Gillian Finchilescu
Biographic Data
| ID | 210671 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gillian Finchilescu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gillian |
| FAMILY NAME | Finchilescu |
| SIGNATURE | FINCHILESCU G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5905-309X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 283 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Moral Expansiveness Around the World: The Role of Societal Factors Across 36 Countries
What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles.' There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness—that is, the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found …
Multinational data show that conspiracy beliefs are associated with the perception (and reality) of poor national economic performance
While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country‐level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed …
A 32‐society investigation of the influence of perceived economic inequality on social class stereotyping
There is a growing body of work suggesting that social class stereotypes are amplified when people perceive higher levels of economic inequality—that is, the wealthy are perceived as more competent and assertive and the poor as more incompetent and unassertive. The present study tested this prediction in 32 societies and also examines the role of wealth‐based categorization in explaining this relationship. We found that people who perceived highe…
Materialist and post-materialist concerns and the wish for a strong leader in 27 countries
There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong leaders is increasing. Although the causes of these developments are complex and multifaceted, here we focus on one factor: the extent to which citizens express materialist and post-materialist concerns. We explore whether objective higher levels of democracy are differentially associated with materialist and post-materialist concerns and, in turn, whe…
“Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now”: Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader
Societal inequality has been found to harm the mental and physical health of its members and undermine overall social cohesion. Here, we tested the hypothesis that economic inequality is associated with a wish for a strong leader in a study involving 28 countries from five continents (Study 1, N = 6,112), a study involving an Australian community sample (Study 2, N = 515), and two experiments (Study 3a, N = 96; Study 3b, N = 296). We found correl…
The impact of workplace bullying in the Zimbabwean nursing environment: Is social support a beneficial resource in the bullying–well-being relationship
Bullying is an environmental workplace stressor that has severe implications for the bullied individual and the organisation. Nurses within Southern African hospitals face unique challenges, which can foster an environment within which bullying flourishes. In particular within public hospitals, there are shortages of doctors, equipment, and basic resources, and hospitals are grossly understaffed. This study investigated the effect of workplace bu…
Regaining In-Group Continuity in Times of Anxiety About the Group's Future: A Study on the Role of Collective Nostalgia Across 27 Countries
Collective nostalgia for the good old days of the country thrives across the world. However, little is known about the social psychological dynamics of this collective emotion across cultures. We predicted that collective nostalgia is triggered by collective angst as it helps people to restore a sense of in-group continuity via stronger in-group belonging and out-group rejection (in the form of opposition to immigrants). Based on a sample (N = 5,…
Cultural Values Moderate the Impact of Relative Deprivation
Relative deprivation (RD) is the judgment that one or one's ingroup is worse off compared with some relevant standard coupled with feelings of dissatisfaction, anger, and resentment. RD predicts a wide range of outcomes, but it is unclear whether this relationship is moderated by national cultural differences. Therefore, in the first study, we used national assessments of individual-collectivism and power distance to code 303 effect sizes from 31…
What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice
We sought to identify the mechanisms that cause strongly fused individuals (those who have a powerful, visceral feeling of oneness with the group) to make extreme sacrifices for their group. A large multinational study revealed a widespread tendency for fused individuals to endorse making extreme sacrifices for their country. Nevertheless, when asked which of several groups they were most inclined to die for, most participants favored relatively …
Perceptions of the future of South Africa: A 2009 replication
Karl Mannheim argued that in times of social upheaval and instability, individuals would engender ‘situationally transcendent ideas’, or ideologies, about the future of their society. In South Africa, Kurt Danziger initiated a tradition of research on future ideologies in 1956. Danziger’s research was replicated in three studies, which were conducted during, and shortly after, the era of apartheid. The African National Congress’s Polokwane Confer…
Understanding the Seating Patterns in a Residence-Dining Hall: A Longitudinal Study of Intergroup Contact
Using a combination of observational and questionnaire methods, this longitudinal study investigated interracial contact in a university residence dining hall, focusing on the organization of seating patterns. The results showed that informal division by race was extensive, with indices of interaction (xPy*) and evenness (D) indicating the existence of high levels of racial segregation. Moreover, although they had ample opportunities for regular …
