Advancing a critical social psychological perspective on women's leadership: A case illustration from the Global South

When applied to the Global South, mainstream positivist approaches to work and organisational psychology impose alien theories of personality (the self) and leadership. In the case of women, they fail to capture the richness of their experiences of life and leadership, which are influenced by the nexus between history, power and marginalisation—for many, even oppression. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the value of a critical social psychological approach, despite its grounding in the Global North discourse, to analyse women's leadership from a cross-cultural context. To illustrate, we provide an empirical example of a Vietnamese woman leader's life-story drawing on the theoretical resources from critical social psychology to interpret her experiences. When viewed from this perspective, women's leadership is understood within a dialogical space, which is prior to and more fundamental than any instrumental reason and technical rationality. It is argued that this approach resists essentialising assumptions about gender and cultural practices of leadership, providing a more liberating means to understand the life and leadership of Vietnamese women. In the final analysis, we argue that this study contributes to the nascent field of critical work and organisational psychology.     

Do you feel happy when other members look happy? Moderating effect of community-level social capital on interconnection of happiness

One's happiness is expected to be affected by the happiness of surrounding others. This socio-psychological nature of happiness, however, has not been fully examined in the literature of social psychology. The current study examined if this “psychological interconnection of happiness” occurs when (i) individuals have strong personal social capital and/or (ii) individuals belong to a community where other members have strong social capital. We analysed a large social survey dataset sampled from 408 communities in Japan (N = 7295). The psychological interconnection of happiness was measured by calculating the correlation between individual happiness and perceived community happiness. The multilevel analyses revealed that the psychological interconnection of happiness was moderated by community-level social capital above and beyond individual-level social capital, while individual-level social capital did not have a significant moderation effect.     

A Liberation Psychology Approach to Acculturative Integration of Migrant Populations

This paper describes an acculturative integration approach that stresses the contribution of liberation psychology. Immigrant integration is a challenge for receiving countries in the Western world due to the frequent asymmetrical and oppressive conditions suffered by newcomers in their new settlements. The cross-cultural perspective connects integration with psychological acculturation, emphasizing harmony between acquisitions of the new culture while maintaining cultural heritage, and creating opportunities for intergroup relationships. In turn, liberation psychology permits an understanding of the acculturative transition as an empowerment and self-construction process by which immigrants acquire a new vision of the world and of themselves, transforming both structural conditions and themselves. From this perspective we conceptualize acculturative integration as the process by which newcomers become an accepted part of the new society through a reflexive and evaluative process, changing their social references and position, rebuilding their social and personal resources, and achieving a new agency in coherence with their new challenges and goals. In this process, they acquire critical thinking about unequal conditions, gain capacities to respond to the inequalities, and take effective actions to confront them. We illustrate this process using the narratives of nine Moroccan women who are living in asymmetrical and oppressive local contexts in Andalusia, the southern-most region of Spain.     

An Embodied‐Socio‐Psychological Perspective in Health Psychology?

The author introduces an alternative perspective to the biopsychosocial model in health psychology. In the first part of her article, she presents the major critiques levelled at mainstream research in health psychology. In the second part, she reviews fundamental studies on the place of emotions in corporeality, then studies that are more psycho‐socially oriented and focus on the relationship between health and the social. This literature review shows the necessity of an alternative perspective. The Embodied‐Socio‐Psychological (ESP) perspective which is presented here is based on a historico‐cultural and developmental approach, drawing from Wallon and Vygotsky’s work and supported by current research in neuroscience on mirror neurons as well as by early interaction psychology. The ESP perspective enables accounting for the articulation between embodied emotional development and the development of superior psychological functions within the social and cultural field; during the crisis of serious illness, this articulation is strongly disrupted in its embodied emotional, embodied social as well as socio‐psychological foundations. This perspective proposes going beyond a notion of the ill human being as a juxtaposition of BPS variables, in order to account for the complementary, indissociable and complex articulation of the corporeal, the social and the psychological. It refers to a theoretical approach that is clearly psychological and no longer anchored in a biomedical definition.     

