Towards tolerance: Representations of superordinate categories and perceived ingroup prototypicality

According to Mummendey and Wenzel (1999), group members tend to perceive their ingroup, relative to an outgroup, as more prototypical of the superordinate category encompassing both groups. Hence, they tend to regard the outgroup as deviating from the norms of the superordinate category. Factors that inhibit perception of relative ingroup prototypicality should thus promote intergroup tolerance. In two experiments, the representation of the superordinate category was manipulated. Both an undefinable prototype (Experiment 1; N=63) and a complex representation (Experiment 2; N=88) led to a decrease in relative ingroup prototypicality. Dual identification with the ingroup and the superordinate category increased relative ingroup prototypicality, which was negatively correlated with positive attitudes towards the outgroup. The findings supported Mummendey and Wenzel’s assumptions about the conditions that lead to intergroup tolerance.     

Dreaming woman: Image,place, and the aesthetics of exile

Looking closely at an Argentine dream interpretation column published in a popular women's magazine from 1948 to 1951, this article examines the role of the dream image in shaping psychoanalytic discourse on femininity and national identity. The column, ‘Psychoanalysis Will Help You,’ emerged during Juan Domingo Perón's first presidency, featuring verbal interpretations written under the pen name ‘Richard Rest,’ as well as surreal photomontages by Grete Stern, a German‐born, Bauhaus‐trained photographer living in exile since 1936. While the column's Jungian text encourages readers’ adaptation to the external reality of their social situation, Stern's droll images emphasize the disjuncture between subject and environment, exposing tensions between the experience of exile and the Peronist mission to consolidate an Argentine national identity. Experimenting formally with European avant‐garde techniques, Stern presents femininity and nation as conflictive imaginary configurations. This theme resurfaces at the 2013 Venice Biennale, where Nicola Costantino's multimedia installation Eva – Argentina: A Contemporary Metaphor was exhibited alongside Carl Jung's Red Book. Formal contrasts between Stern's use of photomontage, Costantino's projection technique, and Jung's theory of mandala symbolism indicate the divergent ways in which their artwork posits the therapeutic function of the dream image, as well as the role of aesthetic production in psychoanalytic care.     

“A Part of Who I Am”: Material Objects as “Plot Devices” in the Formation of Religious Selves

What role do material objects play in the formation of religious subjects? Drawing from an ethnographic investigation of the evolving relationships between a group of Eastern Orthodox converts and their religious icons, this article develops a theoretical approach to this question that conceptualizes material artifacts as “plot devices” in the formation of religious identity narratives. Integrating insights from studies of material religious culture with narrative theories of identity, this article argues that religious artifacts become significant to religious identity construction to the extent they act as resources for the configuration of a narrative structure in which transcendent or sacred others play a part. As the empirical details of this study demonstrate, attending to how religious objects’ symbolic meanings (i.e., who or what they represent) are mediated by their unique material characteristics (how they make meanings physically present to social actors in embodied social interaction) is of vital importance for explaining the significant role material artifacts play in the religious emplotment of action and experience.     

Higher-order Traits and Happiness in the Workplace: The Importance of Occupational Project Scale for the Evaluation of Characteristic Adaptations

This study attempts to explain the relationship between job satisfaction and the Big Two, Stability and Plasticity, which are the higher-order traits of Big Five. Occupational Project, a narrative construct, was considered a mediator variable in this relationship. Occupational Project consists of affective and cognitive evaluations of an individual's work life as a project in terms of the completed (past), the ongoing (present) and the prospective (future) parts. The survey method was applied to a sample of 253 participants. The results supported the proposed model, in which Occupational Project mediated the relationship between the Big Two and both job satisfaction and affect in workplace. Discussion is focused on applying Occupational Project as a practical tool for management. Consideration of an employee's Occupational Project could provide management with a means to question, understand, intervene with and redefine the narrative quality of his/her occupational project that influences job satisfaction.     

Blockchain Identities: Notational Technologies for Control and Management of Abstracted Entities

This paper argues that many so‐called digital technologies can be construed as notational technologies, explored through the example of Monegraph, an art and digital asset management platform built on top of the blockchain system originally developed for the cryptocurrency bitcoin. As the paper characterizes it, a notational technology is the performance of syntactic notation within a field of reference, a technologized version of what Nelson Goodman called a “notational system.” Notational technologies produce abstracted entities through positive and reliable, or constitutive, tests of socially acceptable meaning. Accordingly, this account deviates from typical narratives of blockchains (usually characterized as Turing or state machines), instead demonstrating that blockchain technologies are effective at managing digital assets because they produce abstracted identities through the performance of notation. Since notational technologies rely on configurations of socially acceptable meaning, this paper also provides a philosophical account of how blockchain technologies are socially embedded.     

