Social identity and health at mass gatherings

The Prayag Magh Mela research was funded by the ESRC (UK) research grant ‘Collective participation and social identification: A study of the individual, interpersonal and collective dimensions of attendance at the Magh Mela’ (RES-062-23-1449).Identifying with a group can bring benefits to physical and psychological health. These benefits can be found with both small-scale and large-scale social groups. However, groups can also be associated with health risks: a distinct branch of medicine (‘Mass Gathering Medicine’) has evolved to address the health risks posed by participating in events characterized by large crowds. We argue that emphasizing either the positive or the negative health consequences of group life is one-sided: both positive and negative effects on health can occur (simultaneously). Moreover, both such effects can have their roots in the same social psychological transformations associated with a group-based social identification. Reviewing evidence from across a range of mass gatherings, we offer a conceptual analysis of such mixed effects. Our account shows i., how social identity analyses can enrich mass gatherings medicine, and ii., how social identity analyses of health can be enriched by examining mass gatherings.PostprintPeer reviewe

‘Oh motherland I pledge to thee…’ : a study into nationalism, gender and the representation of an imagined family within national anthems

In this paper we aim to join feminist critiques of nationalism, arguing that beyond understanding nations as imagined communities (Anderson 1983: 6), the symbolic construction of gender must also be considered in the formation of those communities. We argue that the metaphor of an ‘imagined family’ or ‘filial community’ is a more useful concept towards understanding the links between gender and nationhood in four ways as family relations: 1) provide a clear, hierarchical structure, 2) prescribe social roles and responsibilities, 3) are linked to positive affective connotations and 4) reify social phenomena as biologically determined. In order to empirically substantiate our claim, we will explore the prevalence and use of family metaphors in a key symbol of nationhood discourses of nationhood. Through a qualitative analysis of national anthems as ‘mnemonics of national identity’, we demonstrate the widespread presence of family metaphors, discussing how they reproduce ideas of family and gender. Finally, we discuss how the ‘imagined family’ as present in anthems and other forms of national representation could inform future studies of nationalism and national politics.PostprintPeer reviewe

Re-reading the 2011 riots: ESRC beyond contagion interim report

Background to the 2011 riots • While an extraordinary amount has been written and said about the 2011 English riots, very little has been based on systematic evidence. The present interim report summarizes findings so far from a research programme based on a comprehensive data-set, which seeks to develop a new way of talking and thinking about the process by which riots spread from location to location. • Some of the dominant accounts of the riots - as mindless destruction or ‘criminality pure and simple’1 - obscure understanding and feed into flawed policy responses. • This study drew upon multiple archive sources, interviews with rioters (gathered as part of the Guardian/LSE Reading the Riots project), contextual information about riot locations, and police crime data. We used these data to construct histories of some of the most significant riots in August 2011, to test predictive models, and to analyse participants’ experiences. Myths of the riots • The idea that those who participated were overwhelmingly convicted criminals or that their actions were typically indiscriminate are not supported by the Home Office’s data. • Like many other riots, the rioting in Tottenham happened after a drawn-out process rather than a single ‘spark’. In each location, conflict with the police and power-reversal in a local deprived estate was often the point at which smaller skirmishes became a mass event. Motives for the riots • There were significant differences between London boroughs that saw rioting and those that did not. Immediately prior to the riots, the former had significantly more deprivation, many more police ‘stop and searches’, and more negative attitudes to the police. • We found that anti-police sentiment among participants was a significant factor in who joined in and what they did. One reason given for this hostility was experiences of ‘stop and search’ in the community. • Shared anti-police sentiment formed the basis of a common identity, superseding ‘postcode rivalries’, and enabling coordinated action against police targets. • In addition, many people saw themselves in opposition to a societal system they perceived as unjust and illegitimate; this made looting acceptable to many of them. Understanding the spread of the riots • To explain waves of riots, in place of the concept of ‘contagion’ - the notion that people simply copied others in a mindless and automatic way - we propose a new model of riot spread as identity-based collective empowerment. • Rioting spread in various different ways. The first spread - from Tottenham High Road to Tottenham Hale and Wood Green - occurred as police dispersed rioters yet were unable to prevent their actions. • Here and elsewhere, there was a pattern whereby community or anti-police rioting was the basis of subsequent commodity rioting (involving looting) as well as attacks on wealth. • Close examination of the spread of rioting from North to South London suggests that Brixton participants often identified with Tottenham, and were influenced to riot out of anger and a sense of injustice at the killing of Mark Duggan. This would explain why Brixton was the first place to riot in South London. • Many more of those in Croydon and Clapham, however, were more influenced by the perception of police vulnerability across London. The impact of police vulnerability in providing ‘vicarious’ empowerment for those who identified as anti-police may have been a general process, explaining riot spread across England. • In all the locations we looked at, local identities and networks mediated the impact of rioting in other locations: most people interviewed were influenced by what they thought relevant others locally were prepared to do. • Some police tactics seem to have inadvertently facilitated spread to different locations. These tactics included clearing town centres of shoppers and using proactive methods in those locations they feared would riot

