Social and Groups Psychology

To investigate the existence of an autonomous system justification motive that guides human behavior, we tested the dissonance-inspired strong system-justification thesis: that the cognitive effort expended to justify societal systems on which people depend, is greater amongst the disadvantaged than amongst the advantaged when their group identities are weak in salience/strength. Using a novel pupil dilation paradigm to tap cognitive effort, we exposed an ethnic minority group (Ntotal = 263) to depictions of their ingroup as disadvantaged or advantaged after they had stated four things they liked about their ethnic group (strong group identity salience) or grandmother (weak group identity salience). We then measured fluctuations in their pupil diameter as they contemplated support for societal systems that were either relevant (high dependency) or irrelevant (low dependency) to their ethnic group. Results revealed that pupil sizes were larger in the group disadvantage condition than in the group advantage condition—indicating greater cognitive effort—but only when group identity was salient (Experiment 1) or when group identification was strong (Experiment 2). These effects occurred only for high dependency systems. Combined, this evidence contradicts the system-justification thesis, and questions the existence of an autonomous system justification motivation in humans.

In comedies, the idea of community is an indispensable staple – be it as an (implied) audience, as butt of the joke or as what Werner Röcke has termed Lachgemeinschaften (communities of laughter), i.e. groups of an unforeseeable and fluid nature that can renegotiate power relations and social order. Communities of laughter can arise spontaneously, yet they follow conventionalized practices and rely on shared codes. This has allowed for their integration into generic forms such as film comedies, where the idea of community has featured prominently ever since the success of postwar Ealing films (such as Passport to Pimlico): here, a tightly-knit group of amicable underdogs usually challenges a powerful institution, negotiating questions of Britishness in the process.
This article traces the heritage of this type of Lachgemeinschaft in contemporary British comedies and points to a two-fold development.
Whilst the mildly anarchic but ultimately conciliatory spirit of Ealing comedy survives in recent box-office hits like The Full Monty or Made in Dagenham, there are other developments which challenge the idea of a community based on principles of mutual solidarity. It is television in particular where the recent rise of “cringe comedies” (often darkly humorous narratives invoking feelings of discomfort and embarrassment) suggests a much bleaker outlook on social reality.
The article draws upon numerous examples both from films and influential cringe series such as The Office in order to interrogate this divide, to question the importance of media-related difference in generating communities of laughter, and to analyse the underlying concepts of Britishness that become visible in the process.

Qualitative research provides opportunities to study bullying and peer harassment as social processes, interactions and meaning-making in the everyday context of particular settings. It offers the possibility of developing a deep understanding of the culture and group processes of bullying and the participants’ perspectives on peer harassment as well. It gives participants opportunities to discuss their own understanding and experiences of bullying in their own words. This article reviews qualitative studies on bullying or peer harassment in school (including some studies in which qualitative and quantitative methods — so-called mixed methods — have been used).

Research on heterophily as a relational phenomenon is mostly limited to specific professional contexts which do not include knowledge about status or value heteroph-ily as a possible group-generating principle. This article tries to close this gap by proposing and applying a new method of data analysis to investigate this possible role of heterophily. We apply social network analysis to personal network data. As a preliminary, we introduce a conceptual distinction between two types of heterophily, what we call intra-category heterophily and inter-category heterophily, and we validate the adjusted residuals of contingency tables to measure these two types of heterophily. Then, we reconstruct the relational space of these heterophilous relations among categories or attributes defined by socio-demographic and status characteristics. Finally, we group by faction algorithm the categories or attributes that maintain denser heterophilous relationships with each other than with the rest. The methodology proves to be valid and useful for achieving the desired analytical objective, revealing that status-heterophilous relationships can be considered as guiding principles, or mechanisms, for generating groups of social categories.

