Community‐Based Learning and Critical Community Psychology Practice: Conducive and Corrosive Aspects

Community‐based learning (CBL) has been more recently introduced into some psychology programmes in the UK than in the USA, where it has existed for a number of decades in the form of ‘service learning’. CBL holds promise as a means of promoting and developing critical community psychology practice, but there are risks involved in its acritical adoption in the psychology curriculum. If associated power dynamics are not considered, CBL has the capacity to serve neoliberal interests and perpetuate, rather than challenge, oppressive social relations. This article examines ways in which CBL can be both conducive and corrosive to critical community psychology practice. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature, it explores ways in which students participating in CBL can be vulnerable to exploitation—both as victims and perpetrators—through collusion and cultural voyeurism. Consideration is given to ways of resisting institutional and other pressures to comply uncritically with the demands of the ‘employability agenda’. These include the importance of facilitated reflective processes in associated modules, to consider aspects of the interactions of people and systems. The article concludes that whilst CBL is inherently risky and involves discomfort for students, this enables development of a more informed consciousness where truly participatory work evolves towards greater social justice. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Liberation social psychology: learning from Latin America

Liberation Social Psychology (la psicología social de la liberación, LSP) has developed amongst a body of psychologists in Latin America over the last decade. There has been no survey of the field in English, although some of the ideas are of relevance for those working with oppressed groups elsewhere in the world. This article explores the context in which LSP grew from the work of Ignacio Martín‐Baró and was developed by Maritza Montero, amongst others. Within LSP, key concepts emerge, including ‘conscientization’, ‘realismo‐crítico’, ‘de‐ideologization’, a social orientation, ‘the preferential option for the oppressed majorities’ and methodological eclecticism. The application of LSP is explored with reference to three domains. First, it is suggested that community social psychology as practised in some parts of Latin America reflects LSP in its emphasis on social transformation and participatory methods. Second, psycho‐social work with victims of state oppression, which adopts a highly social and societal orientation embodies LSP. Third, social analyses which explicitly adopt socio‐psychological‐political analyses of the social realities confronting countries in Latin America embrace, in different ways, principles and concepts of LSP. Some of the challenges facing LSP are discussed and open dialogue is encouraged between LSP and critical, community and applied social psychologists. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Phenomenology and Critical Social Psychology: Directions and Debates in Theory and Research

There has been significant growth in critical approaches to social psychology in recent years. Phenomenological, discursive and psychoanalytically informed perspectives, amongst others, have become increasingly popular alternatives to ‘mainstream’ cognitive social psychology. This paper describes the fundamental philosophy and methodology underpinning phenomenological psychology along with discussion of a number of key issues in qualitative research in social psychology. In particular, I discuss the role of interpretation, the turn to language and need for political engagement within critical social psychology. More recently, there has been a growth in phenomenologically informed narrative theories and methodologies and in this paper I introduce my own development of a critical narrative analysis. In the process I discuss some of the most pressing debates about research within the phenomenological tradition and provide rebuttals, solutions and possible future directions for phenomenological theory and research that may lead to yet greater recognition for this social psychological perspective.     

Class Dismissed: Putting Social Class on the Critical Psychological Agenda

Despite persuasive arguments pertaining to the importance of social class in the shaping of human life, this has and continues to be neglected within psychological research. Using primarily a UK focus, we begin by outlining some of the ways in which ‘mainstream’ psychology typically conceptualises class (e.g. socio‐economic status) and argue that such an approach has a number of detrimental implications, for example, neglecting structural inequalities and oppression and ‘othering’ the working class. We then present a selection of ‘critical’ and feminist‐informed research on social class which, we argue, offers a more holistic and sophisticated understanding of class and, in particular, draws attention to the complexities involved in how people experience, understand and construct class, classed identities and class transitions. Further, such work provides insight into the many ways in which people reproduce, re‐work and resist classed discourse in everyday contexts such as the home, work place and beyond. However, we acknowledge the need for investigation into how those with more economic power justify class privilege and discursively protect and maintain their status.     

Para athlete activism: A qualitative examination of disability activism through Paralympic sport in Ireland

ObjectivesLittle attention has been given to how Para athletes use their platforms for disability activism. This paper fills this gap by examining how Irish Para athletes take actions to create social change around disability.MethodsA qualitative methodology was adopted. 28 elite-level Irish Para athletes were recruited and participated in interviews. The data set was analysed using a reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsThree themes: ‘Para athlete activisms’ captures different ways of doing disability activism; ‘tensions between different activist identities’ concerns (hyper)critical discourses about various activist identities; ‘ableist influences on Para sport culture’ captures contexts that enable or prevent performing disability activism.ConclusionsThe central theoretical contribution is an interpretation of Para athlete activism in terms of a contextually informed continuum of behaviour change. This article is an evidence base for Para sport cultures that wish to connect with disability activism. Practical opportunities are discussed around the psychology of adversity, social legacy value, identity politics and challenging ableism.     

