Power to the people : disidentification with the government and support for populism

This work has been supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche grant ANR-16-PILO-0002-06 as a part of FLAG-ERA joint transnational call project, FuturICT 2.0.Populist attitudes have been shown to predict voting behaviour. These attitudes consist of a belief that everyday citizens are better judges of what is best for their own country than politicians and that the political elites are corrupt. As such, a clear ‘us’ (pure and good everyday citizens) and ‘them’ (the evil political elite) rhetoric is present. In the present research, we propose that identification with the government may predict whether people would vote for, and whether they have voted in the past for, a populist party (either from the political left or the political right). The present research (N = 562), carried out among French citizens, showed that lower government identification related to past voting behaviour, current voting intentions and likelihood to switch from a non-populist to a populist party. Identification with the government was also negatively associated to intention to abstain from voting. Moreover, government identification was a stronger predictor of these voting-related outcomes than the recently developed populist attitudes measures. Unexpectedly, national identification was a not a significant predictor of voting behaviour. In conclusion, the present research suggests that the extent to which citizens identify and feel represented by the government should be considered on par with populist attitudes in understanding support for populist parties. Perceiving that the government does not represent everyday people may be sufficient to abandon support for mainstream (non-populist) political parties.PostprintPeer reviewe

La théorie de la dominance sociale et les choix d’orientation scolaire et de rôles sociaux des filles et des garçons

Cette recherche a comme objectif d’examiner le rôle de la dominance sociale dans l’explication des choix d’orientation scolaire et de rôles professionnels des élèves en classe de seconde (N = 117). Les résultats montrent que : a) comparativement à l’origine socioprofessionnelle, l’orientation à la dominance sociale (ODS) possède un lien plus important avec les choix d’orientation littéraire et scientifique ; b) les rôles professionnels hiérarchiques ont un lien positif avec l’ODS mais pas avec l’origine socioprofessionnelle ; c) les femmes choisissent plus que les hommes la filière littéraire, alors que les hommes préfèrent la filière scientifique et sélectionnent plus que les femmes des rôles professionnels hiérarchiques ; d) l’ODS médiatise l’effet du sexe sur le choix d’une filière scientifique et l’effet du sexe sur la sélection des rôles professionnels hiérarchiques ; e) certaines valeurs altruistes sont importantes pour la sélection de rôles professionnels non hiérarchiques, et certaines valeurs d’accomplissement le sont pour la sélection de rôles professionnels hiérarchiques. Dans l’ensemble, cette recherche confirme la pertinence de la théorie de la dominance sociale pour la compréhension des facteurs qui motivent les choix d’orientation contrastés des filles et des garçons.The main aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of social dominance on academic and future occupational roles choices of high school students in 11th grade (N = 117). Results revealed that: a) a social dominance orientation (SDO) significantly predicts the choice of major academic subjects (literature vs scientific). b) hierarchical occupational roles are positively related to SDO, but not to socio-occupational background. c) literature is more often selected by women than men and science and hierarchical occupational roles are more often selected by men than women. d) SDO mediates the effect of gender on both the choice of major academic subjects and occupational professional roles. e) values such as altruism are important for non hierarchical occupational roles and values such as achievement are relevant to hierarchical occupational roles. Overall, this research confirmed the value of the social dominance theory in explaning contrasted academic and occupational choices of girls and boys

Le modèle républicain d'intégration : implications pour la psychologie des relations entre groupes

International audienceHistorical and sociological analyses have highlighted the characteristics of the republican model as a specifically French tradition of integration and organization of collective life. However, few research in psychology has examined the perceptions, attitudes or beliefs of individuals with regard to this model. We present the results of several studies that reveal two distinct and orthogonal dimensions structuring the Republican ideology : one related to citizenship and the other related to secularism. Moreover, we show that adherence to Republican principles is not only very high but has important implications for understanding the intergroup perceptions and attitudes of French people, and the acculturation orientations of French immigrants from North Africa.Des analyses historiques et sociologiques ontmis en évidence les caractéristiques du modèle républicain en tant que tradition spécifiquement française d'intégration et d'organisation de la vie collective. Cependant, très peu de recherches en psychologie ont examiné les perceptions, les attitudes ou les croyances des individus à l'égard de ce modèle. Nous présentons les résultats d'une série d'études qui mettent en évidence deux dimensions distinctes et orthogonales structurant l'idéologie républicaine, l'une reliée à la citoyenneté et l'autre reliée à la laïcité. De plus, nous montrons que l'adhésion à ces principes républicains est non seulement très élevée mais qu'elle a des implications importantes pour comprendre les perceptions et les attitudes intergroupes des Français(es), ainsi que les orientations d'acculturation de Français(es) issus de l'immigration maghrébine

Designing a Participatory and Interactive Opera

Opera as an art form should lend itself to participatory design, given its wide variety of theatrical and musical components. Opera, however, imposes its own constraints and challenges. The problem as laid out in the early stages of the project was to design a short one-act interactive opera that could be managed within a modest budget. The source material was a science fiction manuscript currently undergoing publication by a small independent publishing house. Our research and production team included a composer, several singers/musicians, an engineer, a designer, and a choreographer/dancer as well as the writer. Furthermore, several of these had done extensive work with interactive and immersive environments. In addition to the opera itself, which incorporated both live and virtual elements, we recycled the 3d virtual designs as the substratum for an online co-creation environment that could be used to elicit public participation in the future development of our operas. We discuss both the diverse challenges involved in creating the opera and the co-creation environment, and highlight projected future work

Reply to Nielsen et al. social mindfulness is associated with countries’ environmental performance and individual environmental concern

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

From local social mindfulness to global sustainability efforts?

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits