Despite an increasing interest in the drivers of intergroup solidarity, the within-person longitudinal relationships between advantaged group members’ engagement for disadvantaged groups and its ...postulated antecedents remain scarcely tested. In the context of the refugee crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey (NT1 = 804, NT2 = 702, and NT3 = 624) assessing Poles’ (the advantaged group) willingness to act for Ukrainians (the disadvantaged group), together with three hypothesized predictors—moral convictions, intergroup contact, and politicized identity. Employing a random intercept cross-lagged panel model that separates between- from within-person variance, we found that within-person changes in moral convictions and friendship contact directly predicted subsequent action intentions. Contrary to past theorizing, politicized identity emerged as consequence rather than an antecedent of collective action. Superficial intergroup contact indirectly predicted engagement intentions by facilitating cross-group friendship. We discuss the implications of our findings for current models of collective action.
•Conspiracy beliefs concerning coronavirus are present in the population and are negatively related to adherence to epidemiological safety guidelines.•Conspiracy beliefs may originate partially from ...boredom and paranoia proneness.•Certain factors – trust in media outlets and internal motivation to isolation – may be potentially worthwhile to address to enhance adherence to safety guidelines in the general population.
Due to coronavirus pandemic, governments have ordered a nationwide isolation. In this situation, we hypothesised that people holding conspiracy beliefs are less willing to adhere to medical guidelines. Furthermore, we explored what possible factors may modify relationships between conspiracy, paranoia-like beliefs, and adherence to epidemiological guidelines. Also, we examined the prevalence of different coronavirus conspiracy beliefs.
Two independent internet studies. Study 1 used a proportional quota sample that was representative of the population of Poles in terms of gender and settlement size (n=507). Study 2 employed a convenience sample (n=840).
Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs are negatively related to safety guidelines. Mixed results suggest that paranoia-like beliefs are related negatively to safety guidelines. Prevalence of firmly held coronavirus conspiracy beliefs is rare. Nevertheless, certain percentage of participants agree with conspiracy beliefs at least partially. Coronavirus related anxiety, trust in media, and internal motivation to isolation moderate the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and adherence to safety guidelines. Paranoia-like beliefs partially mediate between boredom and conspiracy beliefs.
Conspiracy beliefs concerning coronavirus are present in the population and are negatively related to adherence to safety guidelines. Conspiracy beliefs originate partially from boredom and paranoia proneness. Certain factors – trust in media and internal motivation to isolation – are potentially worthwhile to address to enhance adherence to safety guidelines. Non-probabilistic sampling suggests caution in interpretation of the present findings.
Gender studies have often been criticized for undermining family and religious values. In this paper, we argue that these criticisms exhibit the characteristics of conspiracy theories. We define ...gender conspiracy beliefs as convictions that gender studies and gender-equality activists represent an ideology secretly designed to harm traditional values and social arrangements. In two studies conducted among Catholics in Poland (Study 1 N= 1019; Study 2 N= 223), we examined the prevalence of gender conspiracy beliefs and their psychological concomitants. We hypothesized that gender conspiracy beliefs should be associated with a defensive identification with one's religious group, captured by religious collective narcissism. In both studies, Catholic collective narcissism was demonstrated to be a robust predictor of gender conspiracy beliefs. We additionally demonstrated that Catholic collective narcissism predicted outgroup hostility, and this effect was mediated by gender conspiracy beliefs. We discuss the implications for gender-based prejudice.
National narcissism and national identification, two distinct types of national commitment, differ in terms of their psychological concomitants. Therefore, in the current article, we hypothesized ...that they would also relate to different adult attachment styles. Namely, we proposed that national narcissism would be positively associated with higher attachment anxiety, while national identification would be associated with lower attachment anxiety and avoidance. These hypotheses were tested in three cross-sectional surveys (Study 1 N = 570; Study 3 N = 558; Study 4 N = 649) and one longitudinal survey (Study 2 N = 808). In all studies, we found a consistent positive relationship between attachment anxiety and national narcissism, and a negative relationship between attachment avoidance and national identification. Finally, we also demonstrated indirect effects of attachment anxiety (via national narcissism) on maladaptive group-related outcomes: conspiracy beliefs, non-normative collective action, and willingness to conspire.
Three studies examined the association between narcissistic identification with one’s advantaged in‐group and engagement in solidarity‐based collective action. Drawing on theory and past research, a ...negative effect of collective narcissism on solidarity‐based collective action was expected. A two‐wave longitudinal study (N = 162) found that Polish participants’ narcissistic, but not secure, national identification decreased their willingness to engage in collective action in solidarity with refugees over time. A field study (N = 258) performed during a mass protest against a proposed abortion ban showed that men’s gender‐based collective narcissism was a negative predictor of solidarity‐based engagement (operationalized as protest behavior and collective action intentions) and this effect was mediated by lowered empathy for women. Finally, a web‐based survey (N = 1,992) revealed that heterosexual/cisgender individuals’ collective narcissism was negatively associated with collective action intentions in support of LGBT rights and that this effect was sequentially mediated by increased intergroup anxiety and decreased empathy for LGBT people. Theoretical implications of the present findings, research limitations, and future directions are discussed.
