According to social identity theory, people are more likely to demand and collectively work for social change if they can imagine a different set of social relations – “cognitive alternatives to the status quo”. In prior work, access to environmental cognitive alternatives (ECA; i.e., access to ideas about how the relationship between humans and the rest of nature could be more sustainable) correlated with environmental activist intentions and observed activist behaviour. In three preregistered experiments (N = 3096), we expand this work to validate a manipulation of environmental cognitive alternatives and examine the causal effects of environmental cognitive alternatives on identification with and willingness to engage in environmental activism. Participants either imagined and wrote about a sustainable world or were in a control condition. In Study 1 and 2, the manipulation significantly increased scores on the Environmental Cognitive Alternatives Scale, and analyses supported the construct validity of the manipulation. The ECA manipulation increased identification with environmental activists (Study 1, 2, & 3) and willingness to engage in environmental activism (Study 1 & 3). In Study 3 we also tested the effects of the manipulation on opposition to new fossil fuel infrastructure and found that the ECA manipulation increased opposition. Further, the effect of the ECA manipulation on willingness to engage in environmental activism and on opposition to fossil fuel expansion projects was mediated by identification with environmental activists. These findings provide evidence that we developed a valid manipulation, and that environmental cognitive alternatives can generate support for pro-environmental social change.

We expand on the plausible role of access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo (i.e., the ability of people to imagine what a sustainable relationship with nature would look like) in motivating pro-environmental collective action. Using a representative sample of Canadians on age, gender, and ethnicity (N = 1,029) we evaluate the associations between access to environmental cognitive alternatives, politicized environmental identity, and willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior. Additionally, we move beyond self-reported behavior by giving participants the opportunity to write and sign a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Our results suggest that access to cognitive alternatives is associated with stronger politicized environmental identity, greater willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior, and increased likelihood of writing and signing a pro-environmental letter. All methods and analyses follow our preregistration and all materials and data are openly available.

We examined whether symbolic racism is associated with anti-Black affect or more general anti-liberal affect. Across six studies (N = 14,078), we determined that symbolic racism is associated with more positive attitudes toward conservatives and more negative attitudes toward liberals, regardless of the target’s race. While high scorers on the symbolic racism scale show a slight preference for White vs. Black conservatives (d = .15) and White vs. Black liberals (d = .12), low scorers show a considerable preference for Black vs. White liberals (d = .42) and Black vs. White conservatives (d = .50). Lingering questions about the validity of the symbolic racism construct are justified on the basis that symbolic racism does not reliably measure anti-Black affect.

We examined environmental activist behaviour as a function of two different forms of environmental identity: identification with nature (i.e., seeing oneself as part of nature, more often referred to as connectedness to nature) and politicized environmental identity (i.e., seeing oneself as a part of a collective struggle to protect the environment). We extend prior work that found politicized environmental identity mediates a relationship between identification with nature and self-reports of environmental activism (Schmitt, Mackay, et al., 2019) by using observed behavioural indicators of environmental activism: taking pro-environmental buttons (Study 1), donating to an environmental organization (Study 2), or writing pro-environmental letters to politicians (Study 3). In Study 2 the relationship between identification with nature and activist behaviour was fully mediated by politicized environmental identity. In Studies 1 and 3, politicized environmental identity partially mediated a relationship between identification with nature and observed activist behaviour. We estimated the mean effect size of the mediation pathways in all three studies using meta-analysis, which supported the mediation model.

We build on social identity models of environmental collective action by considering the role ofpeople’s access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo. We developed a new measure of cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo, and examined its ability to predict environmental activist identification and willingness to engage in environmental activism. In Study 1 (N = 386), we developed the initial scale, and found evidence for its reliability and validity. The ability to imagine cognitive alternatives was associated with other relevant social identity and environmental variables including perceived legitimacy of the current environmental status quo, pro-environmental consumer and activist behavior, and beliefs in anthropogenic climate change. In Study 2 (N = 393), we confirmed the factor structure of the scale and found that it was a strong predictor of environmental activist identification, explaining variance beyond extensive control variables including identification with nature. It also explained additional variance in willingness to engage in activist behavior beyond even environmental activist identification. Our results suggest that the ability to imagine cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo might have important implications for whether people engage in pro-environmental collection action to mitigate climate-change and other environmental problems.

