Applying Social Psychology to International Social Issues

Abstract

This article discusses six key issues that arise when social psychology applies its insights to international affairs. Three involve the applications themselves. Effective applications must connect with the macro level of analysis, attend to social problems long overlooked by the discipline, and operate consistently across cultures and societies. For this last point, two broad predictions-the universality and mediation hypotheses-are advanced that assert that the same social psychological processes can lead to diverse outcomes in different settings. The remaining issues involve the political context of applications made in the public arena. Such efforts must avoid victim blaming; be made available throughout the status hierarchy, notjust to elites; and recognize that the public policy arena is scalding hot and controversial. Throughout the discussion, Kelman 's remarkable applications to the search for peace in the Middle East illustrate the points. The article closes with remedial suggestions for the future.

Contemporary Immigration Policy Orientations Among Dominant‐Group Members in Western Europe

“…Relative to the speed at which immigration alters global contours (Bowser, 1995;Pettigrew, 1998a), social scientists have been slow in describing and explaining the nature of immigration policy attitudes. Members of receiving societies are living in a world where people of different racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious groups are increasingly involved in their daily interactions.…”

“…Part of this feeling of threat may be derived from a rise in unemployment that pitted immigrant workers against native workers in competition for scarce jobs in many countries (see also Esses, Dovidio, Jackson, & Armstrong, this issue). Some extreme right-wing political organizations have taken advantage of this feeling of threat to rise to power (Lloyd & Waters, 1991;Pettigrew, 1998a;Räthzel, 1990). These groups have frequently portrayed immigration as "illegal," that is, refugees as "economic" rather than seeking asylum, immigrants as being unable to adapt to life in their new nation, and social and economic resources as being severely strained because of the increased presence of "foreigners" (van Dijk, 1997).…”

How Ideological Attitudes Predict Host Society Members’ Attitudes toward Immigrants: Exploring Cross-National Differences

“…The effects of both variables are expected to depend on how immigrant groups are construed and to which degree the motivational concerns underlying RWA and SDO are chronically salient in the sociocultural context. Thus, in line with Pettigrew's (1998) universality and mediation hypotheses, we assume that psychological processes on the individual level (as proposed here following the instrumental model and the dual‐process model) are universally valid mediators of macrolevel influences.…”

Racial Bias in Policing: Why We Know Less Than We Should

“…Similarly, researchers that depend on original survey data for their research may fear that getting access to law enforcement participants is a time‐consuming (if not futile) exercise. Both possibilities are likely to cause scholars in traditional social science disciplines to hesitate before engaging the issue of race in law enforcement—particularly if they are early in their career (Dovidio & Esses, 2007; Goff, in press; Pettigrew, 1998).…”