Mediators of the Contact-Prejudice Relation among South African Students on Four University Campuses: Mediators of the Contact-Prejudice Relation
Intergroup contact is undoubtedly associated with lower levels of self-reported prejudice. In some situations, however, contact may have little or no association with prejudice. Studies conducted in apartheid South Africa rarely found such an association. Apartheid was overturned in 1994, but there have been few explicit tests of the relationship since then. The present study explored the relation between contact and prejudice in a large (N= 2,59…
The Changing Landscape of Intergroup Relations in South Africa: The Changing Landscape of Intergroup Relations
Apartheid laws and policies served to create a hierarchy of four apparently distinct races in South Africa, which were systematically segregated from each other and provided with unequal access to material resources. The apartheid state was dissolved in 1994, and a new, democratic government installed, under relatively peaceful conditions. This special issue of the journal will examine the effects of this major social and political transformation…
Intergroup Anxiety in Interracial Interaction: The Role of Prejudice and Metastereotypes
Intergroup contact is known to promote positive intergroup relations. However, in natural settings race groups tend to self-segregate. Prejudice and metaperceptions are hypothesized to act as barriers to mixing. The experiment reported in this article investigates the role of prejudice and metastereotypes in producing the intergroup anxiety experienced in a simulated contact situation. The experiment was replicated at three different universities…
Sexual Harassment of Women in the South African Navy
We report on a study that investigated sexual harassment within the South African Navy. We firstly used a survey to examine the prevalence of sexual harassment in the shore-based fleet, just prior to the gender integration of naval ships, and found evidence of widespread sexual harassment. Secondly, we used interviews and focus groups to examine the experiences of sexual harassment on ships one year after gender integration, and found a relative …
Improving Intergroup Relations: Building on the Legacy of Thomas F. Pettigrew
Table of Contents. 1. Editor's Introduction: Ulrich Wagner (Philipps-University Marburg), Linda R. Tropp (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Gillian Finchilescu (University of the Witwatersrand), and Colin Tredoux (University of Cape Town). 2. Thomas F. Pettigrew: Building on the Scholar-Activist Tradition in Social Psychology: Frances Cherry (Carleton University). Part I: Exploring the Causes of Prejudice and Discrimination:. 3. From Lewin a…
The Influence of Prejudice and Stereotypes on Anticipated Affect: Feelings about a Potentially Negative Interaction with Another Ethnic Group
In this research we investigated whether feelings about an imagined potentially negative interaction with a member of another ethnic group was affected more by valence than content of stereotypes, and whether the differential influence of perception and meta-perception was similar for dominant and dominated groups within a given society. Prejudice, cultural stereotypes and meta-stereotypes were measured for both the dominant and the subordinate g…
Symbols of organisational culture: Describing and Prescribing Gender Integration of Navy Ships
The symbols of organisation culture can both describe and prescribe human behaviour within that organisation. This paper examines experiences of gender integration of South African Navy ships through the use of symbols of military culture. Accounts from female and male sailors were collected through interviews and focus groups, 18 months after the gender integration of their ships, and revealed the symbolic use of rituals, metaphors, artefacts an…
The Contact Hypothesis and Intergroup Relations 50 Years on: Introduction to the Special Issue
This article introduces the special issue on intergroup contact. We remind readers of the visit to South Africa, 50 years ago, of Gordon Allport and his associate, Thomas Pettigrew, and review work on one of Allport's central contributions to social psychology, the ‘contact hypothesis’. This hypothesis proposes that contact between groups will, under the right conditions, reduce prejudice and promote better intergroup relations. Although there is…
Accounting for Lack of Interracial Mixing Amongst South African University Students
The persistence of informal segregation in post-apartheid South Africa is now well documented. As the articles in this journal issue attest, this segregation is rife in many public spaces, including university campuses. This article explores the reasons to which students attribute the lack of interracial mixing at their institutions. Students from four universities were surveyed using an internet-based questionnaire. The final sample consisted of…
Preserving Spatial and Temporal Dimensions in Observational Data of Segregation
Recent approaches to the study of intergroup contact have emphasised the need for naturalistic studies and the importance of paying attention to the spatiality of contact. In this article it is argued that it is important to preserve both spatiality and temporality when studying inter-group contact in naturalistic settings. This is not easy to do with existing observational methods, and a novel approach is proposed. Photographs are taken of a pub…
