Human rights: The role of psychological sense of global community.

Abstract

Despite progress in addressing human rights, abuses and violations persist around the world. This research attempts to gain a better understanding of the psychological determinants that lead people to be concerned about and take action to promote human rights issues. In particular, it tests a model in which self-transcendence values predict attitudes and behaviors supportive of human rights, largely mediated by people’s feeling that they are part of a broad and global community consisting of all humanity (PSGC). In Study 1a, 339 adult participants completed measures of values, PSGC, and attitudes toward human rights. In Study 1b, an ethnically diverse sample (N = 427) completed similar measures, but with items assessing engagement in behaviors supportive of human rights in a number of domains and with diverse populations instead of items assessing human rights attitudes. Structural equation modeling showed that self-transcendence values were related to the human rights measures, and that the relationships between self-transcendence values and concern for human rights and human rights behaviors were mediated by PSGC. In Study 2, 308 participants completed measures of values, PSGC, and both human rights concern and behaviors. Results were consistent with those of Study 1a and 1b. Taken together, these studies reveal a consistent pattern in which feeling part of a global community plays a critical role in connecting people’s values to human rights concern and behaviors.

Support for collective action against refugees: The role of national, European, and global identifications, and autochthony beliefs

“…In contrast, redefining the in-group as a broader and more inclusive category might reduce intergroup conflict, as suggested by the CIIM (Gaertner et al, 1993). The highest level of social categorization is global identification or identification with humanity (see De Rivera & Carson, 2015;Reese, Proch, & Finn, 2015), and it is related to intergroup empathy and humanitarian relief (Buchan et al, 2011;De Rivera & Carson, 2015;Hackett, Omoto, & Matthews, 2015;McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012), both of which might be particularly relevant in shaping attitudes towards involuntary migrants, as some studies suggest (Nickerson & Louis, 2008). From the CIIM perspective, global identification would imply a recategorization process in which a former out-group (i.e., refugees) becomes part of the in-group (i.e., fellow humans), and therefore gets evaluated more positively.…”

Public narratives on human mobility: Countering technocratic and humanitarian refugee narratives with a “one‐world” solidarity narrative

“…Although sociological studies have focused attention on political and cultural cosmopolitanism, sociopolitical psychological inquiry into the public's sense of a global community is relatively nascent, centering on cosmopolitics (Kinnvall & Lindén, 2010), identification with all humanity (McFarland, 2011;McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012), and psychological sense of global community (Hackett, Omoto, & Matthews, 2015).…”

Threats to human rights: A general review

“…While reviewing the literature, there were many ways in which support for human rights restrictions can be increased, yet relatively few studies on increasing support for human rights were located. Some groups have made attempts at focusing on a global community or identification with all humanity as the most important mediators in supporting human rights (Dunwoody & McFarland, 2017;Hackett, Omoto, & Matthews, 2015;McFarland, Brown, & Webb, 2013). In Dunwoody and McFarland's (2017) general structural equation model, identification with all of humanity was the only variable to negatively reduce threat of Muslims which lead to decreases in support for Anti-Muslim policies.…”

“…There has been work in bridging the gap between ingroups and outgroups by examining the connectedness we feel towards the given outgroup. Formulating one's ingroup as the global community has been shown to be a strong predictor of solidarity with victims of human rights violations (Barth et al, 2015;McFarland & Mathews, 2005a) and concern for human rights (Hackett, Omoto, & Matthews, 2015;McFarland, 2010;McFarland, Brown, & Webb, 2013;McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012). Indicators of global community include statements such as "I feel a sense of connection to people all over the world, even if I don't know them personally" (Hackett, Omoto, & Matthews, 2015, p. 52).…”