The Dark Duo of Post-Colonial Ideology: A Model of Symbolic Exclusion and Historical Negation

Post-colonial nations experience a specific set of socio-structural conditions that foster a unique duo of ideologies. These are the ideology of Historical Recognition versus Negation (or HRN) and the ideology of Symbolic Projection versus Exclusion (or SPE). These ideologies operate in tandem to legitimize material and symbolic inequality in response to specific and contested aspects of post-colonial social structure and history. HRN is promoted by the dominant group to legitimize inequality in outcomes experienced by Indigenous peoples in post-colonial societies where historical injustice is objective fact (objective historical injustice). SPE is promoted by the dominant group to claim ownership of the national category in post-colonial societies where there is an inability to logically deny that Indigenous peoples "belong" to the nation (undeniable belongingness). I present the Post-Colonial Ideology Scale (PCIS-2D), which assesses these two distinct "dark" ideologies. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses validated the factor structure of the PCIS-2D in undergraduate (N = 373; Study 1) and community (N = 447; Study 2) samples of New Zealand (NZ) citizens. The PCIS-2D evidenced good construct validity, as SPE and HRN predicted unique variance in voting preferences and social policy attitudes controlling for demographics, Big Five personality, and System Justification ideology (Study 2). These results indicate that HRN and SPE are distinct ideologies that explain unique variance in support for a range of social and political issues. At the systemic level, HRN and SPE form a joint ideological system that legitimates inequality in two critical social domains: one relating to resource allocations, the other relating to representation and ownership of the national category

Religion, deprivation and subjective wellbeing: Testing a religious buffering hypothesis

The buffering effect of religion upon wellbeing has been well demonstrated; however, the question of whether this buffering effect also extends to protecting the religious against material hardship still requires investigation. We present a Bayesian linear regression model showing that religious affiliation provides a protective buffer against the corrosive effects on subjective wellbeing of living in impoverished conditions. Results from a national probability sample tested with an objective indicator of the deprivation of participants’ local neighbourhood, derived from census data, indicated that religious people living in deprived neighbourhoods were higher in subjective wellbeing than their non-religious counterparts living in those same neighbourhoods (N = 5,984 New Zealanders). It was in impoverished conditions that the difference in wellbeing between religious and non-religious people was apparent; those living in affluent neighbourhoods showed comparably high levels of subjective wellbeing regardless of whether or not they were religious. Our results explore new ground by showing for the first time that the buffering effect of religion is readily apparent within New Zealand

Narcissistic self-esteem or optimal self-esteem? A Latent Profile Analysis of self-esteem and psychological entitlement

Research into the relationship between self-esteem and narcissism has produced conflicting results, potentially caused by hidden subpopulations that exhibit distinct positive or negative associations. This research uses Latent Profile Analysis to identify profiles within a national panel study (N = 6,471) with differing relationships between psychological entitlement and self-esteem. We identified a narcissistic self-esteem profile (9%) characterised by high entitlement and high self-esteem, an optimal self-esteem (38.4%) profile characterised by high self-esteem but low entitlement, and three profiles that reported low entitlement but different levels of self-esteem. We additionally predicted profile membership using Big-Five personality. Results indicate that self-esteem is a necessary but not sufficient condition for high entitlement, and entitlement is not highly prevalent in New Zealand

Does having children increase environmental concern? Testing parenthood effects with longitudinal data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study

Having children is a transformative experience and may change the way people think about the future. Parents invest time, energy and resources to ensure the survival and reproductive success of offspring. Having children may also induce environmental concerns and investments in actions aimed at guaranteeing the quality of natural resources available to offspring. However, there is limited empirical support for this parenthood effect, and little is known about how environmental attitudes and behaviour change over time following the birth of a child. This pre-registered study uses data from the first seven waves (2009-2015) of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study-a longitudinal national probability study of social attitudes, personality, and health outcomes-with multilevel interrupted time series analysis. Respondents' belief in the reality and causes of climate change, sacrifices to standard of living to protect the environment, and changes in daily routine to protect the environment did not change significantly following the birth of a child; and nor were there changes in the underlying trends of attitudes or pre-birth anticipation effects. The study further found no gender differences in the attitudinal effects of childbirth. Additional exploratory analyses suggest that becoming a parent for the first time may increase beliefs in the reality of climate change but does not appear to change other environmental attitudes. Overall, our findings provide little empirical evidence for parenthood effects on environmentalism

On the Psychological Function of Nationalistic “Whitelash”

A noticeable feature of the political discourse accompanying the rise of Nationalism in White-majority countries is that White people fare worse than other ethnic groups in their societies. However, it is unclear based on the extant literature why group-based relative deprivation (GRD) would correlate with majority-group Nationalism. Here, we propose that the psychological function of Nationalism for majority-group members lies in its ability to assuage the negative feelings arising from GRD. Accordingly, in a New Zealand national probability sample (N= 15,607), we found that GRD among Whites was negatively associated with wellbeing. However, we also found an opposing indirect association mediated by Nationalism. GRD was associated with higher Nationalism, which was in turn associated with higher wellbeing. These findings suggest that endorsing beliefs about national superiority is one way a nation’s dominant ethnic group can cope with the negative psychological consequences of perceiving that their group is deprived