Patterns of Racial Segregation in University Residence Dining-Halls
Social psychologists have long been interested in the effects of ‘contact’ between racial groups. The conditions under which this contact can manifest have usually been experimentally manipulated in order to determine optimal combinations. A shortcoming of this approach is that it constructs contact situations that are unnatural and contrived. Some researchers have proposed an approach that examines contact as a natural phenomenon (Dixon & Durrhe…
Meta-Stereotypes May Hinder Inter-Racial Contact
Avoidance of intergroup contact occurs not only as a result of prejudice, but also for a myriad of other reasons. Intergroup anxiety has been hypothesised as one central explanatory factor for informal segregation. In this article, Stephan and Stephan's (1985) model of the antecedents and consequences of intergroup anxiety is discussed in the context of the South African situation. The concept of meta-stereotypes is also introduced and proposed a…
Predicting the Intention of South African Female Students to Engage in Premarital Sexual Relations: An Application of the Theory of Reasoned Action
The Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) was used to investigate the factors influencing South African female students' decision on whether or not to engage in premarital sexual intercourse. The group of participants consisted of 100 female heterosexual university students who were selected from a larger sample on the basis of sexual inexperience. As anticipated by the theory, both attitudes and subjective norms were found to predic…
Social Identity Theory and the Authoritarian Personality Theory in South Africa
Social identity theory assumes that individuals and collectives apply identity management strategies in order to cope with threatened social identities. It is argued here that an integration of social identity theory and the authoritarian personality theory may help to investigate identity management strategies for minority and majority groups. It was intended to investigate predictors of identity management strategies applied by students at the …
What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice
We sought to identify the mechanisms that cause strongly fused individuals (those who have a powerful, visceral feeling of oneness with the group) to make extreme sacrifices for their group. A large multinational study revealed a widespread tendency for fused individuals to endorse making extreme sacrifices for their country. Nevertheless, when asked which of several groups they were most inclined to die for, most participants favored relatively …
Regaining In-Group Continuity in Times of Anxiety About the Group's Future: A Study on the Role of Collective Nostalgia Across 27 Countries
Collective nostalgia for the good old days of the country thrives across the world. However, little is known about the social psychological dynamics of this collective emotion across cultures. We predicted that collective nostalgia is triggered by collective angst as it helps people to restore a sense of in-group continuity via stronger in-group belonging and out-group rejection (in the form of opposition to immigrants). Based on a sample (N = 5,…
Preserving Spatial and Temporal Dimensions in Observational Data of Segregation
Recent approaches to the study of intergroup contact have emphasised the need for naturalistic studies and the importance of paying attention to the spatiality of contact. In this article it is argued that it is important to preserve both spatiality and temporality when studying inter-group contact in naturalistic settings. This is not easy to do with existing observational methods, and a novel approach is proposed. Photographs are taken of a pub…
Patterns of Racial Segregation in University Residence Dining-Halls
Social psychologists have long been interested in the effects of ‘contact’ between racial groups. The conditions under which this contact can manifest have usually been experimentally manipulated in order to determine optimal combinations. A shortcoming of this approach is that it constructs contact situations that are unnatural and contrived. Some researchers have proposed an approach that examines contact as a natural phenomenon (Dixon & Durrhe…
Intergroup Anxiety in Interracial Interaction: The Role of Prejudice and Metastereotypes
Intergroup contact is known to promote positive intergroup relations. However, in natural settings race groups tend to self-segregate. Prejudice and metaperceptions are hypothesized to act as barriers to mixing. The experiment reported in this article investigates the role of prejudice and metastereotypes in producing the intergroup anxiety experienced in a simulated contact situation. The experiment was replicated at three different universities…
Improving Intergroup Relations: Building on the Legacy of Thomas F. Pettigrew
Table of Contents. 1. Editor's Introduction: Ulrich Wagner (Philipps-University Marburg), Linda R. Tropp (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Gillian Finchilescu (University of the Witwatersrand), and Colin Tredoux (University of Cape Town). 2. Thomas F. Pettigrew: Building on the Scholar-Activist Tradition in Social Psychology: Frances Cherry (Carleton University). Part I: Exploring the Causes of Prejudice and Discrimination:. 3. From Lewin a…
Meta-Stereotypes May Hinder Inter-Racial Contact