Core disgust is attenuated by ingroup relations

We present the first experimental evidence to our knowledge that ingroup relations attenuate core disgust and that this helps explain the ability of groups to coact. In study 1, 45 student participants smelled a sweaty t-shirt bearing the logo of another university, with either their student identity (ingroup condition), their specific university identity (outgroup condition), or their personal identity (interpersonal condition) made salient. Self-reported disgust was lower in the ingroup condition than in the other conditions, and disgust mediated the relationship between condition and willingness to interact with target. In study 2, 90 student participants smelled a sweaty target t-shirt bearing either the logo of their own university, another university, or no logo, with either their student identity or their specific university identity made salient. Walking time to wash hands and pumps of soap indicated that disgust was lower where the relationship between participant and target was ingroup rather than outgroup or ambivalent (no logo)

Perception, Action and the Social Dynamics of the Variable Self

PostprintPeer reviewe

From the 'fragile rationalist' to 'collective resilience':what human psychology has taught us about the COVID-19 pandemic and what the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us about human psychology

A successful response to the Covid-19 pandemic is dependent on changing human behaviour to limit proximal interactions with others. Accordingly, governments have introduced severe constraints upon freedoms to move and to mix. This has been accompanied by doubts as to whether the public would abide by these constraints. Such doubts are underpinned by a psychological model of individuals as fragile rationalists who have limited cognitive capacities, who panic under pressure and turn a crisis into a tragedy. Drawing on evidence from the UK, we show that this did not occur. Rather, the pandemic has illustrated the remarkable collective resilience of individuals when brought together as a community by the common experience of crisis. This is a crucial lesson for the future, because it underpins the importance of developing leadership and policies that enhance rather than weaken such emergent social identity.</p

How crowds transform identities

This chapter looks at how crowds have the ability to create and perform a common identity that is either heterogeneous and expansive or narrow and restrictive. Both are situated in contemporary Turkey: on the one hand, the Gezi Park protests started in June 2013 to oppose the destruction of the park in İstanbul. The protests brought together disparate groups with little in common other than their opposition to the ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party). On the other hand, in the aftermath of the July 2016 coup attempt, at the behest of President Erdoğan, crowds formed in town squares across the country in “Democracy Watches” gatherings as a symbol of the preservation of the government. While the Gezi Park protests were bottom-up, made up of different groups that ultimately created a more inclusive notion of citizenship and collective destiny, the post-coup rallies were top-down and conveyed a more exclusive representation of the nation and its historic significance. Overall, we intend to show the importance of redefining identity and intergroup histories through collective practices embodied in crowds, and to discuss the practical implications of crowds as a vehicle to (re-)form communities, beyond the legal and institutional spheres.</p

The instrumental use of group prototypicality judgments

Of bikers, teachers and Germans: Groups’ diverging views about their prototypicality. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 385–400] have shown that ingroup members often tend to judge the ingroup as more prototypical of the superordinate group than other subgroups. In this paper, we argue that, in addition to the motivational processes that have been posited to explain this phenomenon, prototypicality judgments may vary according to instrumental considerations. In particular, those who believe their ingroup interest to be undermined by remaining part of the common group will downplay ingroup’s prototypicality as a way to sustain their separatist position. In a first study (N = 63), we found that Scottish respondents who support Scottish independence judged the Scots to be less prototypical of Britain than the English, as compared with Scots who do not support independence. In a second study (N = 191), we manipulated the rhetorical context within which prototypicality judgments were made. Results showed that the pattern found in study 1 only applied when the issue of independence was made salient. When the issue of the importance of Scottish history in Britain was made salient, the opposite pattern appeared, i.e. supporters of independence judged the Scots more prototypical than the English compared to non-supporters. These results were also interpreted in instrumental terms. [author's abstract

Explaining effervescence: Investigating the relationship between shared social identity and positive experience in crowds

We investigated the intensely positive emotional experiences arising from participation in a large-scale collective event. We predicted such experiences arise when those attending a collective event are (1) able to enact their valued collective identity and (2) experience close relations with other participants. In turn, we predicted both of these to be more likely when participants perceived crowd members to share a common collective identity. We investigated these predictions in a survey of pilgrims (N = 416) attending a month-long Hindu pilgrimage festival in north India. We found participants’ perceptions of a shared identity amongst crowd members had an indirect effect on their positive experience at the event through (1) increasing participants’ sense that they were able to enact their collective identity and (2) increasing the sense of intimacy with other crowd members. We discuss the implications of these data for how crowd emotion should be conceptualised

COVID‐19 in context: why do people die in emergencies? It’s probably not because of collective psychology

Notions of psychological frailty have been evident in comments by journalists, politicians and others on public responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, there is the argument that collective selfishness, thoughtless behaviour, and over-reaction would make the effects of Covid-19 much worse. The same kinds of claims have been made previously in relation to other kinds of emergencies, such as fires, earthquakes and sinking ships. We argue that in these cases as well as in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, other factors are better explanations for fatalities -- namely under-reaction to threat, systemic factors, and mismanagement. Psychologizing disasters serves to distract from the real causes and thus from who might be held responsible. Far from being the problem, collective psychology in emergencies – including the solidarity and cooperation so commonly witnessed among survivors – is the solution, one that should be harnessed more effectively in policy and practice