La paneurythmie est une pratique physique universelle pour la santé du corps, l’intelligence, les émotions et l’esprit humain. Ses résultats sur le plan physique, psychique et social sont d’une impressionnante efficacité bénéfique.
La paneurythmie est née et évolue en un système d’exercices, dans le contexte d’un vieil État chrétien d’Europe. C’est une pratique psycho-physique et spirituelle d’essence européenne, compatible avec le yoga en Asie, mais toutefois elle s’inspire de la tradition chrétienne et le patrimoine culturel occidental. C’est pourquoi on peut désigner la paneurythmie comme le « Yoga de l’Occident ».
La paneurythmie fascine des personnes partout dans le monde qui suivent des cours d’apprentissage et la pratiquent. Il y a moins de 80 ans qu’elle est apparue, et pourtant elle est déjà présente dans des pays des cinq continents. Car elle possède l’impressionnante capacité de donner du sens à la vie qui gagne en beauté et en plaisir, d’unir les gens de toute race, sexe, âge, nationalité et confession.

Le présent texte est un résumé du livre de Ludmila Chervenkova « Paneurythmie, santé et bien-être : une solution bulgare d’activité physique », publié en 2013 à Sofia par l’Édition de l’Université « St Clément d’Ohrid » (en bulgare). Le résumé est rédigé par l’auteure.

“As we know, well-led groups provide many member benefits: feelings of universality, a sense of hope, altruism, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and mutual support...This text is affordable, easy to use, and very suitable for providing group work material in BSW or MSW practice courses.”

— Greg Tully, West Chester University



AN EXPERIENTIAL APPROACH TO GROUP WORK
Second Edition

Rich Furman, University of Washington, Tacoma
Kimberly Bender, University of Denver
Diana Rowan, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

An Experiential Approach to Group Work is not your typical group work text! Using dozens of exercises that build practice-tested skills, the authors' approach is in perfect step with CSWE's competence-based education requirements. The book is organized into three sections—the first addresses stages of group practice, the second looks at major types of groups, and the final section looks at examples of group work practice with special populations.

Features of the Second Edition

    Expanded! Discussion of the theory of group process and dynamics
    New! Content regarding Canadian, British, and Australian group work practices
    New! Chapters on anti-oppressive practice, group work with immigrants, and macro-practice group work
    New! Content on the use and development of technology to aid group work
    Contains customized exercises for each group work topic, designed to build the student and practitioner’s skills for use in group work sessions
    Special emphasis on how to bring individual sessions or groups to closure
    Provides examples of group work in specialized settings: conflict resolution groups within elementary schools, pregnant teens, Latinos, and HIV/AIDS clients

Повернення: про щоб написав Ремарк, якби жив в сучасній Україні
Military actions in Ukraine are dividing people into subgroups which differ in their assessment of the situation. During now three years of ongoing war activities these subgroups have been creating different identities depending on how intensely they are involved in military actions: soldiers; civilians in the Eastern Ukraine in the zones of „anti-terror-operations“; civilians from other less involved regions. These new identities have also created new social attitudes and defense mechanisms against more or less vigorous conflicts.
We work with methods of social psychology (focus group and interviews) to define these identities in their relation to the self and others involved in current events in Ukraine. How do these identities and attitudes need to be adequately considered in an understanding of traumatic experiences? How can they effect these experiences and  aggravate or facilitate posttraumatic recovery? Posttraumatic recovery and rehabilitation?

O texto em questão aborda a constituição das identidades políticas como um processo psicossocial. Propõe que os processos de mobilização social po- dem inaugurar ações coletivas para mudança social; porém, para tal, são ne- cessários três aspectos fundamentais da constituição das identidades políti- cas: o processo de identificação coletiva, a passagem das relações de subor- dinação para a consciência da condição da opressão e a delimitação de fron- teiras políticas entre grupos sociais (“nós” versus “eles”). O texto faz, ainda, uma breve revisão dos estudos sobre mobilização social, considerando a re- emergência da Psicologia Social como um aporte necessário para a compre- ensão da constituição das identidades políticas e, por último, apresenta, es- quematicamente, uma interpretação do processo de mobilização social dan- do ênfase aos aspectos psicopolíticos.

