet this research is mostly hidden behind paywalls or it is time consuming to acquire and apply. Thankfully, digital technologies offer a new opportunity to bridge the activist-researcher. Throughout my time here in the Social Change Lab, I’ve experimented with piloting effective research dissemination. This has lead me to the development of my website, www.earthactivists.com.au. This website began as a communication vehicle for various projects created during my time as a fellow in the University of Queensland Digital Research Fellowship program.
​
The website is based on an initial dataset of 497 Australian environmental groups and 901 environmental campaigns. Mapped through the Esri ArcGIS online platform, the data and associated map will allow activists to easily view campaigns across all environmental issues, compare the data available on them, and track the campaign outcomes over time. Combined with archives collected on past environmental campaigns, one goal of the project is to create an open and accessible ‘treasure chest’ of information on Australia’s rich and diverse environmental movement.

​Open data can inform what type of activism is more likely to succeed; for example, data collected on over 100 years of protests demonstrates the surprising success rate of non-violent civil resistance as opposed to violence insurgencies. But it can also help enable stronger and more connected activists, reducing the ‘activist fatigue’ experienced through isolation and burnout. To this end, the website hosts stories of women fighting climate change. It also provides insights from experienced environmental campaigners on the highs and lows of activism, how they define success, and how they prioritise and acquire resources for their work.
​
This website, still in its nascent stage, has been informed by international examples of accessible and open data on social change movements. One of the most influential of these examples is the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes Data Project (NAVCO). This publically available dataset, initiated by Erica Chenoweth, has generated findings of international significance about the importance of non-violence civil resistance, and initiated a new research direction in civil resistance. 

Another successful open data initiative is that of the Environmental Justice Atlas (ejatlas.com). Centred on a global map of large scale environmental civil resistance campaigns, the project aims to both serve as a tool for informing activism and advocacy,  and to foster increased academic research on the topic. Containing information on 2,100 environmental justice case studies, this project has international collaborators both contributing to new case studies and utilising existing studies for their activism and research. 

These examples demonstrate the new ways digital technology can be used as a bridge between activists and researchers. We have such a rich history of activists and activism around the globe. Collecting and sharing detailed empirical data about social and environmental collective action can help celebrate the work of those who fought for social and environmental justice in the past. But equally importantly, it can help inform how we can generate the urgent action we need to secure our future. In this time of crisis, bringing activists and researchers together is one more important than ever. 

- Robyn Gulliver

​Who run the world? Girls! (At least according to Beyoncé). The reality, however, is that men still run most of the world, and the fight for gender equality could move a lot faster if they joined in as allies. So how do we get men to become allies?
 
From what we know from the research on allies), advantaged group members are more likely to fight for the disadvantaged group when they identify more strongly with the disadvantaged group. It is also important that they view fighting discrimination as morally important, are angry about the inequality that persists, and feel a sense of efficacy in their ability to bring about change. But something else might be at work too in the case of gender discrimination. 

As we’ve seen in the reactions, such as the hashtag NotAllMen and the backlash to this Gilette ad, men can feel threatened by the push for equality. These reactions tends to be more strong when men are more strongly attached to their group membership as men. In other words, stronger identification with men might make them less likely to act towards achieving equality.
 
Putting this all together, we investigated how we can can mobilise men to reduce discrimination against women. Men’s allyship in gender inequality has mostly been investigated in Western countries, and so we looked at whether these factors would work in Japan and the Philippines, where the degrees of gender inequality differ.  

What did we find out? In both countries, men are more willing to advocate for women when they (1) think gender inequality is an important moral issue and (2) feel like their actions can drive change. We found some interesting differences between Japan and the Philippines: For Filipino men, feeling more connected with women and their struggles was mobilizing (but not for Japanese men). For Japanese men, a stronger connection with men was demobilizing (but not for Filipino men). We suspect this may be a function of the broader context of gender (in)equality. In contexts like the Philippines where women are more visible in the public realm and in leadership roles, the push for equality may be less threatening to men. In contexts like Japan, where inequality is more visible and policies are being enacted to address this, men may feel more threatened, especially when they identify more strongly with their gender.   

, So what does this mean for getting men on board the gender equality train? Here are four tips:

1. Frame discrimination against women as an important moral issue
2. Make men feel a sense of efficacy – that their joint forces can bring about change
3. Redefine the male identity (for instance, shift away from dominance and highlight fighting injustice as central to male identity) and make the road to equality less threatening for men (read: we may have to rethink #MenAreTrash), especially in contexts where discrimination is highly visible

Increase identification with women and with feminist men, especially in contexts where discrimination is less visible (but persistent nonetheless) 

Guest post by Danielle Ochoa (The University of Philippines), Eric Manalastas (The University of Sheffield), and  Makiko Deguchi (Sophia University, Tokio). 