Towards a critical psychology of human–animal relations

This article argues that critical psychological engagement with the field of human–animal relations is largely absent, but of potential significance, and begins to outline more concretely what such a perspective might contribute, especially as a form of social psychology. The article provides a brief overview of the emerging psychology of human–animal relations and the extent to which it emphasises situated human–animal interactions in real‐world settings, including from the standpoint of animal participants. Recent elaborations of the “animal turn” outside of the discipline of psychology are considered, as they place fresh emphasis on human–animal interaction and interdependence and might further extend the boundaries of what counts as relations that matter in critical and social psychology. These foundations are argued to offer an invitation to critical psychology to engage more fully in the study of human–animal relations and enliven it as a result.     

Personality,social support and burnout among human service professionals in India

Recent research has investigated the relationship between personality and social support in predicting various forms of adjustment. This study explores this relationship in a sample of 137 human service professionals engaged in post‐degree clinical skills training at the Christian Counselling Centre in Vellore, India. The impact of certain forms of social support on burnout was examined, after controlling for the effect of the personality trait of anxiety. As hypothesized, perceived social support was negatively associated with burnout, even after controlling for the effects of anxiety. This pattern was strongest for the males in this sample. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were the components of burnout most strongly related to perceived support. The perception of support received from ‘work‐related’ and ‘other’ relationships made a stronger contribution than did ‘family’ or ‘social’ ties with respect to burnout. Implications for future cross‐cultural investigation of the relationships among personality, social support and adjustment are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subjectivity,Not Personality: Combining Discourse Analysis and Psychoanalysis

Mainstream psychology can often be criticized for turning the liberal concerns of psychologists into conservative practices focusing on the individual. In the United Kingdom, the discursive turn in social psychology has been marked by an audacious body of work critical of cognitive attempts to theorize the social. A particular psycho‐discursive strand has emerged, which combines discourse analysis and psychoanalytic theory in an attempt to change both the subject of, and the subjectivity (re)produced by, mainstream psychology. This paper reviews three different psycho‐discursive approaches: (i) Hollway and Jefferson's Free Association Narrative Interview method; (ii) Billig's Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology; (iii) Parker's Lacanian excursions into social psychology. In these psycho‐discursive approaches, ‘subjectivity’ replaces personality as the key theoretical construct where the social forms part of who we are and these approaches seem to offer social psychologists the theoretical tools to start to appreciate how individual personality and social context are intimately connected.     

Mainstreaming ‘Women’ without feminisms in psychology

Although it has been argued that feminist work has gained recognition in mainstream psychology (Eagly, Eaton, Rose, Riger, & McHugh, 2012 ), these arguments tend to cite a proliferation of research in high‐ranking Euro‐American academic journals, on topics that concern women or gender in psychology. However, the majority of this work is not presented as explicitly feminist. Rather, it tends to be incorporated into mainstream spaces under the umbrella of the psychology of women. This is often interpreted uncritically to mean the study of womanhood as a stable category or variable, reproducing binary accounts of sex and gender that are largely devoid of feminist analysis. Not only do these interpretations reify essentialist constructions of womanhood; they also convert transformative feminist politics into singular and special interest ‘women's issues’. Indeed, broad feminist theoretical perspectives remain largely absent at the fundamental levels of mainstream psychological knowledge production (Eagly et al., 2012 ; Eagly & Riger, 2014 ). Thus, while credit has been given to the growing visibility of issues concerning women and gender in the discipline, less critical attention has been paid to the broader absence of feminist language in this work. As such, instances of mainstream inclusion have come to take priority over broader issues of feminist exclusions in psychology. Taking a critical position on the discipline from within the context of the Global North, this paper questions the state of mainstream inclusions and reasserts the transformative potentials of diverse feminisms (Liebert, Leve, & Hui, 2011 ), arguing that current inclusions of women without feminisms in psychology are problematic. Drawing on recent mobilisations of the psychology of women in the interests of ‘male psychology’, it is argued that the transformative potentials of feminist psychologies are more likely to be stifled than supported by mainstream inclusions.     

