Mind the level: problems with two recent nation-level analyses in psychology

Two recent articles (both published in Psychological Science) rely on nation-level data to address questions about psychological processes: Oishi and Diener (2014), referred to here as “OD,” and Hershfield et al. (2014), referred to as “HBW.” In our opinion, both articles contain problems with regard to the use and interpretation of nation-level data. The problems are (1) the failure to account for the statistical dependence of countries within regions, (2) the use of nation-level data with questionable reliability, and (3) a confusion between individual and national levels of analysis

The experience and emergence of attitudinal consensus in conversations

Reaching consensus is important for human individual, social and societal functioning. The reverse process of polarization has been associated with individual uncertainty, social conflict and societal distrust, tension, or even schisms. In conversations, the experience of consensus is shaped by both content and aspects of the form of conversation, which indicate whether people are on the same wavelength. In two conversation studies (N = 268) we aimed (1) to examine where the conversational experience of consensus originates and (2) to test which conversational behaviours enhance attitude convergence between conversation partners. The results show that, although actual attitudinal differences were only predictive in Study 2, both conversational content (e.g., disagreement) and form (e.g., experience of flow) consistently predicted the experience of consensus. Convergence of attitudes was harder to predict: most conversational factors were unrelated to attitudinal convergence and conversational flow either increased or decreased attitudinal convergence depending on the particular context

Disentangling Societal Discontent and Intergroup Threat:Explaining Actions Towards Refugees and Towards the State

In debates about migration in Western countries, citizens’ concerns about immigrant groups often go hand in hand with concerns about the decline of society as a whole. Societal discontent, however, is a distinct concept and may have its own relations with immigration attitudes, over and above the role of perceived immigrant threat. In a survey of a representative sample of Dutch people (N = 1239), we disentangled societal discontent from intergroup threat with respect to their relationship with different kinds of action intentions regarding refugees (both pro and anti) and intentions regarding the government. Unsurprisingly, societal discontent predicted support for anti-government protest (which was strikingly high). More importantly, societal discontent independently predicted both pro-refugee and anti-refugee action intentions, over and above intergroup threat. These associations were moderated by intergroup threat: only when refugees were experienced as a threat did discontent predict anti-refugee action intentions. On the other hand, societal discontent predicted more pro-refugee action intentions, but only when people experienced refugees as an enrichment. Thus, despite populist rhetoric, societal discontent is not always tied to anti-immigrant actions. This suggests that refugee sentiments and societal discontent are not exchangeable: societal discontent plays an important role in reactions to immigration

Classified out of society? How educational classification induces political alienation through feelings of misrecognition

Less educated citizens are both descriptively and substantively outnumbered by higher educated citizens in political and societal institutions. While social science has devoted much time to explain why such education effects exist, it has largely neglected the role of feelings of misrecognition in inducing political alienation among less educated citizens. We argue that education has become so central in processes of economic and social stratification that it is likely that less educated citizens feel misrecognized due to their marginal presence in societal and political institutions, which would then lead to their political alienation. This would in particular be the case in societies that are more ‘schooled’, that is, societies where schooling is a more dominant and steering institution. We analysed data from 49,261 individuals in 34 European countries and found that feelings of misrecognition were strongly related to political distrust, dissatisfaction with democracy, and vote abstention. These relations explained a significant part of the difference between higher and less educated citizens in political alienation. We also found that this mediation effect was larger in countries that are more schooled.</p

Talking Politics?:Educational Category Salience Reinforces Differences in People's Willingness to Participate in Deliberative Initiatives

Against the background of an ever-growing body of literature that documents educational differentials in different forms of political participation, scholars have started to study whether education itself becomes the object of intergroup behavior. Informed by social identity theory and self-categorization theory, we examine whether making educational categories and the associated status differences salient affects people's prospective political participation. Two large survey experiments carried out in samples from Flanders (Belgium; N = 1,097) and the United States (N = 629) were used to assess categorization effects of education on people's willingness to participate in deliberative political-participation initiatives. In general, our results indicated that rendering educational categories salient increased educational differentials in prospective political participation in a way that is disadvantageous to the less educated. We elaborate on the implications of our findings

Classified out of society? How educational classification induces political alienation through feelings of misrecognition

Less educated citizens are both descriptively and substantively outnumbered by higher educated citizens in political and societal institutions. While social science has devoted much time to explain why such education effects exist, it has largely neglected the role of feelings of misrecognition in inducing political alienation among less educated citizens. We argue that education has become so central in processes of economic and social stratification that it is likely that less educated citizens feel misrecognized due to their marginal presence in societal and political institutions, which would then lead to their political alienation. This would in particular be the case in societies that are more ‘schooled’, that is, societies where schooling is a more dominant and steering institution. We analysed data from 49,261 individuals in 34 European countries and found that feelings of misrecognition were strongly related to political distrust, dissatisfaction with democracy, and vote abstention. These relations explained a significant part of the difference between higher and less educated citizens in political alienation. We also found that this mediation effect was larger in countries that are more schooled.</p

Education-Based Status in Comparative Perspective:The Legitimization of Education as a Basis for Social Stratification

Classical and recent accounts of education posit that education legitimately, and authoritatively, classifies individuals to positions of lower or higher status. However, despite these general theoretical claims, empirical evidence that provides an in-depth picture of the relationship between educational attainment and social status remains scarce. In this paper, based on a dataset of 31 countries (International Social Survey Programme), we investigate the extent to which education is related to subjective social status, the degree to which this is seen as legitimate, and how this relationship varies between countries. We contextualize this relationship with the influence of the centrality of education in countries (operationalized as the share of higher educated). Results showed that education is an important source of subjective social status for individuals across all countries, and is seen as relatively legitimate and uncontroversial among all educational groups. Moreover, among those who perceive education to be more important for status, subjective status differences between educational groups are larger. Additionally, in countries with larger shares of higher educated, educational differences in subjective social status correlate more strongly with whether or not people obtained a degree of higher (tertiary) education. Lastly, the relationship between education and subjective social status in these countries is more independent from other sources of status, such as income and gender. It therefore seems to be that as higher education becomes more central and widely shared in a society, rather than leveling social differences, ironically it also becomes more distinctive and diagnostic in distinguishing people along group lines