Read the full article: Ochoa, D., Manalastas, E., Deguchi, M., & Louis, W. (2019). Mobilising Men: Ally Identities and Collective Action in Japan and the Philippines. Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology, 13, (14).

Robyn Gulliver 

​You may have heard that a PhD is hard work. It is hard. But it’s also great fun.

PhD students may have a more flexible and rewarding working life than almost anyone else on the planet. Not many jobs pay you to think about big ideas, research what you’re passionate about, and write and talk about your favourite things.
 
Doing a PhD should be a joy. Yet often it feels like a burden.
 
Too many students burn out and drop out before they discover their joy. Through my own PhD journey—now coming to an end—I’ve noticed 3 ways students can make their PhD harder than it needs to be.
 
1.  Expect to know it all
 
The greatest shock when I started my PhD was just how little I knew. I wasn’t on top of all the theories in my field, best practice of research design, the latest statistical techniques, or how to write engaging research papers and persuasive presentations. My mediocrity felt overwhelming.
 
I still haven’t perfected those things, but I have learnt to think of my PhD as a training program. Not knowing is an opportunity, not a weakness. Students who expect to know it all may feel overwhelmed and find it hard to stick their PhD out.
 
2.  Work all the time
 
Precisely because there is so much to learn, it can feel as if you’re constantly on the back foot, fighting to keep up. This can lead to some mad, workaholic hours. And to sickness, sadness, and general breakdown.
 
Nothing is fun all the time, especially not your research. There’s always more to do but if you don’t take the time to destress, recharge, and socialise you risk losing sight of the reason you do your work. Students who don’t take time off regularly may find themselves taking time off permanently.
 
3.  Avoid feedback
 
Many students avoid chances to present their work and receive critical feedback. Whether it’s a research talk to the lab or a draft manuscript, some of us actively avoid hearing how we’re doing. Sadly, by avoiding early feedback we actually increase the odds of receiving crushing reviews.
 
If you present your ideas when they are still being formed, then critical engagement is a boon. It helps to shape your thinking and minimises flaws and oversights. If, on the other hand, you wait until your ideas have crystallised, your studies are conducted, and your manuscript is drafted, the very same critiques can be crushing. Students who fear negative feedback may avoid exposing their work to critique. When they do finally receive it, such feedback may damage them more.
 
Though certainly challenging, a PhD is an amazing opportunity to have a fulfilling and flexible work life, for a period of years. That said, research life is rife with challenges. By avoiding these three common ways students make their PhD harder than necessary, you can lift the odds of having a positive experience at graduate school.

- Cassandra Chapman  

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Note: This article was previously published in the SPSSI Forward newsletter

As for many other nations, gender equality in Australia has increased significantly over the last century. By 1923, all women in Australia had the right to vote and stand for parliament. In 1966, women earned the right to continue employment in the public sector after marriage through the removal of the marriage bar (a ruling that barred women from working in many careers after marriage). Female workers in Australia were granted the right to equal pay in 1969, and the 1996 Workplace Relations Act required men and women to receive equal pay for equal work.

Whilst inequalities do persist, (e.g., the average Australian woman is earning 85c for every dollar earned by men) there is considerable support for gender equality in the public sphere. However, there is less support for gender equality in private life. An Australian attitudes survey found that 16% of Australians believe men should take control in relationships and be the head of the household, 25% of Australians believe that women prefer men to be in charge of the relationship, and 34% believe it’s natural for a man to want to appear to be in control of his partner in front of his male friends.
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This issue of gender inequality in the public versus the private sphere has come to the forefront of public discussion recently. The debate around the equal distribution of household chores and caregiving responsibilities is occurring both here and abroad.  Heterosexual Australian women average seven hours more housework per week than their male partners. This inequality often starts in childhood, with female children often expected to take on more chores than their male siblings. In adult relationships, habits started in the early stages of the relationship can further increase unequal responsibilities. In this stage, women are more likely to be at home looking after children and cleaning up the house. This dynamic continues even after the female partner returns to work.

 
Early exposure to unequal gender roles and failure to establish equitable dynamics in the early stages of the relationship, can lead to unequal expectations of men and women in romantic relationships.  There is light being shed on the double standard regarding expectations of men and women. For example, men are praised for completing chores and looking after their children, when women are simply expected to do these things. As one father noted, the disproportionate praise heaped on men for simply interacting with or looking after their children is not only unfair for women, but condescending to men.