Self‐Doubt

The need for understanding serves as a theme throughout social and personality psychology. It is reflected in people’s striving toward a shared, social construction of reality (e.g., conformity, uniformity) that runs through so much of the history of theory and research in the field. Stemming from this core motivation, the literature is peppered with illustrations of the preeminence of certainty as a goal (e.g., clarity, consistency, consonance, and related constructs) and the ultimate objective of cultural consensus. Yet, the role of doubt in the form of shaky certainty about the basis for beliefs in attitudes – or doubts about one’s self‐esteem or self‐concept – has increasingly taken center stage. This review takes the self‐competence element (vs. self‐liking element) of self‐worth judgments as its focus and provides an integration of individual difference approaches and experimental investigations of self‐doubt. Long neglected, self‐doubt increasingly appears critical for understanding some of the surprising, ironic, and self‐defeating cognitive, emotional, and behavioral findings seen in the achievement realm.     

Rethinking NIMBYism: The role of place attachment and place identity in explaining place‐protective action

The ‘NIMBY’ (Not In My Back Yard) concept is commonly used to explain public opposition to new developments near homes and communities, particularly arising from energy technologies such as wind farms or electricity pylons. Despite its common use, the concept has been extensively critiqued by social scientists as a useful concept for research and practice. Given European policy goals to increase sustainable energy supply by 2020, deepening understanding of local opposition is of both conceptual and practical importance. This paper reviews NIMBY literature and proposes an alternative framework to explain local opposition, drawing upon social and environmental psychological theory on place. Local opposition is conceived as a form of place‐protective action, which arises when new developments disrupt pre‐existing emotional attachments and threaten place‐related identity processes. Adopting a social constructivist perspective and drawing on social representation theory, a framework of place change is proposed encompassing stages of becoming aware, interpreting, evaluating, coping and acting, with each stage conceived at multiple levels of analysis, from intrapersonal to socio‐cultural. Directions for future research and potential implications of the place‐based approach for public engagement by energy policy‐makers and practitioners are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Absolute Other: Lacan's ‘Big Other’ as Adjunct to Critical Social Psychological Analysis?

Lacanian theory offers a series of promising conceptualization – amongst then the notion of the ‘big Other’– which, despite their obvious analytical value, have been curiously neglected by critical social psychology. This paper concerns itself with an overview of this concept of the ‘big Other’ particularly in reference to how it may benefit critical social psychological analyses. The explanatory value of this notion is introduced via a series of Lacanian paradoxes (the Other as vanishing‐point of inter‐subjectivity that cannot itself be subjectivized; the Other as simultaneously ‘inside’ and ‘outside’; the Other as both embodiment of the social substance and yet also the site of the unconscious). I then move on to show how this notion opens conceptual opportunities for social psychological conceptualizations of the formation of the social. I close by demonstrating what the ‘big Other’ offers critical social psychological analyses of power.     

Prosocial and antisocial children's perceptions of peers' motives for prosocial behaviours

This study investigated whether peer‐nominated prosocial and antisocial children have different perceptions of the motives underlying peers' prosocial actions. Eighty‐seven children, aged 10–12 years old, completed peer‐nomination measures of social behaviour. On the basis of numbers of social nominations received, a subsample of 51 children (32 who were peer‐nominated as ‘prosocial’, and 18 who were peer‐nominated as ‘antisocial’) then recorded their perceptions of peers' motives for prosocial behaviours. Expressed motives were categorized predominantly into three categories, coinciding with Turiel's (1978) ‘moral’, ‘conventional’, and ‘personal domains’. Results indicate that children's social reputation is associated with the extent to which they perceive peers' prosocial motives as ‘personal’ or ‘moral’, with more prosocial children attributing moral motives, and more antisocial children attributing personal motives. Although traditionally Turiel's domain theory has been used to understand ‘antisocial’ children's behaviour, the current findings suggest that ‘prosocial’ children's behaviour may also be related to domains of judgment.     

Action Research: A Missing Component in the Emergence of Social and Cross‐Cultural Psychology as a Fully Inter‐Connected Global Enterprise

Action research, as envisaged by Lewin, uses research to solve a social problem and provide theoretical knowledge. It involves a cyclical–spiral of planning, action, and evaluation with feedback between parties, taking into account power and value differences and empowering change agents. This has been all but abandoned by social psychologists today. Contemporary ‘participatory’ action research has migrated to fields like education and development and community studies that emphasize a social constructionist epistemology with a qualitative approach of recording bottom‐up processes of social change and community self‐awareness. The globalization of psychology affords new opportunities for a return to more top‐down Lewinian traditions, where academics in the developing world – embedded within a cultural milieu of interconnectedness and relatively exempt from pressures to publish or perish – can work together with academics in wealthy countries to produce a process oriented psychology that is capable of making a difference under conditions of climate change and the end of cheap oil. Asian social psychology, where strongly indigenous psychologies have taken root in growing economies, may take a leading role in this movement.     