Avoidance of intergroup contact occurs not only as a result of prejudice, but also for a myriad of other reasons. Intergroup anxiety has been hypothesised as one central explanatory factor for informal segregation. In this article, Stephan and Stephan's (1985) model of the antecedents and consequences of intergroup anxiety is discussed in the context of the South African situation. The concept of meta-stereotypes is also introduced and proposed a…
Mediators of the Contact-Prejudice Relation among South African Students on Four University Campuses: Mediators of the Contact-Prejudice Relation
Intergroup contact is undoubtedly associated with lower levels of self-reported prejudice. In some situations, however, contact may have little or no association with prejudice. Studies conducted in apartheid South Africa rarely found such an association. Apartheid was overturned in 1994, but there have been few explicit tests of the relationship since then. The present study explored the relation between contact and prejudice in a large (N= 2,59…
The Changing Landscape of Intergroup Relations in South Africa: The Changing Landscape of Intergroup Relations
Apartheid laws and policies served to create a hierarchy of four apparently distinct races in South Africa, which were systematically segregated from each other and provided with unequal access to material resources. The apartheid state was dissolved in 1994, and a new, democratic government installed, under relatively peaceful conditions. This special issue of the journal will examine the effects of this major social and political transformation…
Understanding Intra-Group Variations in Prejudice — The Role of Perceived Legitimacy and Stability
Social Identity Theory predicts that the pattern of intergroup behaviour is a function of the relative status of the groups involved, and the perceived security of this hierarchy. Insecurity of social identity arises if the intergroup situation is seen as unstable and/or illegitimate. In this paper the authors suggest that these factors may also contribute to intra-group variations in outgroup discrimination and hostility. This was empirically in…
Multinational data show that conspiracy beliefs are associated with the perception (and reality) of poor national economic performance
While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country‐level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed …
Accounting for Lack of Interracial Mixing Amongst South African University Students
The persistence of informal segregation in post-apartheid South Africa is now well documented. As the articles in this journal issue attest, this segregation is rife in many public spaces, including university campuses. This article explores the reasons to which students attribute the lack of interracial mixing at their institutions. Students from four universities were surveyed using an internet-based questionnaire. The final sample consisted of…
Effect of incompatibility between internal and external group membership criteria on intergroup behaviour
Group membership generally entails that individuals are both defined, and define themselves, as members of that group. This study investigated the effect of incompatibility between these definitions on intergroup behaviour. Subjects were allocated to one of two groups of differential status such that the allocation was compatible or incompatible with their self‐categorization. The results indicated that the effect of incompatibility depended on t…
The Influence of Prejudice and Stereotypes on Anticipated Affect: Feelings about a Potentially Negative Interaction with Another Ethnic Group
In this research we investigated whether feelings about an imagined potentially negative interaction with a member of another ethnic group was affected more by valence than content of stereotypes, and whether the differential influence of perception and meta-perception was similar for dominant and dominated groups within a given society. Prejudice, cultural stereotypes and meta-stereotypes were measured for both the dominant and the subordinate g…
The Contact Hypothesis and Intergroup Relations 50 Years on: Introduction to the Special Issue
This article introduces the special issue on intergroup contact. We remind readers of the visit to South Africa, 50 years ago, of Gordon Allport and his associate, Thomas Pettigrew, and review work on one of Allport's central contributions to social psychology, the ‘contact hypothesis’. This hypothesis proposes that contact between groups will, under the right conditions, reduce prejudice and promote better intergroup relations. Although there is…
Cultural Values Moderate the Impact of Relative Deprivation
Relative deprivation (RD) is the judgment that one or one's ingroup is worse off compared with some relevant standard coupled with feelings of dissatisfaction, anger, and resentment. RD predicts a wide range of outcomes, but it is unclear whether this relationship is moderated by national cultural differences. Therefore, in the first study, we used national assessments of individual-collectivism and power distance to code 303 effect sizes from 31…
Social Identity Theory and the Authoritarian Personality Theory in South Africa
Social identity theory assumes that individuals and collectives apply identity management strategies in order to cope with threatened social identities. It is argued here that an integration of social identity theory and the authoritarian personality theory may help to investigate identity management strategies for minority and majority groups. It was intended to investigate predictors of identity management strategies applied by students at the …
Catapulted Into Democracy: South African Adolescents' Sociopolitical Orientations Following Rapid Social Change
In this article, we explore the effects of the political transformations in South Africa on the orientations of adolescents to these changes. The study was conducted between 1992 and 1996. This period includes the first negotiations toward a new political dispensation for the country, the first democratic elections of April 1994, and the first few years of post‐apartheid democratic governance. Informed by generational and life span approaches, th…
Understanding the Seating Patterns in a Residence-Dining Hall: A Longitudinal Study of Intergroup Contact
Using a combination of observational and questionnaire methods, this longitudinal study investigated interracial contact in a university residence dining hall, focusing on the organization of seating patterns. The results showed that informal division by race was extensive, with indices of interaction (xPy*) and evenness (D) indicating the existence of high levels of racial segregation. Moreover, although they had ample opportunities for regular …
What's Changed: The Racial Orientations of South African Adolescents During Rapid Political Change
The authors outline cross-sectional studies (across time and age) of the effects of the political changes in South Africa on the intergroup orientations of adolescents, as well as their orientations to the new democracy. The study was undertaken between 1992 (before the end of apartheid) and 1996 (after apartheid), with 14-year-old and 17-year-old high school students from formerly designated Black, Coloured, White and Indian population groups. P…
Setting the Frame: Gender and Psychology
The invisibility and marginality of women within psychology has been at the centre of considerable disaffection with the discipline. The desire to address this invisibility and replace women and gender within the discipline has resulted in a fertile source of theorizing and research. This article presents an outline of the causes of the disaffection, and discusses some of the current trends and debates in the work on gender and psychology
Symbols of organisational culture: Describing and Prescribing Gender Integration of Navy Ships
The symbols of organisation culture can both describe and prescribe human behaviour within that organisation. This paper examines experiences of gender integration of South African Navy ships through the use of symbols of military culture. Accounts from female and male sailors were collected through interviews and focus groups, 18 months after the gender integration of their ships, and revealed the symbolic use of rituals, metaphors, artefacts an…
Adolescents' future ideologies through four decades of South African history
Talking about Language: Zulu Students' Views on Language in the New South Africa
The post-apartheid South African government has in principle instituted a new language policy, which changes the country from one with two official languages to one in which there are eleven. The previously ignored indigenous languages are to have equal status with English and Afrikaans. This paper explores the views of some members of an indigenous language group about the language question. Two focus groups were conducted, with Zulu-speaking st…
The Disempowering Effects of Media Violence Against Women on College Women
This study investigated the disempowering effect of exposure to media violence against women on female students. An initial study involving 284 female students described the development and evaluation of two forms of a scale measuring disempowerment. The second study investigated the effect of media violence using a Solomon Four-Group experimental design. Fifty-seven female students were divided into four groups that were shown video clips depict…
Group-Induced Decision Polarization: Further Generalizations
Three experiments on the group polarization phenomenon are reported. Experiments 1 and 2 found decision polarization on issues relevant to the South African socio-political context and among groups meeting repeatedly, over four sessions. Polarization in these more established groups was similar to that in typical single-session groups at the group decision stage, but established groups retained the degree of polarization to a greater extent. Nomi…
Effect of incompatibility between internal and external group membership criteria on intergroup behaviour
Group membership generally entails that individuals are both defined, and define themselves, as members of that group. This study investigated the effect of incompatibility between these definitions on intergroup behaviour. Subjects were allocated to one of two groups of differential status such that the allocation was compatible or incompatible with their self‐categorization. The results indicated that the effect of incompatibility depended on t…
Understanding Intra-Group Variations in Prejudice — The Role of Perceived Legitimacy and Stability
Social Identity Theory predicts that the pattern of intergroup behaviour is a function of the relative status of the groups involved, and the perceived security of this hierarchy. Insecurity of social identity arises if the intergroup situation is seen as unstable and/or illegitimate. In this paper the authors suggest that these factors may also contribute to intra-group variations in outgroup discrimination and hostility. This was empirically in…
The Disempowering Effects of Media Violence Against Women on College Women
This study investigated the disempowering effect of exposure to media violence against women on female students. An initial study involving 284 female students described the development and evaluation of two forms of a scale measuring disempowerment. The second study investigated the effect of media violence using a Solomon Four-Group experimental design. Fifty-seven female students were divided into four groups that were shown video clips depict…