Not only do these disparities reinforce unequal gender roles, limiting both men and women, but they may play a role in domestic abuse. When the onus of responsibility for domestic tasks is put onto women, this expectation may be used to justify abusive responses to a failure to maintain standards. For example, if a house is untidy, or a child gets sick or injured, instead of simply acknowledging it as something that happens, it can be viewed as the female partner’s fault, and the female partner’s failure to fulfil their role. Obviously, this is not the case for most relationships, but inequality in the home may be seen by some as legitimising abuse.

Unequal home dynamics may also alter the perceptions of work. For example, even if both partners in a heterosexual relationship engage in paid work, emphasis on the female partner’s domestic responsibilities reinforces the idea that the man should be the primary income earner. This also highlights that his career is more important than hers. If the woman’s income or career success exceeds her partner’s, this may result in her partner reinforcing greater inequality in the home in an attempt to retain a feeling of power and control.
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The recent public discussion of gender equitable distribution of domestic responsibilities raises the question: Why did it take so much longer for equality in the home to become a priority in a nation that prides itself on progressive attitudes regarding gender equality? Perhaps the persistence of gender inequality in the home reflects residual hidden sexism in a culture where the beliefs may not have held pace with changing public norms. 

- Kiara Minto 

People often categorise themselves as either politically conservative or liberal. From a social psychological perspective, we often categorise ourselves and compare ourselves with other people. We like to identify who we are, and we do this by distinguishing ourselves from people who belong to other groups.

Conservatism and liberalism are opposite ends of the political spectrum; in our perception nowadays, they are worlds apart. However, conservatism and liberalism are relative, and sometimes even cultural. For example, people in new generations often refer to themselves as less conservative and more liberal than older generations. Westerners may refer to themselves as less conservative and more liberal than Easterners. Being conservative in the American context might be considered liberal in the Chinese context.

What does it actually mean to be more or less conservative (or liberal)? Is this a difference in cognitive processing? Or a social difference that we have picked up from the society around us?
 
Protecting vs. Providing Motivation

Liberals and conservatives differ in what motivates them. Studies with Western samples show that political lefties (liberals or progressives) tend to support policies that provide welfare for societies, whereas political conservatives tend to support policies that aim to protect their country from external harm. Such differences are rooted in the psychological distinction between approach and avoidance motivations.

Approach motivation focuses on how we can gain benefits. In general, this motivation seeks to provide well-being by doing good things for ourselves and for others (prosocial behaviours). People with approach motivation are likely to support individual autonomy and social justice.
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In contrast, avoidance motivation focuses on avoiding harms, and what we should not do. Generally, this motivation seeks to prevent harm and to stop bad behaviours. People with avoidance motivation are likely to be responsive to threat and support social regulations.
 
However, this does not mean that people have only one type of these motivations and not the other. We all have some degree of both motives, and all react to changing situations by adjusting our current motives, but may lean towards one side more overall.
 
More vs. Less Negative Sensitivity

Neurologists and psychologists have found a link between people’s political orientation and sensitivity to negative environments. This is known as the negativity bias. A negativity bias means that humans generally tend to pay more attention to negative things. For example, we are generally quicker at recognising angry faces than happy faces. Even though we all have a negativity bias, the degree of negativity bias may be different from person to person.
 
Researchers found that people with more conservative thoughts are more responsive to negative environments than their counterparts. These people are more likely to support policies that minimise harmful incidents (e.g., anti-refugees) or promote their country’s stability (e.g., support military enforcement, support local businesses).
 
In contrast, people with more liberal thoughts are more willing to support policies that provide social welfare (e.g., free access to medical care) or challenge conventional use of power and authority (e.g., rehabilitation of criminals).
It is important to note that the negative bias is evolutionarily beneficial, and everyone has it to a certain degree. People who live in more conflict-ridden and more dangerous environments may show more negative biases compared to people who live in a safer environment.
 
In summary, conservatism and liberalism are relative; they represent tendencies of thinking and behaviours, rather than absolute, unchanging characteristics. Those tendencies are rooted in individual psychological and physiological differences. However, they are also shaped by the cultural context and responsive to situational forces as well as group norms and leadership. In diverse environments, both conservatism and liberalism can be beneficial to a country.

- Gi Chonu

Rioting occurring after a football match is not an uncommon phenomenon. Longstanding hostility amongst football fan groups is a tradition worldwide. Hooliganism is a term that describes violent behaviour perpetrated by football spectators, and we find the phenomenon occurring across the globe. In extreme circumstances, death can be an outcome of such riots. For example, during Honduras’ 1969 World Cup qualification, 2,100 people died. In Indonesia, the country where I lived previously, hostility between two fan groups occurs between groups from two cities that are close together.
 