We extend social identity models of pro-environmental collective action by expanding on the plausible role of access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo (i.e., the ability of people to imagine what a sustainable relationship with nature would look like). Using a representative Canadian survey on age, gender, and ethnicity (N = 1029) we evaluate the associations between access to environmental cognitive alternatives and politicized environmental identity and willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior. Additionally, we extend research using exclusively self-reported outcomes by giving participants the opportunity to write and sign a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Our results suggest that envisioning specific ways in which the status quo can be changed is associated with stronger politicized environmental identity, greater willingness to engage in pro-environmental activist behavior, and increased likelihood of writing and signing a pro-environmental letter to the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. All methods and analyses follow our preregistration (https://osf.io/b56ry) and all materials and data are openly available (https://osf.io/24yeq/).

Some scholars claim that identifying with religious groups leads to a greater inclination toward violence than identifying with secular groups and we test this proposition in a unique experimental threat paradigm. We examine the possibility that threats toward individuals' religious identities will result in greater aggression relative to threats toward individuals' national identity. Additionally, we extend research on the direct association between religious fundamentalism and aggression by examining whether fundamentalism interacts with the experience of a threatened religious identity to exacerbate aggression. Among 120 self-identified religious Canadians, we examined aggression as a response to threats toward participants' religious or national identity. Participants engaged in a live instant messaging conversation with a confederate, in which the confederate denigrated participants' religious identity in the religious identity threat condition, denigrated participants' Canadian national identity in the national identity threat condition, or did not denigrate either identity in the control condition. Following, participants' self-reported aggression was measured. Participants in the national identity threat condition reported higher levels of aggression relative to those in the religious identity threat condition or the control condition. Additionally, the effect of religious fundamentalism on aggression was moderated by threat such that the positive association between religious fundamentalism and aggression was eliminated when national identity was threatened.

We test common sense psychology of intragroup relations whereby people assume that intragroup respect and ingroup prototypicality are positively related. In Study 1a, participants rated a group member as more prototypical if they learned that group member was highly respected rather than disrespected. In Study 1b, participants rated a group member as more respected by other group members if they learned that group member was prototypical rather than unprototypical. As a commonsense psychology of groups, we reasoned that the perceived relationship between prototypicality and intragroup respect would be stronger for cohesive groups compared to incohesive groups. The effect of intragroup respect on perceptions of prototypicality (Study 2a & 2c) and the effect of prototypicality on perceptions of intragroup respect (Study 2b) were generally stronger for participants considering cohesive groups relative to incohesive groups. However, the interaction effect of prototypicality and group cohesion on intragroup respect did fail to replicate in Study 2d. In Studies 3, 4a, and 4b we manipulated the relationship between prototypicality and intragroup respect and found that when these variables were in perceptual harmony participants perceived groups as more cohesive. The results of eight out of nine studies conducted are consistent with the prediction that people make inferences about intragroup respect, prototypicality, and group cohesion in a manner that maintains perceptual harmony.

We analyzed two datasets to determine the predictive validity of four explanations of support for Donald Trump during the 2016 US presidential election: (a) security concerns regarding immigrants, (b) economic concerns regarding immigrants, (c) cultural concerns regarding immigrants, and (d) social dominance orientation. Results of a two-phase study (N = 354) suggested that perceiving immigrants as a security concern was predictive of increased support for and greater odds of voting for Donald Trump three weeks later. Perceiving immigrants as an economic threat predicted odds of voting for Donald Trump, but only among liberals and there was no evidence of cultural concern or social dominance orientation (SDO) predicting support for Donald Trump or odds of voting for Trump. A follow-up analysis of the cross-sectional ANES survey corroborated that security concerns were an important correlate of voting for Trump, but also that SDO was correlated with having previously voted for Donald Trump. While our two-phase study has the benefit of prediction, the cross-sectional ANES data does not-"predictors" in these data were collected up to two months post-election.