Emergent leadership is the direction of group activities by individuals that are members of a group without formal or nominative leadership. Their fellow group members attribute emergent leadership to people in groups. Doctoral cohorts are groups of students that work toward a degree in a manner that is synchronous.  Projects and coursework make it necessary for collaboration and emergent leadership to occur within cohorts of doctoral students.  The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and to describe the experiences of students in a cohort model doctoral program at a state university in New England with emergent leadership.  This research can lead to further work in the area of groups without formal leadership in disciplines beyond graduate higher education, including emergent leadership in non-profit and for-profit organizations.

Sosyal Psikoloji’nin önemli ve temel konularından biri gruplarda insan davranışının incelenmesidir. Psikoloji bilimi insan davranışlarını incelerken bireyi toplumsal bağlamından ayrı olarak düşünemez çünkü bireyin yalnız olarak gerçekleştirdiği davranışları ile grup içerisindeki davranışları farklılık gösterebilmektedir. Bu nedenle, bireyin grup içerisindeki davranışları birey hakkında önemli çıkarımlarda bulunmamızı sağlamaktadır. 

Yerli ve yabancı alanyazın incelendiğinde "Grup Dinamikleri ve Süreçleri” ile ilgili sınırlı sayıda akademik kaynağın olması beni bu kitabı yazmaya yönlendirmiştir. Kitabın yazılmasındaki amaç az da olsa yerli alanyazındaki bu eksikliği gidermeye çalışmaktır. Bu amaç kapsamında kitap 8 temel bölüm ve her bir bölüm kendi içerisinde alt bölümlerden oluşmaktadır.

In her chapter, 'Varieties of Pejoratives', Robin Jeshion distinguishes pejorative lexical items, pejorative uses of words, and pejorative speech acts. She surveys and taxonomizes pejorative nicknames, thick terms, and slurs, including canonical, descriptive, and gendered slurs, as well as those terms explicitly encoding group stereotypes.

[About the Lewinian concept of powerfields and its relevance for psychotherapy. Part 1 of the article: Kurt Lewin's theory of powerfields, concepts and research. Part 2 of the article published in 2017: Relevance of the concept in psychotherapy.]

Zusammenfassung:

Nicht immer lassen sich Erleben und Verhalten der Person allein aus ihren eigenen Bedürfnissen und Bestrebungen im Rahmen ihrer persönlichen Möglichkeiten verstehen. Es gibt auch Situationen und Bereiche, in denen ihr Tun und Lassen davon bestimmt ist, was dem Willen anderer entspricht – und den diesen anderen zugeschriebenen Möglichkeiten. Sie befindet sich dann, um mit Kurt Lewin zu sprechen, im Machtfeld dieser anderen. Nicht immer handelt es sich dabei um
Menschen - unter gewissen Umständen können auch nicht-menschliche
Lebewesen und Wesenheiten, Gegenstände und Sachverhalte, oder Unpersönliches wie sachliche Konstellationen, Ideologien oder Institutionen mit solchen Machtfeldern in unserem Lebensraum wirken.
Wir finden aber nicht nur die Wirkungen fremder Machtfelder vor, sondern auch die unseres eigenen Machtfeldes in unserer erlebten Umwelt. Unterschiedliche Wechselwirkungen des eigenen Machtfeldes mit fremden Machtfeldern zeigen sich im Erleben und Verhalten.
Das theoretische Konzept der Machtfelder geht auf Kurt Lewin und seine MitarbeiterInnen zurück. Es fand bisher zu wenig Beachtung, weil es zu Lebzeiten Lewins nicht mehr voll ausgearbeitet wurde und im deutschsprachigen Raum durch unangemessene Übersetzungen
weitgehend unterging. Der erste Teil des Artikels rekonstruiert dieses Konzept in den Grundzügen – vorwiegend anhand von Beispielen aus Arbeiten der Gruppe um Lewin. Im zweiten Teil (nächstes Heft) werden Möglichkeiten der Nutzung des Konzepts im psychotherapeutischen Feld diskutiert.