The most contemporary case of violent football riots in Indonesia resulted in the death of Haringga Sirila (23 years old) on 23 September 2018.  The young man was a big fan of Persija, a football team of Jakarta. The violent hostility between the two fan groups remains a deep tradition, with seven people from the two groups having died since 2012. This hostility is not an isolated case and similar cases also occur in other cities around the country. However, the question arises: Why do they strike?
 
One line of work examines violent behaviour perpetrated by a group or a mass as “Amok” (or ‘running amok’): an analysis with historical roots in the Malay tradition.
 
A study conducted by Manuel L. Saint Martin of the University of Southern California, attributed this kind of mass violence in South East Asia to mental and personality disorders and extreme psychological distress.  
 
Interpreting mass violence as ‘running amok’ is an explanation that points to feelings of frustration and violence as the effect of social or psychological pressure. But this explanation seems inappropriate to explain football fans’ rioting.
 
So what drives physical violence amongst football fans?
 
Another type of explanation draws on the psychology of groups.  Social psychological research has shown that we have two kinds of identity: personal identity, representing our uniqueness and what distinguishes us from others (I am different from other people), and social identity, usually called a group identity. A social identity allows us to associate and bond with other people (e.g., ‘I am Australian’, or ‘I am a fan of this club’).
 
How are these personal and social identities related to the violence occurring amongst football fans?  A great deal of research is exploring this question. One answer points to the relationship between personal and social identity, a concept called Identity fusion. It is a very deep sense of oneness with a group and its individual members that motivate pro-group behaviours - even personally costly ones.
 
The feelings of identity fusion are not just being strongly bonded with a group, but it is having deep emotional ties with other group members. These bonds are similar to familial bonds. Familial bonding usually occurs in a narrow context (e.g., with members of our nuclear family), but the concept of fusion can be extended to a larger group such as national group, religious group and of course, a football fan group.
 
But how can the feeling of oneness lead to intergroup violence?
 
Work on identity fusion suggests a number of factors facilitate the connection between the sense of oneness and violence. 
 
For example, arousal has been established as a catalyst for those who have strong feelings of oneness with the group to engage in extreme behaviour. An experiment involving 245 students in Spain, showed that in a dodgeball game, stimulating arousal within the group resulted in more extreme behaviour on behalf of his/her group.
 
A second factor is called the personal agency principle, whereby an individual feels that he/she represents the group and is compelled to act on behalf of the group.   Of course, not all pro-group actions are violent!  But when people who feel fused with a group feel frustrated or threatened, the sense of being compelled to act even if extreme actions are needed means violence is more of a risk.
 
The death of a football fan in a riot, as in the case of Haringga, can be explained in this way. In a pre-match situation, the crowds in a stadium can create arousal, increasing the risk of violent behaviour for those whose personal identity is fused to the group, and who experience a sense of personal agency alongside collective threat or frustration.
 
In addition, previous studies show that shared painful past experience amongst group members may also play a role. Along with our colleagues (Martha Newson, Harvey Whitehouse, and Vici Sofiana Putera), we collected the data from 100 people of two conflicting fan groups in Indonesia (Bandung team and Jakarta team). Our focus was on the extent to which the shared painful experiences with fellow members can be a catalyst for the tendency to engage in violent behaviour on behalf of the group.
 
We found that the tendency to act extremely is more likely when a person had experienced feelings of oneness with the group, and especially when the members shared a painful past experience. In football rivalries, we know that, the fans of the two teams competing with each other, have shared the painful experience of violence from the other group. When one group’s violence promotes the second group’s fusion, which in turn is linked to their extremism or violence, a vicious cycle is initiated.
 
What can be done to stop violence among highly fused fans?
 
Identity fusion seems to rely on very strong ties, that are almost impossible to defuse. So, an “extreme’ approach to preventing violent associated with identity fusion is to dissolve the group itself. But, in most cases, this approach cannot be implemented. A more feasible approach may be changing the norm of the fan groups – i.e., their standards or rules for pro-group action.
 
Some football fans have norms of supporting hostility and violence. The key may be to change these norms, with the help of the football team itself and the football regulation boards, to promote positive norms. One example would be using the match as a way to raise funds for natural disaster victims around the country, or for children impacted by cancer, is a potential way to slowly and sustainably change the hostile norm associated with the match with a caring norm. The view of the competition is shifted so it is not only about the number of goals scored by the players, but also about the funds collected by the fans. This would strengthen the injunctive norm that football fans contribute positively to society. Similarly, many positive values such as fairness, peace and justice can be clearly seen in good sportsmanship, and if we promote these values, we can help fans groups to also extend these values to their rival teams.