In two preregistered studies we examine correlates of support for Confederate symbols among White Southerners (Study 1: N = 559) and examine potential negative effects of the widespread removal of Confederate symbols (Study 2: N = 139). In Study 1 we determine that support for Confederate symbols is largely a function of a traditional Southern worldview where cultural notions of industriousness, fairness, discipline, obedience, loyalty, and honor are central. Furthermore, we identify four distinct types of Southerners, including two types that equally support Confederate symbols: Traditionalists and Supremacists. While these groups equally support Confederate symbols, Traditionalists hold non-prejudicial attitudes that do not differ from those who do not support Confederate symbols, whereas Supremacists hold relatively more negative attitudes toward Blacks. These Supremacists are also more willing to engage in activist and radical behavior in support of Confederate monuments relative to Traditionalists. In Study 2 we show that when Traditionalists and Supremacists are exposed to the removal of Confederate symbols, they demonstrate an increased willingness to engage in activist, but not radical, behaviors in support of Confederate monuments, and they display more anger, disgust, and upset emotions. Supremacists, but not Traditionalists, also display hostility in response to the removal of Confederate symbols.

The judgements of academic experts on the personalities of political figures are affected by ideological homogeneity of raters and the use of measures hindered by embedded political content. As long as these problems persist, the academic expert personality profiling of political figures is a futile enterprise. Editors and reviewers would be wise to require authors to provide evidence of ideological heterogeneity in samples of raters, evidence of objectivity in ratings, and evidence that measures do not have embedded political content.

The ‘religion as cause’ argument implies that religious faiths are more inherently prone to violence than ideologies that are secular. Following an evaluation of the scientific literature on religion and violence, we argue that wherever evidence links specific aspects of religion with aggression and violence, these aspects are not unique to religion. Rather, these aspects are religious variants of more general psychological processes. Further, there are numerous aspects of religion that buffer against aggression and violence among its adherents. The most distinct feature of religion, supernaturalism, is not often the focus of researchers of religion and violence. Despite this, the paucity of research that has been conducted on this key feature suggests that supernaturalism is associated with reduced aggression and violence. There appears to be very little support for the notion that there is something uniquely religious that causes violence among followers.

The division of psychotic symptoms into positive and negative categories has largely divided the research on them. While the research on positive symptoms of psychosis has rapidly developed over the last three decades, the literature on negative symptoms has noticeably lagged behind. Negative symptoms have likely been ignored in the treatment literature because they were previously thought to remit following the treatment of positive symptoms. Recent evidence does not consistently support this theory and indicates that the different manifestations of negative symptoms require distinct approaches to treatment. The current review provides a re-evaluation of the theoretical literature on negative symptoms to inform and identify "treatment targets" to reduce them. The "treatment targets" are then translated into intervention strategies using a cognitive behavioral framework. A review of the empirical literature on cognitive behavior therapy for treating negative symptoms is then offered along with a critical discussion of where cognitive behavior therapy stands compared to other interventions and what research is still needed.

We had 354 Americans rate the personalities of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. We compared ratings of Trump voters, Clinton voters, and a politically moderate subsample to the left-wing experts' ratings reported in Nai and Maier (2018). We examined the association between raters' reported political orientation and personality ratings of both candidates. We found strong correlations between political orientation of the rater and ratings of the personalities of both Trump and Clinton. We also found that the sample of experts reported in Nai and Maier (2018) rated Trump lower in conscientiousness and agreeableness than our Clinton voters did. These experts also rated Trump lower in conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability than our politically moderate raters. Our findings show that political preference is strongly associated with the personality ratings of candidates among both expert and non-expert raters.