University represents a pathway to upward social mobility for many working-class people. However, this distinctly middle-class environment also provides a number of unique social psychological challenges for working-class students. Working-class university students are often in the minority group at university, they are often the first in their families to attend university, and they often feel out of place at university. They also lack the time and money required to engage with other students on campus. Consequently, they are less likely to be as integrated into social life at university as their middle-class peers. In this chapter, we consider the potential implications of this lack of social integration for working-class students' academic outcomes and mental health. In particular, we review recent research that shows that working-class students' lack of integration at university is associated with poorer academic outcomes and poorer mental health. We conclude with a discussion of potential interventions to increase working-class students' social integration at university.

Although groups necessarily contain individuals and have some relation to the larger institutional, cultural, and societal forces around them, group processes occur at the group level of analysis rather than at the individual or societal level. Likewise, intergroup processes are those that occur between groups, rather than between individuals or within a group, institution, culture, or society. And yet it seems clear that both group and intergroup processes may be affected by factors at other levels of analysis. For example, the way in which a work group operates may be affected by the characteristics of the individuals who make up the group (e.g., their cooperative or competitive nature), as well as by the characteristics of the institution within which the group exists (e.g., its pay and promotion structure). Thus, a full understanding of group and intergroup processes requires attention to multiple levels of analysis.

Partiendo del principio protestante del "sacerdocio de todos los creyentes", que propuso Lutero , se plantean las implicaciones teológicas y eclesiales de este "sacerdocio universal", como la confesión de la "sanctorum communio". Se hace una intersección con la salud mental, en cuanto la comunidad cristiana responde, desde una ética del dolor, a las experiencias de sufrimiento psíquico. Se plantean las miradas de comprensión de dicho sufrimiento desde la psicopatología y los abordajes psicoterapéuticos, así como se plantean las formas de intervención desde las comunidades de fe para el crecimiento y la curación.

Howard Gruber, a founder member of Psychologists for Social Action, reviewed the dissertation. His review, dated May 7, 1978, as Parkovnick (2015) points out, "... is worth quoting in full, as it captures the very essence of the dissertation":
“This is an effective dissertation and could become an important book. I began reading it very favorably disposed to it. Then I got more and more riled up, made many hostile notes. By the end I found myself almost won over, certainly illuminated. Francks [Gruber’s spelling] has a style that gets under your skin and stays there. This is a good thing and should not get lost in the process of expansion, rewriting, and editing. It will take some work to make it a persuasive book to a less sympathetic reader, and to reduce its present excessive vulnerability to academic criticism. Its very sweep opens many avenues to criticism, crit. of a kind that detracts the reader and potential reader from the central ideas. But all this can be worked out. As an academic type, I often find myself cringing, wanting things toned down. But by the time I finished, I felt that the direction of the change should be to strengthen the tone of the book, to make its central, disturbing message more apparent, bring it more up front.”  Gruber, H. (1978). Review of A history of American social psychology up to the Second World War by Peter Francks [Gruber’s spelling] for Ablex Publishing Corporation, May 7.

Readers should also look at: https://www.academia.edu/60033912/The_Psychology_of_Participation_Revisited_1984_2021

Infrahumanization is a specific attribution error due to the difference in the perception of the ingroup and the outgroup on a dimension of humanity. The subject of the paper includes two quazi-experimental studies concerning cultural conditions of infrahumanization. Ocurrence of the effect of infrahumanization among all the respondents was expected and it was speculated if cultural differences in the intensity of the phenomenon occur. The first study involved 150 people, seventy five of Polish origin and seventy five of Bulgarian origin. The second study involved 120 people, sixty of Polish origin and sixty of Indonesian origin. The hypothesis was partially confirmed. The classic effect of infrahumanization occurred among Polish and Bulgarian respondents, but the effect was stronger among Poles. The classic infrahumanization effect did not occur among Indonesian participants.