Mobilizing cause supporters through group-based interaction

Collective action expresses group-based identities, formed by supporters seeking to further particular social causes. While the development of groups linked to action necessitates interaction among supporters, little research has examined how these groups form. Utilizing responses of supporters who participated in 1 of 29 action-planning sessions, this research presents an initial attempt to identify the ingredients important to this process. It shows that to the extent that the actions agreed on in the course of group interactions were seen as capable of making a difference (action efficacy), and worthy of public expression (action voice), supporters' group-based identification was enhanced. This in turn increased their willingness to engage in collective action. Practical implications and avenues for future research to understand the mobilization process are discussed.</p

Investigating Motivations Underlying Collective Narcissism and In-group Identification

We draw on self-determination theory and research on religious orientations to investigate motivations associated with collective narcissism—a belief in in-group greatness that is underappreciated by others—versus secure in-group identity, an unpretentious positive regard for the in-group. Four surveys examined these associations focusing on different social identities: personally important groups (Study 1, N = 212), nationalities (Study 2, N = 196), and religious groups (Study 3, N = 1,690; Study 4, N = 399). In Studies 1, 2, and 4, self-determined motivations were associated with secure in-group identity, whereas non-self-determined motivations were related to collective narcissism. In Studies 3 and 4, intrinsic religiosity was related to collective narcissism and secure in-group identity, while extrinsic personal religiosity was associated with collective narcissism only. Results indicate that collective narcissism is motivated by seeking external and internal rewards

The socialization of perceived discrimination in ethnic minority groups

Contact with members of one’s own group (ingroup) and other groups (outgroups) shapes individuals’ beliefs about the world, including perceptions of discrimination against one’s ingroup. Research to date indicates that, among members of disadvantaged groups, contact with an advantaged outgroup is associated with less perceived discrimination, while contact with the disadvantaged ingroup is associated with more perceived discrimination. Past studies, however, considered ingroup and outgroup contact in isolation and overlooked the various processes that could explain these associations. We addressed these issues by examining whether disadvantaged-group members’ perceptions of discrimination are shaped by how much contact they have with ingroup and outgroup members (contact effects) or by those ingroup and outgroup members’ perceptions of discrimination (socialization effects) while controlling for their tendency to affiliate with similar others (selection effects). Three studies (total N = 5,866 ethnic minority group members) assessed participants’ positive contact, friendships, and perceived discrimination and applied longitudinal and social network analyses to separate and simultaneously test contact, socialization, and selection processes. In contrast to previous studies, we found no evidence that contact with members of the advantaged outgroup precedes perceived discrimination. Instead, we found that friendships with members of the disadvantaged ingroup longitudinally predict perceived discrimination through the process of socialization—disadvantaged-group members’ perceptions of discrimination became more similar to their ingroup friends’ perceptions of discrimination over time. We conclude that perceptions of discrimination should be partly understood as a socialized belief about a shared reality

The rejection and acceptance of Muslim minority practices: A person-centered approach

In Western societies, generalized prejudice and anti-Muslim sentiments can be major drivers of the rejection of Muslim religious practices. However, people can also reject such practices for other reasons, such as concerns about civil liberties or the secular nature of the state. With national samples of German and Dutch majority members (N = 3,703), we used a multiple-acts-multiple-actors design to simultaneously examine attitudes toward four religious practices of three religious groups. Latent profile analysis revealed a subgroup of people that used a double standard and more strongly rejected Muslims than Christians and Jews engaging in the same practices (discriminatory rejection, 16.3%). However, four other subgroups responded to the practices independently of religious group (equal acceptance, 18.3%; equally moderate, 35%; equal rejection, 17.3%; and partial equal rejection, 13.1%). The five subgroups differ on key psychological correlates and self-reported reasons for rejection. We conclude that a multiple-acts-multiple-actors design provides a more nuanced understanding of how majority members evaluate Muslim minority practices in Western nations

Images from a jointly-arousing collective ritual reveal affective polarization

Collective rituals are biologically ancient and culturally pervasive, yet few studies have quantified effects on participants. We assessed two plausible models from qualitative anthropology: ritual empathy predicts affective convergence among all ritual participants irrespective of ritual role; rite-of-passage predicts emotional differences, specifically that ritual initiates will express relatively negatively valence when compared with non-initiates. To evaluate model predictions, images of participants in a Spanish fire-walking ritual were extracted from video data and assessed by nine Spanish raters for arousal and valence. Consistent with rite-of-passage, we found that arousal jointly increased for all participants but that valence differed by ritual role: fire-walkers exhibited increasingly positive arousal and increasingly negative valence when compared with passengers. This result offers the first quantified evidence for rite of passage dynamics within a highly arousing collective ritual. Methodologically, we show that surprisingly simple and non-invasive data structures (rated video images) may be combined with methods from evolutionary ecology (Bayesian Generalized Linear Mixed Effects models) to clarify poorly understood dimensions of the human condition