The British journal of social psychology
-
While there is an acknowledgement in apology research that political apologies are highly mediated, the process of mediation itself has lacked scrutiny. This article suggests that the idea of reconstruction helps to understand how apologies are mediated and evaluated. David Cameron's apology for Bloody Sunday is examined to see how he constructs four aspects of apology: social actors, consequences, categorization, and reasons. ⋯ These mediated reconstructions of the apology allowed their authors to evaluate the apology in different ways. Thus, in this article, it is suggested that the evaluation of the apology by different groups is preceded by a reconstruction of it in accordance with rhetorical goals. This illuminates the process of mediation and helps to understand divergent responses to political apologies.
-
The current study investigated our perception of first names. In Study 1, participants estimated their own first name to be less frequent compared with estimates from yoked controls. ⋯ Study 2 established that rarer names are preferred, and, that when we contemplate a name change, we often consider rare names. Several theoretical explanations for a general name uniqueness effect are proposed.
-
This study uses a tripolar model of minority influence to investigate social category constructions of extreme right politicians. The analysis focuses on Geert Wilders, leader of the extreme right Party For Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands. It is examined how this popular politician construes the interdependent relations between himself, the population, and mainstream politicians, and discursively manages his controversial standpoints and proposals. ⋯ Furthermore, and in contrast to other politicians, Wilders works up a self-image of a responsible and realistic politician who is group oriented. In addition, the analysis suggests that being a minority can be of strategic political value and therefore a position to foster. The relevance of the analysis for social psychological approaches to leadership and political minorities is discussed.
-
We tested whether differential appraisals of inequality are a function of the injustice standards used by different groups. A confirmatory standard of injustice is defined as the amount of evidence needed to arrive at the conclusion that injustice has occurred. ⋯ In addition, because advantaged and disadvantaged group members formed - based on their differential standards - divergent appraisals of wage inequality, they experienced differential desire to restore inter-group justice. We discuss the implications of promoting low confirmatory standards for changing perceptions of social reality and for motivating justice-restorative behaviour.
-
The present research investigates how people's general epistemic motives may inspire essentialist beliefs about racial groups and racism. In three studies, we focus particularly on essentialist entitativity (EE, referring to beliefs about the uniformity, informativeness, and inherent core of racial groups), probing into its relationships with epistemic need for closure (NFC) and prejudice. ⋯ Study 3 demonstrates in three different samples that EE beliefs mediate the relationship between dispositional NFC and racial prejudice. It is argued that EE beliefs about racial groups are an expression of motivated social cognition, serving people's seizing needs for quick and easy social judgment.