This course is structured to introduce the fundamental techniques of using data to make informed management decisions. In particular, there is focus on various ways of modeling, or thinking structurally about, decision problems in order to enhance decision-making skills. Rather than survey all of the techniques of management science, only fundamental concepts that are most important for the practical analysis of management decisions will be tackled.

The scope of this assignment will tackle two types of decision making methods: [1] Heuristic method – defined as proceeding to a solution by trial and error or by rules that are only loosely defined; [2] Quantitative method – a systematic and computational analysis of data and statistics.  The Quantitative and Analytics methods (collectively called Management Science) are used interchangeably to mean models, structures,
and techniques to enhance the management skill of making informed decisions.  A brief exploration of the basic techniques in using data to make decisions will also be done; and focus will be on the most important and practical only.  It is not the intent of this assignment to delve into algorithms and computational techniques which is reserved
to a dedicated research on decision support systems (DSS).  An introduction to DSS though will suffice in highlighting the Quantitative method.

The Heuristic method will likewise be discussed.  After all, quantitative methods are only as good as the readiness and maturity of organizations, driven largely by the analytical decision-making culture (Popovič, et al., 2011).  The Heuristics method may seem rather crude, but sound judgment and effective decisions are resultant factors of a painful and difficult discovery, exploration, and self-learning process (Popovič, ibid.). 

In Description: From Data to Actionable Insight, there is a further look at how data is transformed and translated to information, to insight, then to actionable intelligence; as well as the part that technology plays in the enablement of each stage.  This will serve as an introduction to the basic techniques in using data: the tools, structures, and models that leaders use to support them in making decisions. 

The section on Discussions present a comparison of two decision making methods within a defined and set criteria.

A case study done on participatory and group decision making (Lunenberg, 2011) for a global shared services organization will be presented in the section on Actualization.  In a facilitated exercise, the objective of the Country Head is to formulate a medium term business strategy within a neutral and balanced framework, increase legitimacy and buy-in from the leadership team, while breaking dominant organizational patterns.  Elements of individual and group decision making methods  using the business model approach are demonstrated as the leaders went through the strategic planning exercise (Hacklin and Wallnöfer, 2015).

This assignment concludes with a conceptual model – a proposal on the collective interplay of leadership skills, organizational maturity, and technology tools along the decision making process. With this model, the underlying objective is to equip individuals aspiring to lead and drive analytics efforts on critical business, people, and operations metrics – with management tools to analyze, interpret trends, and act within an environment of voluminous structured and unstructured data.  It goes without saying that the overarching goal is all towards the purpose of them becoming effective leaders and decision makers.

I have discussed the work of public relations guru Edward Bernays before. I specifically focused on his 1928 book "Propaganda", in which he laid out his initial ideas in the formation of public attitudes, facilitated by a technocratic elite of manipulation experts. It was in this work that Bernays coined the term "public relations", which drove the perception of his profession away from the negative connotations of the word "propaganda", and its associations with the German effort in the First World War.

He laid out the complex and overlapping relationship between psychology, democracy and corporations, in the vein of a manifesto.

His earlier work of 1923, "Crystallizing Public Opinion", was an attempt to give the field of public relations a more scientific credence. The first word of the title could be associated with a process usually affiliated with chemistry and the older, more arcane art of alchemy.  It is in this mystical style that Bernays engaged in his treatise.

The publication of the book was preceded by Walter Lippman's heavy tome of 1922, "Public Opinion", released the year before. Bernays and Lippmann served together on the U.S. Committee on Public Information.  Bernays is reported in Stuart Evan's introduction to have wanted to condense and refine Lippman's criticism of functional democracy more comprehensively, and in a more condensed format fit for wider public consumption.

Bernays' work appears to have taken the work of Gustave Le Bon as a source of inspiration, and while many other writers and thinkers are referenced throughout the book, sadly there is no attribution or citing of Le Bon's work on mass psychology.