Setting the Frame: Gender and Psychology
The invisibility and marginality of women within psychology has been at the centre of considerable disaffection with the discipline. The desire to address this invisibility and replace women and gender within the discipline has resulted in a fertile source of theorizing and research. This article presents an outline of the causes of the disaffection, and discusses some of the current trends and debates in the work on gender and psychology
Talking about Language: Zulu Students' Views on Language in the New South Africa
The post-apartheid South African government has in principle instituted a new language policy, which changes the country from one with two official languages to one in which there are eleven. The previously ignored indigenous languages are to have equal status with English and Afrikaans. This paper explores the views of some members of an indigenous language group about the language question. Two focus groups were conducted, with Zulu-speaking st…
Catapulted Into Democracy: South African Adolescents' Sociopolitical Orientations Following Rapid Social Change
In this article, we explore the effects of the political transformations in South Africa on the orientations of adolescents to these changes. The study was conducted between 1992 and 1996. This period includes the first negotiations toward a new political dispensation for the country, the first democratic elections of April 1994, and the first few years of post‐apartheid democratic governance. Informed by generational and life span approaches, th…
Adolescents' future ideologies through four decades of South African history
HIV/Aids versus smoking-induced cancer: A comparison of South African students' attributions of culpability, and risk-taking behaviour
This study investigated whether people living with HIV/AIDS are held more responsible for their illness than sufferers of a smoking‐related disease. Students at the University of Cape Town completed one of two questionnaires, one referring to HIV/AIDS and the other to lung cancer. In each, a vignette was presented describing a student who discovers that he has the disease in question linked to risk‐taking behaviour. The participants completed a n…
What's Changed: The Racial Orientations of South African Adolescents During Rapid Political Change
The authors outline cross-sectional studies (across time and age) of the effects of the political changes in South Africa on the intergroup orientations of adolescents, as well as their orientations to the new democracy. The study was undertaken between 1992 (before the end of apartheid) and 1996 (after apartheid), with 14-year-old and 17-year-old high school students from formerly designated Black, Coloured, White and Indian population groups. P…
Predicting the Intention of South African Female Students to Engage in Premarital Sexual Relations: An Application of the Theory of Reasoned Action
The Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) was used to investigate the factors influencing South African female students' decision on whether or not to engage in premarital sexual intercourse. The group of participants consisted of 100 female heterosexual university students who were selected from a larger sample on the basis of sexual inexperience. As anticipated by the theory, both attitudes and subjective norms were found to predic…
Social Identity Theory and the Authoritarian Personality Theory in South Africa
Social identity theory assumes that individuals and collectives apply identity management strategies in order to cope with threatened social identities. It is argued here that an integration of social identity theory and the authoritarian personality theory may help to investigate identity management strategies for minority and majority groups. It was intended to investigate predictors of identity management strategies applied by students at the …
Preserving Spatial and Temporal Dimensions in Observational Data of Segregation
Recent approaches to the study of intergroup contact have emphasised the need for naturalistic studies and the importance of paying attention to the spatiality of contact. In this article it is argued that it is important to preserve both spatiality and temporality when studying inter-group contact in naturalistic settings. This is not easy to do with existing observational methods, and a novel approach is proposed. Photographs are taken of a pub…
Patterns of Racial Segregation in University Residence Dining-Halls
Social psychologists have long been interested in the effects of ‘contact’ between racial groups. The conditions under which this contact can manifest have usually been experimentally manipulated in order to determine optimal combinations. A shortcoming of this approach is that it constructs contact situations that are unnatural and contrived. Some researchers have proposed an approach that examines contact as a natural phenomenon (Dixon & Durrhe…
Meta-Stereotypes May Hinder Inter-Racial Contact
Avoidance of intergroup contact occurs not only as a result of prejudice, but also for a myriad of other reasons. Intergroup anxiety has been hypothesised as one central explanatory factor for informal segregation. In this article, Stephan and Stephan's (1985) model of the antecedents and consequences of intergroup anxiety is discussed in the context of the South African situation. The concept of meta-stereotypes is also introduced and proposed a…
The Contact Hypothesis and Intergroup Relations 50 Years on: Introduction to the Special Issue