Theories of social change developed within social psychology are rarely employed to interpret historical events. This is a serious neglect, as a social-psychological perspective has the capacity to ...inform our understanding of long-term processes that prepare the ground for major political breakthroughs. In this commentary, I utilize the political solidarity model of social change (Subašić, Reynolds, & Turner, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308323223) to examine Poland’s path to democracy. Using a tripolar division for the authority (i.e., communist leaders), the minority (i.e., democratic opposition), and the majority (i.e., unengaged citizens), I argue that the Round Table Talks of 1989 originated from two interdependent social processes that precipitated in the late ’70s. Whereas one of these processes encompassed the loss of popular support for the Communist Party, the other one involved an increase in the majority’s identification with the democratic opposition. I propose that without the co-occurrence of these two processes, the Round Table agreements would not have been possible.
Introduction
Recent years have witnessed the global rise of illiberal regimes, which built widespread support by initiating hate campaigns against minorities. This research examined a government-led ...anti-LGBT campaign in Poland and its impact upon attitudes of the wider public.
Methods
Our study (
N
= 2061 heterosexual participants) assessed sexual prejudice (blatant dehumanization and modern homonegativity) and pro- and anti-minority action intentions in two representative surveys, conducted before (fall 2018;
N
= 821) and after (summer 2019;
N
= 1240) the beginning of the anti-LGBT campaign.
Results
Prejudice and anti-minority action tendencies increased during the analyzed period. However, there was also an increase in pro-minority action tendencies, demonstrating public resistance. These effects were moderated by respondents’ levels of social conservatism and their prior contact with LGBT people. Low (compared to high) levels of social conservatism reduced (or even reversed) the impact of the state-sponsored anti-LGBT campaign on sexual prejudice, which further translated into pro- and anti-minority collective action intentions. High (compared to low) levels of contact predicted a reduced effect of the campaign on blatant dehumanization, which translated into lower anti-minority action tendencies. Blatant dehumanization and modern homonegativity differentially predicted participants’ willingness to engage in pro- and anti-minority collective action, highlighting the importance of taking a more granular approach when predicting action intentions.
Policy Implications
We discuss implications for interventions aimed at protecting vulnerable groups in the face of anti-minority rhetoric.
Past studies demonstrated that vicarious contact (i.e., observing interactions between ingroup and outgroup representatives) affects outgroup-directed attitudes. This research sought to examine ...whether and, if so, how negative and positive vicarious contact with refugees influence host society’s members' collective action for this disadvantaged group. Two online experiments (total N = 1328) were conducted in the context of the Poland-Belarus border crisis. Participants watched a short video clip presenting an interaction between ingroup representatives (i.e., Poles) and refugees from the Middle East or Africa trying to enter Poland via Belarus. The valence of the interaction differed between experimental conditions. Both studies showed that negative vicarious contact increased participants’ levels of intergroup anxiety, which then predicted lower collective action for refugees. On the other hand, positive vicarious contact decreased intergroup anxiety as well as increased outgroup-directed empathy and collective action in Study 1 but not in Study 2. The results support the notion that negative representations of ingroup-outgroup interactions in the traditional and social media affect host societies’ members attitudes toward refugees and their willingness to engage for this group.
For LGBTQ+ community members, one way to cope with the discrimination they experience is through a stronger ingroup identity. However, not all types of ingroup identity may be equally beneficial to ...LGBTQ+ individuals. A longitudinal (N = 1,044) and a cross-sectional (N = 8,464) study among LGBTQ+ people in Poland demonstrated that collective narcissism was a positive predictor of group-based anger (Study 2) and had a positive reciprocal relationship with group relative deprivation (GRD; Study 1), however, it was negatively related to life satisfaction and exhibited a stronger positive link with nonnormative than normative collective action. Secure LGBTQ+ identification was not longitudinally predicted by GRD (Study 1) and showed a weaker positive association with group-based anger (Study 2). It had a reciprocal positive relationship with life satisfaction and was a stronger predictor of normative than nonnormative collective action. These results show that whereas secure ingroup identity is a clearly positive coping mechanism, the effects of collective narcissism are mixed.
Since March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared the spread of COVID-19 a global pandemic, conspiracy theories have continued to rise. This research examines the role of different forms ...of in-group identity in predicting conspiracy thinking in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. We hypothesized that conspiracy thinking would be predicted positively by national narcissism (i.e., a belief in in-group's greatness which is contingent on its external validation and makes in-group members sensitive to psychological threats) but negatively by secure national identification (i.e., a confidently held ingroup evaluation, which serves as a buffer against psychological threats). In a three-wave longitudinal study conducted on a representative sample of adult Poles (N = 650), conspiracy thinking was positively predicted by national narcissism, but negatively by national identification. Further, we found evidence that conspiracy thinking strengthened national narcissism (but not national identification) over time. Implications for intra- and intergroup processes are discussed.
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