Bernays' prowess as a social engineer is now well known since his death in 1995, largely thanks to popular exposure of his work in Adam Curtis' four part documentary series of 2002 "The Century Of Self". This notoriety was not always so. It was his hidden hand that was behind putting public spin on such events as a coup in Guatemala in 1954, at the behest of the United Fruit Company, as well as his infamous "torches of freedom" publicity stunt of 1929, normalising the social acceptance of women smokers at the behest of the American Tobacco Company. He also played a huge part in popularising the work of his double uncle Sigmund Freud on the North American continent, selling the ideas of Freudian psychoanalysis like a brand. It was not until a time towards the end of his life when the American public became aware of his influence on shaping many aspects of their lives, and even today he is not exactly a household name. One might say that this is the first rule of a good publicist though; the public should be aware of your client or product, not the person with all the power who is selling the idea to you from behind the scenes.

Bernays and his techniques of crystallizing public opinion have now become the embodiment of a system of governance that prescribes its sanctioned reality onto the mass mind. At no point in history has this idea become more pronounced or relevant than now. ...

http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2017/01/crystallizing-public-opinion-by-edward.html

The aim of this study was to investigate how individuals;who had been victims of school bullying;perceived their bullying experiences and how these had affected them;and to generate a grounded theory of being a victim of bullying at school. Twenty-one individuals;who all had prior experiences of being bullied in school for more than one year;were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The research identified a basic process of victimising in school bullying;which consisted of four phases: (a) initial attacks;(b) double victimising;(c) bullying exit and (d) after-effects of bullying. Double victimising refers to a process in which there was an interplay between external victimising and internal victimising. Acts of harassment were repeatedly directed at the victims from their social environment at school – a social process that constructed and repeatedly confirmed their victim role in the class or the group. This external victimising affected the victims and initiated an internal victimising;which meant that they internalised the socially constructed victim-image and acted upon this image;which in turn often supported the bullies’ agenda and confirmed the socially constructed victim-image. The findings also indicate the possible positive effect of changing the social environment.

The aim of this study was to investigate how individuals;who had been victims of school bullying;perceived their bullying experiences and how these had affected them;and to generate a grounded theory of being a victim of bullying at school. Twenty-one individuals;who all had prior experiences of being bullied in school for more than one year;were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The research identified a basic process of victimising in school bullying;which consisted of four phases: (a) initial attacks;(b) double victimising;(c) bullying exit and (d) after-effects of bullying. Double victimising refers to a process in which there was an interplay between external victimising and internal victimising. Acts of harassment were repeatedly directed at the victims from their social environment at school – a social process that constructed and repeatedly confirmed their victim role in the class or the group. This external victimising affected the victims and initiated an internal victimising;which meant that they internalised the socially constructed victim-image and acted upon this image;which in turn often supported the bullies’ agenda and confirmed the socially constructed victim-image. The findings also indicate the possible positive effect of changing the social environment.

The aim of this study was to investigate how individuals;who had been victims of school bullying;perceived their bullying experiences and how these had affected them;and to generate a grounded theory of being a victim of bullying at school. Twenty-one individuals;who all had prior experiences of being bullied in school for more than one year;were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The research identified a basic process of victimising in school bullying;which consisted of four phases: (a) initial attacks;(b) double victimising;(c) bullying exit and (d) after-effects of bullying. Double victimising refers to a process in which there was an interplay between external victimising and internal victimising. Acts of harassment were repeatedly directed at the victims from their social environment at school – a social process that constructed and repeatedly confirmed their victim role in the class or the group. This external victimising affected the victims and initiated an internal victimising;which meant that they internalised the socially constructed victim-image and acted upon this image;which in turn often supported the bullies’ agenda and confirmed the socially constructed victim-image. The findings also indicate the possible positive effect of changing the social environment.