- Susilo Wibisono & Whinda Yustisia

*The article is a version of an article written for and published by The Conversation Indonesia, on Sept 28, 2018.

​This blog post is the third summarising a special issue of PAC:JPP on the role of social movements in bringing about (or failing to bring about!) political and social transformation.  I co-edited the special issue with Cristina Montiel, and it is available online to those with access (or by contacting the papers’ authors or via ResearchGate).  Our intro summarising all articles is also online ‘open access’ here, along with the first two blog posts, dealing with tipping points or breakthroughs in conflict and the non-linear nature of social transformation and the wildly varying timescales.  Some of these themes are also dealt with in a 2018 chapter by our group  *. 

The overall aim of the special issue was to explore how social movements engage in, respond to, or challenge violence, both in terms of direct or physical violence and structural violence, injustice, and inequality. As well as the six papers summarised previously, there were four fascinating additional pieces by Montiel, Christie, Bretherton, and van Zomeren.  Together the authors take up important questions about who acts, what changes, and how social transformation is achieved and researched, which I review below.

Who can participate in the scholarship of transformation?
Montiel’s (2018) piece “Peace Psychologists and Social Transformation: A Global South Perspective,” identifies barriers to full participation in the scholarship of peace. These barriers often include a relative lack of resources, and exposure to military, police, and non-state violence and trauma.  In publishing, scholars and universities in the Global South face a difficult political environment in which both their silence and their speech may affect their careers and even their lives.  More routinely, selection bias by journals to privilege the theoretical and methodological choices and agendas of the Global North marginalises the research questions that are most pressing, or most unfamiliar to WEIRD readers (Western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic; Heinrich et al., 2010). In the short term, Montiel calls for professional bodies to open schemes for developing academics from the Global South; and for peace psychologists to co-design projects and conduct analyses and writing with southern scholars to allow a wider range of voices and ownership of the project.
 
What is it that changes in social transformation?
Van Zomeren’s (2018) piece “In search of a bigger picture: A cultural-relational perspective on social transformation and violence”, takes up his selvations theory as a springboard for understanding social transformation.  He conceives the self as akin to a subjective vibration within a web of relationships (a selvation), which would both influence and be influenced by changing societies.  Drawing on his earlier work on culture and collective action (e.g., van Zomeren & Louis, 2017), he suggests that the central challenge of the social psychology of social transformation is keeping the micro, meso, and macro-level variables in the same frame, and allowing emergent relationships within theoretical models.    
In the van Zomeren model, the decision-making self is embedded within relationships, with the regulation of those relationships a central goal of the actor.  Thus relational norms for violence (or peace) become proximal predictors of change – which in turn rest on wider social norms and expectations of opponents’ actions (see also Blackwood & Louis, 2017). Violence may affirm or contradict the relationship models of the actors creating social change, which manifests as changing relationships with others: movement co-actors, targets, and the broader community.  Christie and Bretherton, below, also echo the contention that it would be useful for scholars and practitioners to consider more deeply how social change involves changing relationships and the self.
 
Five Components of Social Transformation
Christie (2018) presents an analysis of effective social transformation movements, arguing that there are five components that campaigners and scholars must engage.  A systemic approach is the foundation of social transformation, he proposes: transformation entails the creative construction and destruction of existing relationships and the development of more or less just and violent new ones. 

Sustainability is a second component: both the outcomes of a movement and its processes will last longer over time or less so.  Momentary failures (and successes) are common; it is also the case that in the face of countervailing forces and counter-mobilisation, to sustain a positive status quo may require constant renewal and refreshment of social movement support. 

Third, a movement must also have the capacity to scale up, which often requires new skills, leadership, and institutional support – or more broadly, the ideological and organisational foundation to build new alliances and engage new topics and opportunities without compromising its values and direction. 

The fourth component of socially transformative movements is the inclusive involvement of those who are more powerless and marginalised: without active outreach and proactive inclusion, many movements re-invent old hierarchies and affirm old power structures.

Finally, Christie closes with an interesting reflection on the metrics of social transformation, and the different conclusions that one might draw in mobilising to achieve greater lifespan, wealth, well-being, and/or cultural peace.

Social Transformation: A How-To For Activists

Bretherton (2018) elaborates the implications for practitioners and activists, with practical tips on how to deal with power and (de)humanization within social movements.  Two central messages are that social movements need to articulate their positive vision as well as what they are opposed to, and that they need to understand and articulate the structural or cultural violence that legitimises particular incidents or relationships. 

