History as an Obstacle: Impact of Temporal-Based Social Categorizations on Polish-Jewish Intergroup Contact

Two studies examined the role of temporal-based social categorizations for attitude change during intergroup contact between Polish and Jewish students. In Study 1 (N = 190 Polish students), a cross-sectional analysis showed that contact focused on contemporary issues had positive effects on both outgroup attitudes and perceived similarity to the outgroup. No such effects were observed when groups talked about past issues. Study 2 (N = 97 Jewish students) demonstrated this effect experimentally when `historical' and `contemporary' issues were discussed during contact. Contact about the present generated more positive attitudes toward contact partners and (unlike contact about the past) toward the generalized outgroup. The present findings are discussed in the context of common ingroup identity model and collective guilt research

Anti-Semitism in Poland and Ukraine: The Belief in Jewish Control as a Mechanism of Scapegoating

Systemic transition in post-communist Eastern Europe resulted in high inflation, rapid economic changes, and increased lack of control in everyday life. Atthe same time, anti-Semitic incidents were reported in this region after 1989. The ideological model of scapegoating (Glick 2002; 2005) might serve asan explanation of anti-Semitic prejudice in post-transition Eastern Europe. The model predicts that the ideology defining Jews as powerful, cunning, anddangerous would gain popularity in times of crises and would lead to greater discrimination against Jews. In two nationwide representative sample studiesof anti-Semitism, in Poland (n = 1098) and Ukraine (n = 1000), we applied the ideological model of scapegoating to study various forms of anti-Semitism(conspiracy-based belief in Jewish control and discriminatory intentions toward Jews). In both samples, economic deprivation led to increased discriminatoryintentions toward Jews; however, only in the Polish sample was deprivation linked with higher beliefs in Jewish control (scapegoat-defining ideology). InPoland the rise of conspiracy beliefs about Jewish control partially explained the effect of deprivation on discriminatory intentions toward Jews. The implicationsof these results are discussed

Is liberal bias universal? An international perspective on social psychologists

Based on our comparison of political orientation and research interests of social psychologists in capitalist Western countries versus post-Communist Eastern European countries, we suggest that Duarte and colleagues' claim of liberal bias in the field seems American-centric. We propose an alternative account of political biases which focuses on the academic tendency to explain attitudes of lower status groups

Ideological distinction. The political ideologies of social psychologists in the East and West.

The problem of “liberal bias” among personality and social psychologists has been widely discussed in recent years (Haidt, 2011; Duarte et al., in press; Inbar, Lammers, 2012). Most of these discussions extrapolated findings observed in American and Western European social psychology to the whole discipline. This article presents a first insight into regional differences in the political opinions of Western, and Eastern social psychologists. Based on the characteristics of intellectuals in Eastern European countries as reproducers of existing structures of dependence, we hypothesised that Eastern European psychologists would not express a “liberal bias” but instead, at least in the domain of economic opinions, that they would support rather conservative political solutions. An empirical study of social psychologists from Hungary, Poland, the USA and the UK supported this hypothesis. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that, despite forming the majority in the field of social psychology, Polish supporters of a free market economy were reluctant to express their views in public. Finally, based on the European Values Survey, we compared the economic attitudes of European social psychologists with the attitudes prevalent in their countries (i.e. Hungary, Poland and the UK). This comparison suggested that Hungarian and Polish social psychologists hold more procapitalist stances on economic issues than the poorest segments of the societies they live in, whereas British social psychologists supported state interventionism to a greater extent than the poorest sections of their society

Superficial ingroup love? Collective narcissism predicts ingroup image defense, outgroup prejudice, and lower ingroup loyalty

We examined the associations between the need for personal control, different types of ingroup commitment, and group‐related outcomes: (1) defensive responses to ingroup criticism, (2) ingroup disloyalty, and (3) outgroup attitudes. We assumed that collective narcissism (i.e., a belief in ingroup’s greatness which is contingent on external validation and stems from frustrated individual needs) should be concerned with defending the ingroup image and derogating outgroups, but not necessarily with being loyal to the ingroup. Secure ingroup identification (i.e., a confidently held ingroup evaluation, which stems from satisfied needs), in contrast, should predict greater ingroup loyalty and positive outgroup attitudes. We expected these effects to be especially strong once we account for the overlap between collective narcissism and group‐level self‐investment – a key component of ingroup identification. In a nationally representative sample of Polish adults (n = 1,007), collective narcissism (net of group‐level self‐investment) mediated between low personal control and ingroup image defense, lower group loyalty, and less positive outgroup attitudes. Secure ingroup identification (group‐level self‐investment net of collective narcissism) mediated between high personal control and ingroup loyalty and positive outgroup attitudes. It was not associated with ingroup image defense. Implications for understanding the role of identification in inter‐ and intra‐group relations are discussed

Traumatic rift: how conspiracy beliefs undermine cohesion after societal trauma?

Collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts. In this article, we propose that conspiracy theories emerging in response to victimizing events may play a key role in the breakdown of social cohesion. We performed a nationally representative survey in Poland (N = 965) two years after the Smoleńsk airplane crash in which the Polish president was killed, together with 95 political officials and high-ranking military officers. The survey found that people endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the Smoleńsk catastrophe preferred to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, while skeptics preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. We also examined the role of people’s belief in the uniqueness of in-group historical suffering as an important antecedent of both conspiracy thinking and hostility towards outgroups (conspiracy believers and non-believers)

What inverted U can do for your country: A curvilinear relationship between confidence in the social system and political engagement

We examined the link between political engagement and the tendency to justify the sociopolitical system. On one hand, confidence in the system should be negatively related to political engagement, insofar as it entails reduced desire for social change; on the other hand, system confidence should also be positively related to political engagement to the extent that it carries an assumption that the system is responsive to citizens' political efforts. Because of the combination of these 2 opposing forces, the motivation for political engagement should be highest at intermediate levels of system confidence. Five studies revealed a negative quadratic relationship between system confidence and normative political engagement. In 2 representative surveys, Polish participants with moderate levels of system confidence were more likely to vote in political elections (Study 1) and to participate in solidarity-based collective action (Study 2). Two field studies demonstrated a negative quadratic relationship between system confidence and actual participation in political demonstrations (gender equality and teachers' protests in Poland; Studies 3 and 4). This pattern of results was further corroborated by analyses of data from 50 countries drawn from the World Value Survey: we observed negative quadratic relationships between system confidence and collective action as well as voting. These relationships were stronger in democratic (vs. nondemocratic) regimes (Study 5). Our results suggest that some degree of system confidence might be useful to stimulate political engagement within the norms of the system

Trust in scientific information mediates associations between conservatism and coronavirus responses in the U.S., but few other nations

U.S.-based research suggests conservatism is linked with less concern about contracting coronavirus and less preventative behaviors to avoid infection. Here, we investigate whether these tendencies are partly attributable to distrust in scientific information, and evaluate whether they generalize outside the U.S., using public data and recruited representative samples across three studies (Ntotal = 34,710). In Studies 1 and 2, we examine these relationships in the U.S., yielding converging evidence for a sequential indirect effect of conservatism on compliance through scientific (dis)trust and infection concern. In Study 3, we compare these relationships across 19 distinct countries. Although the relationships between trust in scientific information about the coronavirus, concern about coronavirus infection, and compliance are consistent cross-nationally, the relationships between conservatism and trust in scientific information are not. These relationships are strongest in North America. Consequently, the indirect effects observed in Studies 1–2 only replicate in North America (the U.S. and Canada) and in Indonesia. Study 3 also found parallel direct and indirect effects on support for lockdown restrictions. These associations suggest not only that relationships between conservatism and compliance are not universal, but localized to particular countries where conservatism is more strongly related to trust in scientific information about the coronavirus pandemic

Measurement invariance of the moral vitalism scale across 28 cultural groups

Moral vitalism refers to a tendency to view good and evil as actual forces that can influence people and events. The Moral Vitalism Scale had been designed to assess moral vitalism in a brief survey form. Previous studies established the reliability and validity of the scale in US-American and Australian samples. In this study, the cross-cultural comparability of the scale was tested across 28 different cultural groups worldwide through measurement invariance tests. A series of exact invariance tests marginally supported partial metric invariance, however, an approximate invariance approach provided evidence of partial scalar invariance for a 5-item measure. The established level of measurement invariance allows for comparisons of latent means across cultures. We conclude that the brief measure of moral vitalism is invariant across 28 cultures and can be used to estimate levels of moral vitalism with the same precision across very different cultural settings.Peer reviewe