Depression Among Transgender Older Adults: General and Minority Stress

This study aims to (a) examine the direct and indirect effects internalized heterosexism, disclosure of gender identity, and perceived general stress in association with depression among transgender older adults; and (b) to assess the relative contribution of each relationship. Secondary analyses of data from a large community‐based study of older sexual and gender minorities were conducted utilizing structural equation modeling with a subsample (n = 174) of transgender adults aged 50 to 86‐years old. Disclosure of gender identity had no significant direct or indirect effects on either perceived general stress or depression. Internalized heterosexism did not have a direct effect on depression, but did have a significant indirect effect through perceived general stress. Finally, perceived general stress had an additional significant direct effect on depression, over and above internalized heterosexism. Total effect sizes appear to be considerable with standardized betas greater than 5.0. Perceived general stress and internalized heterosexism independently and cumulatively have significant direct and indirect effects on depression among transgender older adults. Implications for depression among transgender older adults and the role of community psychology are discussed.     

From Moment to Movement: Empowerment and Resilience as a Framework for Collective Action in Hong Kong

The Transconceptual Model of Empowerment and Resilience (American Journal of Community Psychology, 52, 2013, 333) suggests that a set of resilience and empowerment resources fuel both initial and sustained participation in collective action. Using the case study of a prodemocracy movement in Hong Kong, the present study focused on the subset of those resources that are relevant in ongoing collective action: efficacy, skills, and maintenance. As individuals possess varying combinations of these resources, the present study utilized latent profile analysis to test how patterns of empowerment and resilience resources influence initial and long‐term collective action. Five groups were identified: (a) Uncommitted/Uninspired; (b) Committed to Status Quo; (c) Mainstream Populist; (d) Empowered; and (e) Ambivalent. ANOVA and ANCOVA analyses found that there are significant group differences in initial and long‐term participation. Groups with higher level of resources reported greater levels of initial participation than their counterparts; however, high resource groups did not uniformly report greater levels of intention to participate in future collective action. Of the maintenance processes tested, collective identity emerged as a particularly important predictor differentiating initial and sustained participation. Findings from the present study raise questions about how individuals with multiple identities can come together and participate in collective action.     

Identity Hierarchy Within the Sudanese Superordinate Identity: Political Leadership Promoting and Demoting Subordinate Groups

Social psychology often emphasizes the link between superordinate identities and intergroup harmony. Other research, however, has illuminated the possible pitfalls of such approaches, pointing at the potentially hierarchical nature of superordinate identities. Yet the research largely ignores who invokes and mobilizes specific definitions of superordinate identities. Using interviews with political leaders and participants from the general population, this article explores a non‐Western conflict case with a hierarchical government‐defined superordinate identity: Sudan. Focus is on the government demoting and promoting different subordinate identities within the superordinate. The criteria for the highest‐level subordinate category within the superordinate identity are discussed as pertaining to three factors—Muslim, Arabic speaking and Arab. Most participants discuss this superordinate identity as yielding an identity hierarchy and strengthening subordinate identities, thereby demonstrating the potential detrimental nature of superordinate identities. The article highlights the context dependency of the link between superordinate identity and intergroup harmony and adds to the void in research on the role of leadership in constructing superordinate identities.     

Opportunities for Immigrants’ Acculturation and Identification Varieties

This article elucidates how members of the two largest immigration groups living in Germany (i.e., immigrants with a Russian or Turkish background) deal with and integrate values and practices deriving from their ethnocultural minority group and the larger society. A special emphasis of this article is on how context conditions form opportunities for varieties of acculturation and identification. The pattern of results suggests a taxonomy of immigrants’ acculturation, consisting of Blended Integration, Alternating Integration, Separation, and Dis‐Integration. This taxonomy is based on immigrants’ integration of cultural aspects, while it proved to be analytically useful to conceptualize their national self‐allocation as an additional dimension. Immigrants’ development of these different varieties was found to be linked to their perceptions of compatibility and acceptance by the larger society. Relative to immigrants with a Turkish background, immigrants with a Russian background experience less deep incompatibilities between values and practices deriving from the cultural groups, thus having more latitude for acculturation and integration. In contrast, immigrants with a Turkish background experience more challenges to acculturation and integration as a result of being confronted more frequently with incompatibilities and experience less societal acceptance. Further conceptual and societal implications are discussed.