员工社会资本跨层次契合的动态演化过程及双向作用机制

员工社会资本向企业社会资本的转化是拓展员工价值、获取外部资源的有效途径, 为阐释这一多层次主体互动现象, 提出社会资本跨层次契合的构念, 运用跨层次追踪研究设计, 对其动态演化过程和双向作用机制进行剖析。首先, 探索员工社会资本跨层次契合的维度结构, 并基于此开发跨层次契合量表; 其次, 对社会资本跨层次契合进行过程解构, 探讨员工心理与行为、企业能力与情境在动态演化过程中的作用; 再次, 构建自上而下和自下而上的嵌入与涌现机制理论模型, 将影响员工社会资本跨层次契合的多层次因素整合到同一个理论框架, 并以纵向追踪数据进行实证检验, 厘清作用路径和作用边界。在此基础上, 运用追踪跨案例研究方法, 探讨社会资本跨层次契合的战略选择, 研究结论能为激发员工角色外行为, 有效利用社会资本的管理实践提供启示。     

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

The central theme of this article is that a feminist perspective is not only compatible with the history, objectives, and emphases of social psychology, but necessary for its continued vitality. In view of social psychology's humanist roots and its "nurturist" and "social optimist" tenets, it is not surprising that feminist scholarship has flourished within it. Situational factors and group membership—the focus of social psychological inquiry—are also key to understanding how culture constructs gender, a central issue in the feminist agenda. Some of the important women in the early decades of American psychology are claimed as foremothers of social psychology and as feminist voices, and the feminist perspective is defined and identified in terms of its major interrelated themes. The influence of feminist scholarship on contemporary social psychology is illustrated, and it is argued that a feminist perspective will become increasingly more visible.     

Finding "meaning" in psychology: a lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social development

Much of psychology focuses on universal principles of thought and action. Although an extremely productive pursuit, this approach, by describing only the "average person," risks describing no one in particular. This article discusses an alternate approach that complements interests in universal principles with analyses of the unique psychological meaning that individuals find in their experiences and interactions. Rooted in research on social cognition, this approach examines how people's lay theories about the stability or malleability of human attributes alter the meaning they give to basic psychological processes such as self-regulation and social perception. Following a review of research on this lay theories perspective in the field of social psychology, the implications of analyzing psychological meaning for other fields such as developmental, cultural, and personality psychology are discussed.     

Pray for the fatherland! Discursive and digital strategies at play in nationalist political blogging

Political blogs have come to constitute important channels for expressing nationalist and anti-immigration political views. The new forms that this rhetoric may take, comprising an intricate intermingling of verbal, digital, (audio-)visual, and communicative elements, present challenges for qualitative research. In this article we propose a way for analysing this “new” nationalist political discourse from a qualitative social psychological perspective. The suggested approach combines analytical procedures form critical discursive and rhetorical psychology with social semiotic and rhetorical studies of images, completed with analytical tools and concepts from narrative psychology and research into online political communication. Using two empirical examples of nationalist and anti-immigration political blog-entries written during the 2015 “refugee crisis,” we show this approach enables the researcher to adequately study how such political messages are conveyed through the multitude of elements provided by the blogs. In so doing, our ultimate goal is to contribute to the analytical capacity of qualitative social psychological research into contemporary political communication and persuasion.     

Reconnecting the individual and the social in health psychology

Abstract

Much social psychological research has sought to distinguish itself from more ‘individualistic’ approaches to human cognition and personality. Much of this debate fails to take account of the interactions between social and intrapsychic processes which, it is argued, are vital to the formulation of unifying theoretical principles and to practical applications in the field of health psychology. A general theoretical perspective is outlined, based on notions of connectionist systems operating at both the individual and interpersonal level. A special feature is the assumption that we depend on communication with and from other people to attribute reality to our interpretations of events. The benefits of this perspective for health psychology are then illustrated in the contexts of attitude-behaviour relations, appraisals of risk and uncertainty, person-situation interactions, and group processes and social influence.     

THE TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Changes in technology tiller the ability of people to express competence, to interact with others, to he active rather than passive, and to exercise influence. For the most part, these changes in psychological processes are accidental by-products of technology's attempts to solve the practical problems of society. Because of the close relation between technology and social behavior, we argue that technology should be included as an explanatory variable in social psychology's construction of behavior. Several benefits should result from developing a social psychology of technology. For one, social psychology will be better able to account for the variance of critical social behaviors such as competence, autonomy, social influence, and social isolation. Second, the study of technology will provide a historical perspective for examining changes in social behavior. Finally, the application of social psychological constructs and methods to the study of technology will provide insights that are not available from studies of this topic by economics, philosophy, and political science.     