In articulating their positive vision, the group develops the foundation for resilience and change as their movement grows in power and support.  As new opportunities open up, a positive vision helps steer the direction of the movement towards its ultimate goals.  In addition, social movements’ clear communication of the structural conditions which underpin violence or inequality has two further functions.  A system-level analysis allows actors to avoid fixating on symptoms of structural inequality that cannot be effectively targeted in isolation.  Also, such an analysis allows people who are disadvantaged by structural inequality to make external attributions for the harm and disadvantage they undergo, rather than lacerating self-blame, that can paralyse progress and make it harder to form coalitions and alliances. Symbolic affirmations of connectedness and equality can play a powerful role in de-legitimising violence and hierarchy. 

Finally, beyond these core messages, Bretherton closes with tips on the ‘action research’ cycle of designing campaigns.  Drawing on the special issue articles as well as a long career, Bretherton clearly lays out a series of wise insights.  The four steps of the action cycle are preliminary observation and analysis of the social context, planning for campaign action (including developing the leadership team, building coalitions, and choice of tactics), implementation (including responding to unplanned problems), and review (e.g., proactively creating a culture of celebration and reflexivity).  Managing expectations for a cycle of organisation, success, counter-mobilisation, and a longer term, ongoing struggle is also important, as Bretherton concludes.

Closing thoughts

I really enjoy the richness of the special issue, and it is exciting to see new scholarship in this emerging field (e.g., the recent special section of BJSP). The topic is vital from an applied perspective, but it is also incredible generative theoretically – the gaps are clearly evident when the literature is reviewed, and the potential for interdisciplinary synergy is high.  I look forward to many more papers and journal issues in this vein.

- Winnifred Louis 
 
* Louis, W. R., Chonu, G. K., Achia, T., Chapman, C. M., Rhee, J. (in press).  Building group norms and group identities into the study of transitions from democracy to dictatorship and back again.  In B. Wagoner, I. Bresco, & V. Glaveanu (Eds.), The Road To Actualized Democracy.  Accepted for publication 12 December 2016.

I want to start by acknowledging our group’s successes:
For 2018, I have to salute a brilliant group of finishing students - Lucy Mercer-Mapstone, Wei-jie (Kathy) Lin, Tracy Schultz, and Cassandra Chapman, who all submitted their PhD theses (whoohoo!).  Lucy’s thesis has already been passed (Will Rifkin was the lead advisor), and she was off to the University of Edinburgh on a postdoc from mid-year: well done Lucy! Everyone else is grinding on through the bureaucracy, but this has not stopped them re career launch.  Kathy is back with her job as an academic in China (with fresh glory; Shuang Liu was the lead advisor). Tracy Schultz was snapped up by the Queensland Department of the Environment and is making change on the ground (Kelly Fielding was Tracy’s lead advisor).  Cassandra Chapman (co-supervised by Barbara Masser) is taking up a postdoc on trust and charities in UQ’s Business school.  It’s a pleasure to see everyone doing so well, and we look forward to keeping in touch!
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As well as from our fearless PhD completers, we saw Ella Cottrell and Carly Roberts both finish honours with flying colours; well done both!  Many other students smoothly passed their other milestones (Gi, Zahra, Kiara, Susilo, Robyn), with Hannibal and Robin are coming up soon for their confirmations, and we wish them well.  There were also those taking well-deserved leave this year (Gi, with maternity leave, and Tulsi, who is away for health reasons).  We welcome these transitions and pauses and look forward to new accomplishments in 2019.

In other news: As planned, I revelled all year long in my professorship.   It is such a luxury and privilege to be a full professor, and I hope I can continue to use my powers for good in 2019 and beyond.
I also have been revelling since the news broke that we succeeded in getting a new Discovery grant for our team, funded for 2019-2021.  I’ll be working with Pascal Molenberghs, Emma Thomas, Monique Crane, Catherine Amiot, and Jean Decety, and we will be looking at the transition to Voluntary Assisted Dying in Victoria and more broadly at norms and well-being for practitioners and the community regarding euthanasia or palliative killing.  It is a big beast of a grant and I am very excited to launch into it with our group. 

Possibly the highlight of the year was when I ran an extraordinarily successful conference in 2018 on Trajectories of Radicalisation and De-radicalisation, with many others – many thanks especially to Susilo Wibisono, Sam Popple, Tarli Young, Jo Brown, and Hannibal Thai.  We are moving slowly but inexorably towards having the talks online for speakers, and also slowly and more tentatively towards other publishing projects – We will keep you posted.

I also want to pass on a special thank you to our volunteers and visitors for the social change lab in 2018, including Frederik Wermser, Claudia Zuniga, Taciano Milfont, and Kai Sassenberg.  I particularly acknowledge the contributions this year of Vladimir Bojarskich (visiting from Groningen to conduct environmental research) to multiple projects and to my own work.  Thank you, and congratulations everyone!
 
