| Summary: |
This project aims to study the impact of the perception of social control mechanisms as being effective or ineffective responses to social threats (e.g., economic crisis, crime offenders, etc.) on social cohesion, perceptions of anomie, and attitudes in favour of or against self-centred behaviour.
As the Western global economy goes through a major economic crisis, there seems to be a widespread disbelief of the general public in the ability of national institutions to overcome such crisis, and people seem to feel threatened in their daily routines, as well as about their future, both individually and as members of the community. While being caused by economic factors, such feeling of threat seems to be reinforced by the perception of society's overall inability to effectively deploy social control mechanisms, not only as regards reaction toward offenders but also as regards the protection of social values that are fundamental for the society. This project focuses on the effect of efficacy of group reaction toward crime and the perception of inability to protect social values on individuals' investment on aspects related to their social identity, namely, on (positive or negative) expectations about the present and the future, (un)certainty about how normative are relevant conduct, and on the perception of an adequatecurrent social order (or the opposite, social anomie). The perception of an adequate social order will have positive consequences on social cohesion, validation of fundamental social values, individuals' commitment to social participation consistent with the current social order, and on the maintenance of a positive social identity. The perception of anomie should negatively affect social cohesion,through the decrement of individuals' commitment to the collective, and through the disinvestment of the identification with the society. We believe that such perceptions and threat feelings may lead individuals to group abandonment s  |
Summary
This project aims to study the impact of the perception of social control mechanisms as being effective or ineffective responses to social threats (e.g., economic crisis, crime offenders, etc.) on social cohesion, perceptions of anomie, and attitudes in favour of or against self-centred behaviour.
As the Western global economy goes through a major economic crisis, there seems to be a widespread disbelief of the general public in the ability of national institutions to overcome such crisis, and people seem to feel threatened in their daily routines, as well as about their future, both individually and as members of the community. While being caused by economic factors, such feeling of threat seems to be reinforced by the perception of society's overall inability to effectively deploy social control mechanisms, not only as regards reaction toward offenders but also as regards the protection of social values that are fundamental for the society. This project focuses on the effect of efficacy of group reaction toward crime and the perception of inability to protect social values on individuals' investment on aspects related to their social identity, namely, on (positive or negative) expectations about the present and the future, (un)certainty about how normative are relevant conduct, and on the perception of an adequatecurrent social order (or the opposite, social anomie). The perception of an adequate social order will have positive consequences on social cohesion, validation of fundamental social values, individuals' commitment to social participation consistent with the current social order, and on the maintenance of a positive social identity. The perception of anomie should negatively affect social cohesion,through the decrement of individuals' commitment to the collective, and through the disinvestment of the identification with the society. We believe that such perceptions and threat feelings may lead individuals to group abandonment strategies, either by exclusively favouring self-centred behaviour and violating social norms that become to be viewed as ineffective, or by engaging in social mobility, such as emigration movements or inclusion in other groups that are perceived to provide more positive memberships..
In this project, we propose to conduct 10 studies (divided in 3 sets) in order to test the general ideas described above. Although divided in three sets, these studies complement each other in approaching the subject under investigation. Each set of studies addresses a particular research question and includes a correlational study and one, two or four experiment(s). The correlational studies will be planned to measure the specific phenomena described above (evolving the national context), whereas experiments will allow us to generalize our findings to other sort of social groups (e.g., team work, companies, universities, ...). The first set of studies (one correlational and one experiment) approaches the idea that a belief that a group is unable to control deviance leads individuals to disinvest in maintaining strong ties with the group. Complementarily, if the group is perceived as being able to control deviance, individuals' social identification and intragroup cohesiveness will be reinforced. The second set of studies (composed by 1 correlational study and four experiments) aims to analyze the impact of a negative social comparison (for the ingroup) on reaction to deviance. A negative result for the ingroup reinforces individuals' motivation to detect the responsible members for such negative results, and to implement a more intense punitive effort towards members that contribute negatively to the ingroup. This extreme reaction toward deviant ingroup members should emerge in groups that present a strong normative support, and it should consist in a social creativity strategy in order to reinforce (or change) the value ascribed to the ingroup. Finally, the third set of studies (1 correlational study and 2 experiments) aims to analyze the impact of a high frequency of deviant occurrences within the ingroup, on the belief that the group is able (or unable) to detect and control deviance, on individuals' social identification, and on individuals' commitment to the group norms or, (on the contrary) on the adoption of self-centred or non-normative behavior and consequent individuals' des-identification. |