社会网络视角下的同伴关系与心理健康

近年来, 从社会网络视角考察同伴关系与心理健康的相互作用正成为发展心理学和健康心理学研究的热点。研究者多借助整体网和纵向数据, 通过两种作用机制, 即选择过程(selection process) (强调心理和行为变量对社会网络和同伴关系的影响, 如关系的形成、维持和解除)和影响过程(influence process) (强调社会网络和同伴关系对心理和行为变量的影响), 来分析同伴关系与心理健康协同演进的动态过程。实证研究关注的领域集中在青少年健康风险行为(如吸烟、喝酒、药物滥用)和情绪问题(如抑郁、焦虑、孤独感)。未来研究应该注重拓展社会网络的类型和样本、加强理论建构、增加对积极心理和消极关系的研究, 并有望在互联网领域及社会网络的生物学基础等方面取得进展。     

中国社会转型过程中的心理变化：社会学视角的研究及其对心理学家的启示

社会心理学有着社会学和心理学两种取向。虽然多数时候相对独立发展, 但两者都对现代化带来的社会转型和变迁非常关注。社会学家从社会或社会结构的变化和人的变化两个方面对社会转型进行了大量研究, 前者主要涉及城市(镇)化、社会阶层、社会流动性、家庭结构等, 后者主要涉及中国体验、社会心态、群体心理、组织心理等。总体上, 现有研究显示, 现代社会个体主义上升, 同时许多传统集体主义价值在日渐式微。和心理学取向的研究相比, 社会学取向的研究具有这些特点：倾向于采用本位概念、质性研究方法, 特别关注中观群体心理, 关注政治和政策影响, 更具历史宏观视野等, 这些都是心理学取向的社会心理学家需要学习和借鉴的地方。期待两种取向的社会心理学家在未来的研究中能有更多的合作, 共同促进对转型过程中的中国和中国人的理解。     

人力资本、社会资本和心理资本影响中国员工职业成功的元分析

以76项实证研究(78个独立样本, 21,570名员工)为对象, 综合使用元分析、结构方程模型、优势分析方法, 采用智能职业生涯为分析框架, 以竞争流动与赞助流动、市场转型理论与社会资本“嵌入”观点为理论基础, 探讨了人力资本、社会资本和心理资本对职业成功的影响及内在机制。研究结果发现：(1)人力资本、社会资本和心理资本均能显著积极地预测主客观职业成功; (2)人力资本能更加积极地预测客观职业成功, 而心理资本则能更加积极地预测主观职业成功; (3)组织赞助部分中介人力资本、社会资本与职业成功之间的关系, 部分中介心理资本与主观职业成功之间的关系, 完全中介心理资本与客观职业成功之间的关系; (4)心理资本能更加积极地预测组织赞助。     

Extending Traditional Psychological Disciplines to Positive Psychology: A View from Subjective Well-being

This article reviews how research from traditional psychological disciplines has been extended and applied to the area of positive psychology (PP), specifically in the area of subjective well-being (SWB). Moving from a universal to cultural perspective, then to a group, and finally an individual perspective, this article draws theories from evolutionary, cultural, social, and personality psychology. The evolutionary perspective that negative emotions (i.e. evolved psychological mechanisms) are an impediment to positive psychology’s goal of building positive experiences has been extended and modified. Research in PP now recognizes the pitfalls of excessive positive emotions and happiness, and how negative emotions can contribute to optimal human functioning. The cultural approach investigates cultural variations in conceptualizations of SWB and highlights that the benefits and detrimental effects of positive and negative emotions are not universal. Theories on social dynamics further our understanding of how evaluative judgments influence well-being, and address a fundamental question in PP: Is the goal of increasing people’s well-being viable? Finally, personality theories explain individual differences in well-being and the practice of PP. In sum, the recognition that PP encapsulates the negative, and growing awareness of the importance of culture, social context, and the individual, heralds the evolving conceptualization of PP.     

Psychological jurisprudence and the information processing paradigm

The purpose of this article is to further recent work in the psychology of jurisprudence. After summarizing the value positions that are central to a jurisprudence that emphasizes the role of law in the everyday lives of individuals, we examine the interaction between the tenets of that philosophy and the paradigmatic content of psycholegal research. We propose that one dominant perspective, information processing, assumes that legal actors are imperfect processors of social information and proceeds to document biases and propose ways for the law to minimize shortcomings in human cognition. After summarizing the emerging theory of psychological jurisprudence, we discuss the information processing paradigm in psychology and law, illustrating its contributions with three recent studies. Next, we present an empirical analysis of abstracts from the last 5 years of empirical research to demonstrate that there is a representative body of information processing research in psychology and law. Following this is an in-depth assessment of a sample of cognitive and social cognitive studies, detailing the scientific and normative issues that make up this literature. Finally, we conclude with some recommendations for jurisprudential theorists and psycholegal researchers which will integrate the philosophy of psychology and law with its empirical underpinnings.     