Other news of 2018 engagement and impact
As well as the normal dissemination through keynotes and journal articles (see our publications page), I had great fun this year with engagement.  The superb conference on Trajectories of Radicalisation and De-radicalisation was a highlight, but I also want to note the November 2018 Zoos Victoria conference on social science and conservation at which I was lucky enough to give a keynote.  My own talk was on avoiding stalemates and polarization, but I feel deeply thrilled about the new work coming through from conservation initiatives that I saw presented there – the scale, the rigorous evaluation, the behavioural measures, the impact!  One intervention that we learned about at the conference was delivered to 40,000 school children in Victoria, with 8 focal targets (e.g., around reducing marine plastic pollution), and featured pre, post, and 6-month follow-ups that included counting plastics on beaches and in the bellies of shearwater birds – astonishing!  But perhaps most impressive of all to me was the open disclosure of failures and willingness as a community of practice to learn from them.  What a great research culture!

More broadly I am excited about how the new open science initiatives in 2018 are transforming scholarship, and pleased to report that our lab is now working towards consistency in pre-registration, online data sharing, transparency re analyses, and new commitment to open access.  Those of you that follow me from way back know that I tried to create something similar in the 2000s but with little traction.  The new wave of #openscience is clearly breaking through to change practices with more success.  Paywalls by for-profit journals for tax-payer subsidised research are also ongoing and objectionable, and so it is great to see online repositories like Researchgate make connections to readers more feasible. But I also think that academic publishing is still clearly dominated by pressures for selective reporting and that significant results are much more likely to succeed in running the gauntlet through reviewers and editors.  In that context, even more impressive is the leadership by practitioners and scholars who allow others to learn openly from trial and error. This will propel us forward as a field.  Well done, Zoos Victoria!

Socialchangelab.net in 2018
Within the lab, Zahra Mirnajafi has been carrying the baton passed on by Cassandra Chapman, who started the blog and website last year – thank you to Zahra for all your great work with our in-house writers, our guest bloggers, and the site! 
I continue to be surprised by the generosity of guest writers, and the take-up of our posts by the community.  We are now seeing about 600 readers for each blog post within a week - last year it was 200 within a month!  Part of the story has certainly been our lab’s activity on Twitter (and other social media) to promote research, and I hope you will follow @WlouisUQ and @socialchangelab if you are on Twitter yourself.  In the meantime, we welcome each fresh bot, family member, academic, or community reader with enthusiasm, and hope to see the trend continue in 2019.
 
What the new year holds:
 In 2019, for face to face networking, if all goes well, I’ll be at SASP in April in Sydney; the post-conference on contact in Newcastle in April/May; at SPSSI in June; at the APA conference in August; a peace conference in Bogota in July; and ICEP in September.  Please email me if you’d like to meet up.  I’ll also be travelling extensively from July 2019 to June 2020 due to a sabbatical – I plan visits to Europe (probably in September) and Canada/the US (probably in June and again in November-ish).  I’ll be around Australia in Melbourne and Sydney as well as Adelaide for the new grant and for my last one, which is grinding on towards awesome publications – stay tuned. I hope people will contact me if interested in meetings and talks.

I also welcome one new student as an associate advisor in 2019 – Mukhamat Surya, who will be working with Adrian Cherney at UQ for a project on de-radicalisation and radicalisation. We also have Claudia Zuniga from the University of Chile as a visitor with us until June, woot!

Due to the sabbatical from July, I won’t be taking on new PhD students or honours students this year, but welcome expressions of interest for volunteer RAs and visitors.

And of course there are lots of other projects on the go throughout the lab with the bigger team – I can’t wait to see what 2019 brings for us all! 
 
- Winnifred Louis

‘Who am I? Who are you?’ Kids’ understanding of social categories has implications for conflict resolution. How and when children recognize names, symbols and social cues influences how they understand and identify with relevant social groups. How they identify with one group also affects their attitudes and behaviours toward ‘others.’ This effect can be even stronger in settings with a long history of conflict.
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Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Macedonia, for example are rooted in a history of conflict. The two dominant social groups in each setting have remained notably segregated across neighbourhoods and schools. Although the overt conflict has ended, it has left a lasting effect on post-accord generations. Understanding these effects can help research-based reconciliation and peace-building projects. In the long-term, this can build a healthy and cohesive society.

The Helping Kids! project explored how children from five to eleven years old in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Macedonia perceive prevalent social cues – such as names or icons – associated with conflict-related groups. Across all three settings, children readily recognized cues belonging to conflict-related categories. This recognition increased with age. For example, in Northern Ireland, children identified the poppy as belonging to the Protestant/British community, while the shamrock represented the Catholic/Irish community; in Macedonia, children distinguished between celebratory foods as Macedonian or Albanian; and in Kosovo, children recognized various murals and pop artists as either Albanian or Serbian.