This article introduces the special issue on intergroup contact. We remind readers of the visit to South Africa, 50 years ago, of Gordon Allport and his associate, Thomas Pettigrew, and review work on one of Allport's central contributions to social psychology, the ‘contact hypothesis’. This hypothesis proposes that contact between groups will, under the right conditions, reduce prejudice and promote better intergroup relations. Although there is…
Accounting for Lack of Interracial Mixing Amongst South African University Students
The persistence of informal segregation in post-apartheid South Africa is now well documented. As the articles in this journal issue attest, this segregation is rife in many public spaces, including university campuses. This article explores the reasons to which students attribute the lack of interracial mixing at their institutions. Students from four universities were surveyed using an internet-based questionnaire. The final sample consisted of…
Improving Intergroup Relations: Building on the Legacy of Thomas F. Pettigrew
Table of Contents. 1. Editor's Introduction: Ulrich Wagner (Philipps-University Marburg), Linda R. Tropp (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Gillian Finchilescu (University of the Witwatersrand), and Colin Tredoux (University of Cape Town). 2. Thomas F. Pettigrew: Building on the Scholar-Activist Tradition in Social Psychology: Frances Cherry (Carleton University). Part I: Exploring the Causes of Prejudice and Discrimination:. 3. From Lewin a…
The Influence of Prejudice and Stereotypes on Anticipated Affect: Feelings about a Potentially Negative Interaction with Another Ethnic Group
In this research we investigated whether feelings about an imagined potentially negative interaction with a member of another ethnic group was affected more by valence than content of stereotypes, and whether the differential influence of perception and meta-perception was similar for dominant and dominated groups within a given society. Prejudice, cultural stereotypes and meta-stereotypes were measured for both the dominant and the subordinate g…
Symbols of organisational culture: Describing and Prescribing Gender Integration of Navy Ships
The symbols of organisation culture can both describe and prescribe human behaviour within that organisation. This paper examines experiences of gender integration of South African Navy ships through the use of symbols of military culture. Accounts from female and male sailors were collected through interviews and focus groups, 18 months after the gender integration of their ships, and revealed the symbolic use of rituals, metaphors, artefacts an…
Sexual Harassment of Women in the South African Navy
We report on a study that investigated sexual harassment within the South African Navy. We firstly used a survey to examine the prevalence of sexual harassment in the shore-based fleet, just prior to the gender integration of naval ships, and found evidence of widespread sexual harassment. Secondly, we used interviews and focus groups to examine the experiences of sexual harassment on ships one year after gender integration, and found a relative …
Understanding the Seating Patterns in a Residence-Dining Hall: A Longitudinal Study of Intergroup Contact
Using a combination of observational and questionnaire methods, this longitudinal study investigated interracial contact in a university residence dining hall, focusing on the organization of seating patterns. The results showed that informal division by race was extensive, with indices of interaction (xPy*) and evenness (D) indicating the existence of high levels of racial segregation. Moreover, although they had ample opportunities for regular …
Mediators of the Contact-Prejudice Relation among South African Students on Four University Campuses: Mediators of the Contact-Prejudice Relation
Intergroup contact is undoubtedly associated with lower levels of self-reported prejudice. In some situations, however, contact may have little or no association with prejudice. Studies conducted in apartheid South Africa rarely found such an association. Apartheid was overturned in 1994, but there have been few explicit tests of the relationship since then. The present study explored the relation between contact and prejudice in a large (N= 2,59…
The Changing Landscape of Intergroup Relations in South Africa: The Changing Landscape of Intergroup Relations
Apartheid laws and policies served to create a hierarchy of four apparently distinct races in South Africa, which were systematically segregated from each other and provided with unequal access to material resources. The apartheid state was dissolved in 1994, and a new, democratic government installed, under relatively peaceful conditions. This special issue of the journal will examine the effects of this major social and political transformation…
Intergroup Anxiety in Interracial Interaction: The Role of Prejudice and Metastereotypes
Intergroup contact is known to promote positive intergroup relations. However, in natural settings race groups tend to self-segregate. Prejudice and metaperceptions are hypothesized to act as barriers to mixing. The experiment reported in this article investigates the role of prejudice and metastereotypes in producing the intergroup anxiety experienced in a simulated contact situation. The experiment was replicated at three different universities…
Psychology (31 works) · Social Psychology (28 works) · Political science (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (15 works) · Politics (11 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (9 works) · Law (7 works) · Perception (7 works)