The support of autonomy and the control of behavior

In this article we suggest that events and contexts relevant to the initiation and regulation of intentional behavior can function either to support autonomy (i.e., to promote choice) or to control behavior (i.e., to pressure one toward specific outcomes). Research herein reviewed indicates that this distinction is relevant to specific external events and to general interpersonal contexts as well as to specific internal events and to general personality orientations. That is, the distinction is relevant whether one's analysis focuses on social psychological variables or on personality variables. The research review details those contextual and person factors that tend to promote autonomy and those that tend to control. Furthermore, it shows that autonomy support has generally been associated with more intrinsic motivation, greater interest, less pressure and tension, more creativity, more cognitive flexibility, better conceptual learning, a more positive emotional tone, higher self-esteem, more trust, greater persistence of behavior change, and better physical and psychological health than has control. Also, these results have converged across different assessment procedures, different research methods, and different subject populations. On the basis of these results, we present an organismic perspective in which we argue that the regulation of intentional behavior varies along a continuum from autonomous (i.e., self-determined) to controlled. The relation of this organismic perspective to historical developments in empirical psychology is discussed, with a particular emphasis on its implications for the study of social psychology and personality.     

Is the moral domain unique? A social influence perspective for the study of moral cognition

The nature of the cognitive processes that give rise to moral judgment and behavior has been a central question of psychology for decades. In this paper, we suggest that an often ignored yet fruitful stream of research for informing current debates on the nature of moral cognition is social influence. We introduce what we call the “social‐moderation‐of‐process” perspective, a methodological framework for leveraging insights from social influence research to inform debates in moral psychology over the mechanisms underlying moral cognition and the moral domains in which those mechanisms operate. We demonstrate the utility of the social‐moderation‐of‐process perspective by providing a detailed example of how research on social influence in behavioral ethics can be utilized to test a research question related to a debate between two prominent theories in moral psychology. We then detail how researchers across the field of moral psychology can utilize our social‐moderation‐of‐process perspective.     

Social Psychology,War and Peace: Towards a Critical Discursive Peace Psychology

In this paper, I make two related arguments: that peace psychology and social psychological peace research should give greater attention to discourse, and that critical discursive approaches in social psychology should explore matters of international military conflict, an area which has hitherto been somewhat neglected in this tradition of work. These arguments are developed in relation to debates concerning the nature and status of psychological ‘science’, and the neglect of language in social and peace psychology. To illustrate the possibilities of a critical discursive approach, research on the discursive function of ‘peace’ is discussed. In conclusion, it is suggested that a critical discursive perspective enables analysts to interrogate a range of assumptions underpinning militaristic ideologies.     

心理资本: 本土量表的开发及中西比较

开发了本土心理资本量表, 并将之与西方量表进行了比较。结果显示, 本土心理资本构念具有二阶双因素结构: 事务型心理资本(自信勇敢、乐观希望、奋发进取与坚韧顽强)与人际型心理资本(谦虚诚稳、包容宽恕、尊敬礼让与感恩奉献)。事务型心理资本与西方心理资本基本相似, 人际型心理资本则具有本土文化气息。本土量表具有良好的效标关联效度, 人际型心理资本、事务型心理资本和任务绩效、周边绩效、工作满意度、工作投入及组织承诺显著正相关, 人际型心理资本与传统性、相依我正向关系显著。相比西方量表, 本土量表的信效度更好, 对工作绩效有更强的解释能力, 尤其是对周边绩效。建议进行心理资本研究时应充分考虑中西文化差异, 对组织而言, 则应重视对雇员本土心理资本各要素的开发与管理。     

多重整合的社会心理服务体系：政策逻辑、建构策略与基本内核

根据社会心理服务体系建设提出的政策逻辑, 分析了社会心理服务体系建设的目标、服务对象和服务内容等。社会心理服务体系建构的策略应该采取研究视角、学科体系和研究取向等的多重整合, 包括个体、情境和社会视角的整合, 基础学科和应用学科的整合, 学术研究和社会实践的整合。社会心理学是社会心理服务体系的核心, 整合心理学的社会心理学和社会学的社会心理学才能更好地理解社会治理的机制和过程。社会心理服务体系建设是在建构影响社会发展的心理环境。社会心理服务体系的建构需要社会发展的视角, 应该探索社会发展心理学的路径来承担整合学科体系和社会治理实践的任务。