The more aware children were of conflict-related group markers, the more they preferred their own groups’ symbols; those who preferring in-group symbols also shared fewer resources (e.g., stickers) with the outgroup. Thus, the way children thought about conflict-related groups had behavioural implications even at early ages. The bright side is that children’s previous experience seems to counteract this pattern. If a child reported more positive experiences with outgroup children, he/she was more likely to share resources with the outgroup.

Previous work in Northern Ireland has identified similar patterns. Children from segregated neighbourhoods in Belfast distributed more resources to ingroup members, especially when they held a strong group identity. Moreover, youth in Belfast who had higher quality and quantity contact with outgroup members had higher peacebuilding attitudes and civic engagement.

From this we know that children know about and have preferences for social cues related to conflict-related groups. This knowledge and preference has influences how resources are shared with others,  an important first step in peacebuilding. Fostering more positive outgroup attitudes and opportunities for outgroup helping may have promising, long-term implications for more constructive intergroup relations.

The Helping Kids! lab is working to apply these findings in other contexts. As such, these findings may have implications for the 350 million children living in conflict-affected areas.

​-  Guest post by Dr. Laura K. Taylor, Dr. Jocelyn Dautel, Risa Rylander MSc, Dr. Ana Tomovska Misoska, and Edona Maloku Berdyna MSc.
 
*This phase of the Helping Kids! project was funded by the School of Psychology Research Incentivisation Scheme (RIS) and the Department for the Economy (DfE) - Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) Award [DFEGCRF17-18/Taylor].

In the past week, we have seen horrifying pictures from the U.S.-Mexico border where U.S. Border patrol has fired tear gas on asylum seekers from Central America. This is part of a new stance on immigration by the American White House, which includes deploying 5,000 US troops to the southern border, and giving the green light to use lethal force.  While many are outraged at the use of such force by the government, others have been quick to defend the “America First” strategy. More broadly, anti-immigration sentiments have been expressed more frequently in a range of countries around the world, from France introducing stricter guidelines for asylum to Australia, where a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment has been reported.

How can we explain antagonistic views towards immigrants and asylum seekers? While understanding perspectives on both sides is complex, recent research sheds light on the challenges associated with the reception of immigrants and refugees in Western countries. 

“America First” ... the role of national identities

What we believe about who we are has a strong role in shaping our views of the world. In the U.S., proponents of using excessive force on asylum seekers justify this approach as putting America’s national interests first. What we know from the science is that those who believe being an American is an extremely important part of who they are, in other words, those who have a strong American identity, also are likely to have more negative attitudes towards immigrants.

Is connecting pro-America feelings with hostility to foreigners inevitable though?  No. 

First, it turns out that the link between stronger American identity and welcoming foreigners can also be positive for some! Americans who define the nation inclusively are more welcoming to newcomers, whereas those who have a narrower view of the country are more hostile.

When we are tough on immigration, are we tough on all immigrants in the same way?

Being tough on immigration is not applied the same way to White immigrants as it is to people of color.  In one study, White Americans reported that the use of harsh punishment for a suspected undocumented immigrant was more fair when the suspect was Mexican, than when the suspect was Canadian.  
Earlier we spoke about the content of identities, and that discussion is also relevant here. The more people understand being American as being Anglo, the more lenient they are with those who look Anglo. Around the world, the broader and more inclusive our understanding of what it means to be a citizen of a country, the more diverse people we would be willing to welcome as new immigrants and refugees.

The language we use has serious consequences
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Finally, it is striking how the language used to describe asylum seekers and immigrants by politicians or news media can conjure up images of hordes of animals, scurrying towards us. This type of language is dehumanizing, and research shows it has serious consequences. Endorsing harsher immigration policies is one outcome of dehumanizing language and using dehumanizing language can increase anger and disgust towards immigrants. The use of vermin metaphors to describe Jews during the Holocaust comes to mind when we think of how dehumanizing language has been used to justify atrocities. Indeed, the use of such language is one of the precursors of genocide. Therefore, while news reports describing immigrants in animalistic language may go unnoticed, the reality is that this language has the potential to lead to dire consequences for the world we live in.

The topic of immigration is complicated and the challenges and opportunities of migration are important for both immigrants and the host societies that receive them. An evidence-based approach to understanding the issues and the sentiments on both sides are needed for our societies to move forward to a more socially cohesive and peaceful world. 

- Zahra Mirnajafi