Social cognition: learning about what matters in the social world

Social‐cognitive principles underlie people's learning about what matters in the social world. The benefits of these social‐cognitive principles reveal essential aspects of what it means to be human. But these social‐cognitive principles also have inherent costs , which highlight what it means to be ‘only human’. Social cognition is ‘social’ because what is learned concerns the social world, and where the learning takes place is in the social world. This paper reviews the benefits and costs of both sides of social cognition: (1) the cognition of social psychology principles of organization, explanation, knowledge activation and use; and (2) the social psychology of cognition principles of shared reality role enactment, social positions and identities and internal audiences. The fact that there are inherent costs of the same social‐cognitive principles for which there are essential benefits affords a new perspective on social‐cognitive costs that is different from either the classic ‘conflict’ perspective or the more current ‘limited capacity’ and ‘dual‐process’ perspectives. This ‘trade‐off’ perspective deepens both our understanding of the true nature of these principles and our appreciation of our common humanity. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teaching critical psychology of ‘race’ issues: problems in promoting anti‐racist practice

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the difficulties faced by teachers of issues related to ‘race’ and racism in psychology when trying to develop anti‐racist practice in their teaching. I argue that the promotion of anti‐racist practice can be impeded by the institutionalised cultures of some psychology departments and that such cultures have developed out of an over‐reliance on positivist ideas. Positivism obscures the fact that knowledge is constructed from positions of power and privilege, which in turn obscures the social and ideological construction of ‘race’. This is clearly a problem when trying to develop anti‐racist practice in teaching. It also leads to fixed ideas about what should be included in teaching content and what can be considered as good pedagogical practice, where notions of ‘balance’ and ‘neutrality’ are advocated, effectively overriding arguments for understanding the dynamics of knowledge production. It also obscures the power and privilege associated with workings of ‘whiteness’. I illustrate this by presenting examples from my own experiences of teaching ‘race’ issues on undergraduate degree courses. I conclude with suggestions for developing anti‐racist teaching by proposing a collective reflexive approach to changing institutional cultures that are currently at odds with anti‐racist practice. I also invite further discussion and suggestions on how best to achieve such collective conscientisation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kurt Lewin's early intentions (dedicated to his 100th birthday)

This article deals with Lewin's early intentions to promote applied psychology, especially with his essay ‘Die Sozialisierung des Taylorsystems’ (The Socialisation of the Taylor System). The authors point out that certain characteristics of Lewin's social psychological approach can already be seen in this early article. Furthermore, they want to show how important the role of applied psychology has been in the development of Lewin S scientific work.     

Constructing the law: discourses and social practices

This paper presents an analysis of everyday understandings of the law, within the context of a dispute between colonial and indigenous land interests in New Zealand. The analysis is informed by developments in the areas of critical legal studies, methodological critique of legal psychology, the social constructionist movement within social psychology, and the application of discursive psychology to understandings of racism. Data for this work was drawn from a corpus of letters to the editor of a newspaper, published in the city where the land dispute took place. Writers constructed the dispute as a legal issue and deployed two divergent constructions of the law. When the ‘primacy’ of the law was invoked, indigenous interests and the protesters were positioned as lawbreakers. When ‘the law in context’ was the resource used, protesters became positioned as seekers of justice. These variable constructions are discussed in terms of the social practices they engender and their wider contribution to debates regarding indigenous and colonial interests. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Critical notes and reflections on ‘social representations’

Moscovici has ushered in the ‘era of social representations widely welcomed as a European alternative to what are increasingly regarded as the shortcomings of mainline American social psychology. The rapid and enthusiastic adoption by many psychologists of Moscovici's theoretical approach has not so far evoked a great deal of critical appraisal of the ideas he put forward. The present paper seeks to make a start in jilling this gap by an examination of the conceptual structure and some of its underlying assumptions. There appear to be a number of internal inconsistencies and some doubt concerning the logical status of social representations’ It is suggested that clarification of such issues, together with the establishment of closer links with the findings of neighbouring disciplines, would help to strengthen what is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating new departures in the field.