Recently, interest in aggregate and population-level implicit and explicit attitudes has opened inquiry into how attitudes relate to sociopolitical phenomenon. This creates an opportunity to examine ...social movements as dynamic forces with the potential to generate widespread, lasting attitude change. Although collective action remains underexplored as a means of reducing bias, we advance historical and theoretical justifications for doing so. We review recent studies of aggregate attitudes through the lens of social movement theory, proposing movements as a parsimonious explanation for observed patterns. We outline a model for conceptualizing causal pathways between social movements and implicit and explicit attitudes among participants, supporters, bystanders, and opponents. We identify six categories of mechanisms through which movements may transform attitudes: changing society; media representations; intergroup contact and affiliation; empathy, perspective-taking, and reduced intergroup anxiety; social recategorization; and social identification and self-efficacy processes. Generative questions, testable hypotheses, and promising methods for future work are discussed.
Being able to replicate scientific findings is crucial for scientific progress
. We replicate 21 systematically selected experimental studies in the social sciences published in Nature and Science ...between 2010 and 2015
. The replications follow analysis plans reviewed by the original authors and pre-registered prior to the replications. The replications are high powered, with sample sizes on average about five times higher than in the original studies. We find a significant effect in the same direction as the original study for 13 (62%) studies, and the effect size of the replications is on average about 50% of the original effect size. Replicability varies between 12 (57%) and 14 (67%) studies for complementary replicability indicators. Consistent with these results, the estimated true-positive rate is 67% in a Bayesian analysis. The relative effect size of true positives is estimated to be 71%, suggesting that both false positives and inflated effect sizes of true positives contribute to imperfect reproducibility. Furthermore, we find that peer beliefs of replicability are strongly related to replicability, suggesting that the research community could predict which results would replicate and that failures to replicate were not the result of chance alone.
Beliefs shape how people interpret information and may impair how people engage in logical reasoning. In three studies, we show how ideological beliefs impair people’s ability to (1) recognize ...logical validity in arguments that oppose their political beliefs and (2) recognize the lack of logical validity in arguments that support their political beliefs. We observed belief bias effects among liberals and conservatives who evaluated the logical soundness of classically structured logical syllogisms supporting liberal or conservative beliefs. Both liberals and conservatives frequently evaluated the logical structure of entire arguments based on the believability of arguments’ conclusions, leading to predictable patterns of logical errors. As a result, liberals were better at identifying flawed arguments supporting conservative beliefs and conservatives were better at identifying flawed arguments supporting liberal beliefs. These findings illuminate one key mechanism for how political beliefs distort people’s abilities to reason about political topics soundly.
Work activity is central to human psychology. However, working conditions under capitalist socioeconomic relations have been posited as psychologically alienating. Given the negative impact of work ...alienation on well-being and mental health, we conducted two studies of the relations between social class, work conditions, and alienation. We also examined factors that might counteract alienation – class consciousness and activism. The utility of a Marxist measure of social class – based on objective work relations – was compared with that of SES and subjective class measures. Study 1 surveyed 240 U.S. adults from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; Study 2 was a replication with 717 adults recruited via a sampling company. Across studies, alienation was predicted by perceived work exploitation, poor work relationships, and lack of self-expression, meaningfulness, self-actualization, autonomy, and intrinsic motivation at work. Only the Marxist class measure – not SES or subjective class measures – predicted alienation and alienating work conditions across studies. Working-class participants experienced more alienating work conditions and greater alienation. Alienation was correlated with class consciousness, and class consciousness was associated with activism. While SES measures have dominated the psychological study of social class, results suggest benefits to integrating Marxist measures and conceptions of social class.
Purpose
Therapeutic communities (TCs) assume that residents are capable of working together to overcome substance abuse and criminal behavior. Economic games allow us to study the potential of ...cooperative behavior in TC residents. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze results from a sample of 85 corrections-based TC residents and a comparison group of 45 individuals drawn from the general population who participated in five well-known economic experiments – the dictator game, the ultimatum game, the trust game, risk attitude elicitation and time preference elicitation.
Findings
TC residents keep less money in the dictator game and return more in the trust game, and prefer short-term rewards in the time preference elicitation. In the ultimatum game, nearly half of all residents refuse offers that are either too low or too high.
Research limitations/implications
While the study involves a sample from one TC and a comparison group, the results suggest that residents are at least comparable to the general public in generosity and appear willing on average to repay trust. A substantial minority may have difficulty accepting help.
Practical implications
Rapid peer feedback is of value. Residents will be willing to offer help to peers. The TC environment may explain residents’ tendency to return money in the trust game. Residents who refuse to accept offers that are either too low or too high in the ultimatum game may also have difficulty in accepting help from peers.
Social implications
Economic games may help to clarify guidelines for TC clinical practice.
Originality/value
This is the first use of economic games with TC residents.
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