The aim of the present study was to examine to what degree different mechanisms of moral disengagement were related to age, gender, bullying, and defending among school children. Three hundred and seventy-two Swedish children ranging in age from 10 to 14 years completed a questionnaire. Findings revealed that boys expressed significantly higher levels of moral justification, euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, distorting consequences, and victim attribution, as compared with girls. Whereas boys bullied others significantly more often than girls, age was unrelated to bullying. Moral justification and victim attribution were the only dimensions of moral disengagement that significantly related to bullying. Furthermore, younger children and girls were more likely to defend victims. Diffusion of responsibility and victim attribution were significantly and negatively related to defending, while the other dimensions of moral disengagement were unrelated to defending.

This paper describes studies conducted at three separate group relations conferences. After a brief review of group relations research literature, the author reports learning outcomes from three conferences. Finally, she offers thoughts on what this data may mean for group relations conference work.

“Financial Behavior: An Overview” is the introduction chapter for the book Financial Behavior: Players, Services, Products, and Markets edited by H. Kent Baker, Greg Filbeck, and Victor Ricciardi. The book provides a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical literature on the financial behavior of major stakeholders, financial services, investment products, and financial markets. The book offers a different way of looking at financial and emotional well-being and processing beliefs, emotions, and behaviors related to money. It presents important insights about cognitive and emotional biases that influence various financial decision-makers, services, products, and markets. The chapter also provides an overview of the emerging research topics covered in Financial Behavior and the abstract descriptions for the remaining 29 chapters of the book by 50 contributors.

Baker, H. Kent and Filbeck, Greg and Ricciardi, Victor, Chapter 1: Financial Behavior: An Overview (June 1, 2017). Financial Behavior: Players, Services, Products, and Markets. H. Kent Baker, Greg Filbeck, and Victor Ricciardi, editors, 3-22. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2974217.

We were one strong Ummah, believing in Tawheed, then differed, thus weaknesses. Division and differences in Islam are something inevitable, to which history bears witness.
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group.  This Ummah was prophesized to be divided into 73 sects, all of them in the hellfire except one; that which Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and his companions (may Allaah be pleased with them) are upon.
However, leniency is one of the major characteristics of every sunnah scholar regarding the explanation of Kitaab and Sunnah to the erred sects or groups but this is not in the book of many young scholars today. Thus, lots of right-thinking and religiously committed Islamic intellectuals, scholars, and professionals have been disenchanting with the state of the Muslim Ummah presently.
This called for more elaboration on sects in Islam, and a dire need of this Ummah for a correct way of regulating our differences and living with them, collaborating on common grounds, and excusing one another on naysaying issues by Kitaab and Sunnah.
Oh brethren, adhere to the jamaa’ah (group) of the Muslims and their leader. And if there is no jamaa’ah and no leader, then, keep away from all those different sects.

Che cos’è il pregiudizio? Quali sono i processi che lo determinano? Che ruolo assume all’interno dei conflitti intergruppi? Il pregiudizio, se associato ad altri fattori, può trasformare i conflitti trattabili in conflitti intrattabili? E soprattutto, come si riduce?
In questa tesi ho cercato di trovare una risposta a queste domande. In letteratura, come vedremo, l’essenza, la natura e lo sviluppo di questo costrutto sono stati ampiamente trattati e discussi. Il pregiudizio è parte integrante della nostra vita quotidiana, ma spesso è un meccanismo che opera lontano dalla consapevolezza e soggiace a molti comportamenti, giudizi ed emozioni. Le numerose società esistenti, attraverso le proprie credenze, tendono a sviluppare diversi tipi di pregiudizi verso i gruppi esterni e le minoranze. I pregiudizi hanno la potenzialità di scatenare conflitti, dare vita a discriminazioni e comportamenti ostili tra membri di gruppi diversi. Questo costrutto psicosociale, se non ridotto attraverso la conoscenza dell’altro, può radicalizzarsi e stagnare nella mente degli individui appartenenti a un determinato gruppo.
Nel primo capitolo affronterò il tema del pregiudizio, che cos’è e su quali fattori si basa. All’interno del secondo capitolo tratterò del ruolo che il pregiudizio assume nel conflitto intergruppi e di alcune teorie che spiegano in che modo è possibile ridurlo. Nel terzo, e ultimo, capitolo descriverò il conflitto israelo-palestinese, la natura intrattabile del conflitto e il ruolo giocato dal pregiudizio del popolo ebraico prima e durante il flusso migratorio in Medio Oriente.