Consumers do not always follow their ideological beliefs about the need to engage in environmentally friendly (EF) consumption. We propose that Commitment to Beliefs (CTB)the general tendency to follow one's value-based beliefscan help identify who is most likely to follow their environmental ideologies. We predicted that CTB would amplify the effect of beliefs prescribing environmental stewardship(e.g., new ecological paradigm), or neglect(e.g., economic system-justification), on corresponding intentions, behavior, and purchasing decisions. In two studies, CTB amplified the positive and negative effects of relevant EF ideologies on EF purchase decisions (Study 1), and consumption and conservation attitudes, intentions, as well as future behavior (Study 2). In each study, only people with higher levels of CTB demonstrated the most ideologically consistent consumption and conservation intentions and behavior. These findings clarify who is most likely to align their decisions and lifestyles according to their sustainable consumption ideologies. The amplification effect of CTB, and the CTB variable itself, present new contributions to consumer behavior research and the domains of sustainable or ethical consumption in particular and offer wide-ranging potential for marketing practitioners and researchers.

Social identity can affect perceptions of external threats and the type of response elicited to those threats. Religion is a social identity with eternal group membership and revered beliefs and values; thus, religious identity salience, religious commitment, and religious involvement may have implications for aggressive responses to perceived threats to a person's religious identity. In a sample of 176 Christians, Muslims, and Jews, we investigated whether people respond aggressively to collective threat as a function of religious identity salience, religious commitment, and religious involvement. Religious commitment was positively related to anger only when religious identity was salient. Religious involvement was negatively related to anger and hostility only when religious identity was salient. Religious identity salience appears to act as a moderator by either enhancing perceptions of threat or by activating internal religious beliefs and values.

Supporters of the Confederate battle flag often argue that their support is driven by pride in the South, not negative racial attitudes. Opponents of the Confederate battle flag often argue that the flag represents racism, and that support for the flag is an expression of racism and an attempt to maintain oppression of Blacks in the Southern United States. We evaluate these two competing views in explaining attitudes toward the Confederate battle flag in the Southern United States through a survey of 526 Southerners. In the aggregate, our latent variable model suggests that White support for the flag is driven by Southern pride, political conservatism, and blatant negative racial attitudes toward Blacks. Using cluster-analysis we were able to distinguish four distinct sub-groups of White Southerners: Cosmopolitans, New Southerners, Traditionalists, and Supremacists. The greatest support for the Confederate battle flag is seen among Traditionalists and Supremacists; however, Traditionalists do not display blatant negative racial attitudes toward Blacks, while Supremacists do. Traditionalists make up the majority of Confederate battle flag supporters in our sample, weakening the claim that supporters of the flag are generally being driven by negative racial attitudes toward Blacks.

A cross-national multilevel analysis was conducted to determine the effects of religion on the extent to which violence is seen as justified against others. Contrary to popular notions that religion causes violence, frequency of prayer, importance of religion, and importance of God were negatively related to justification of violence. Only frequency of service attendance and justification of violence had a positive relationship. This relationship was attenuated when a supernatural meaning system was applied to one's religious beliefs (i.e., religion is primarily for the purpose of making sense of life after death). This meaning system also moderated the relationship between importance of religion and justification of violence. Finally, national-level importance of God moderated the negative relationship between individual level importance of God and justification of violence, strengthening this relationship. Results undermine the constructivist argument for religion as a cause of violence.

This article explores four psychosocial religious factors that may help researchers conceptualize and explain why religious terrorism is predominantly Islamic. Empirical work supports a link between individual differences in fundamentalism and out-group hostility. Combined with significantly higher self-reported fundamentalism among Muslims compared to adherents of other major religious groups, Muslims may be more susceptible to religious appeals to violence. This may be especially true when these appeals are minimally counterintuitive. Religious involvement has been suggested to cause coalitional commitment, which may relate to more hostile behavior to outsiders; however, religious involvement does not appear significantly higher in Muslims than among other religious believers. Religious commitment may relate to a stronger desire to protect one’s religious group through enhancing perceptions of threat. This has importance in the Islamic world due to the possibility of higher average religious commitment compared to other religious groups and the current political environment that often challenges the self-concept of Islamic believers. Finally, homogenization of Islamic beliefs is considered as an intergroup difference that may enhance social-psychological processes of intergroup conflict. Together, a broader emphasis on psychosocial religious factors may help explain the current rise of Islamic terrorism within the current political context of Islamic-West relations.