The aim with the present study was to investigate bystander actions in bullying situations as well as reasons behind these actions as they are articulated by Swedish students from fourth to seventh grade. Forty-three semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with students. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by methods from grounded theory. The analysis of the student voices of being a bystander in bullying reveals a complexity in which different definition-of-situation processes are evoked (a) relations (friends and social hierarchy), (b) defining seriousness, (c) victim’s contribution to the situation, (d) social roles and intervention responsibilities, and (e) distressing emotions. There are often conflicted motives in how to act as a bystander, which could evoke moral distress among the students. Our analysis is unique in that it introduces the concept of moral distress as a process that has to be considered in order to better understand bystander actions among children The findings also indicate bystander reactions that could be associated with moral disengagement, such as not perceiving a moral obligation to intervene if the victim is defined as a non-friend (‘none of my business’), protecting the friendship with the bully, and blaming the victim.

Taken from Google Scholar; Taylor and Francis Online

URL Links:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223891.1990.9674097

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00223891.1990.9674097

"Theory testing in the area of hypercompetitiveness has been impeded by the lack of an adequate psychometric instrument. Four studies were conducted as part of an initial research program designed to remedy this deficiency by constructing an individual difference measure of general hypercompetitive attitude with satisfactory psychometric properties. In Studies 1 and 2, a 26-item scale was derived primarily through item-total correlational analysis; it demonstrated adequate internal and test-retest reliabilities. The remaining two studies were concerned with determining the construct validity of the scale. In line with theoretical expectations based on Horney's theory of neurosis, subjects who perceived themselves as hypercompetitive were less psychologically healthy. The potential usefulness of the scale in therapeutic, athletic, school, and business settings is discussed."

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

Cristina Martinez-Taboada Kutz, Ainara Arnoso Martinez,
Aitor Aritzeta Galán y Alberto Amutio Kareaga

El grupo como construcción social lleva a la consideración de un espacio de negociación entre el sistema grupal en su conjunto y sus componentes. El contexto, la organización y la cultura determinan también su resultado como lo hacen las personas que inciden desde la interacción más inmediata. Investigaciones constatan que los grupos deben contemplarse como sistemas sociales complejos, adaptativos y dinámicos que se construyen en la interacción e interdependencia entre los miembros del grupo absorbidos por su dinámica y por la de los otros sistemas sociales que lo determinan.

Se trata de un estudio sobre el tema de referencia realizado con una muestra de 150 sujetos, cuyos datos han sido aportados por la UNED. Este ejercicio es una práctica de la asignatura de Psicología de los Grupos.

El análisis de los datos sugieren que efectivamente el nivel de fusión de la identidad de los sujetos con el grupo de pertenencia predice de forma significativa la disposición al sacrificio en favor del mismo.

Emotional contagion refers to the process of transferring one individual’s behaviors and emotions to another individual. Emotions aid in the establishment of beneficial and secure bonds amongst individuals. Prior research in the area of emotional contagion highlights the critical role played by emotions in bringing about drastic, intense, and disruptive changes in the workplace on three different levels – individual, group, and society. The literature has shown that emotional contagion plays an important role in fostering team spirit, bringing about performance effectiveness, fostering transformational leadership, and creating desirable organizational cultures. There is also a significant body of literature that suggests that emotions are contagious. Organizations are constantly striving to reduce negative emotions and enhance the circulation of positive emotions to improve organizational and individual effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework which identifies critical factors that lead to higher emotional contagion and which examines these factors’ impacts on employees and organizations.