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Social problems in many domains, including health, education, social relationships, and the workplace, have their origins in human behavior. The documented links between behavior and social problems have sparked interest in governments and organizations to develop effective interventions to promote behavior change. The Handbook of Behavior Change provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary theory, research, and practice on behavior change. The handbook incorporates theory- and evidence-based approaches to behavior change with chapters from leading theorists, researchers, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, including psychology, sociology, behavioral science, economics, and implementation science. Chapters are organized into three parts: (1) Theory and Behavior Change; (2) Methods and Processes of Behavior Change: Intervention Development, Application, and Translation; and (3) Behavior Change Interventions: Practical Guides to Behavior Change. This chapter provides an overview of the theory- and evidence-based approaches of the handbook, introduces the content of the handbook, and provides suggestions on how the handbook may be used by different readers. The handbook aims to provide all interested in behavior change, including researchers and students, practitioners, and policy makers, with up-to-date knowledge on behavior change and guidance on how to develop effective interventions to change behavior in different populations and contexts. ; Peer reviewed

This study explores how politicians convicted of hate‐speech against Muslims account for their actions in statements on their Facebook‐pages as well as in reported interviews. Taking a critical discursive psychological perspective, the study examines the strategies through which the politicians discursively claim and resist various subject positions, thus managing to construct their hate‐speech as everything from trivial mishaps to acts of virtue. The study examines the multifaceted dynamics of these constructions, and shows how elements from the Five Step Social Identity Model of the Development of Collective Hate are flexibly deployed in the discourse to serve distinct social and political purposes. By allowing the Social Identity and (critical) discursive approaches to challenge and develop each other, the study advances social psychological research on political communication and persuasion, and contributes to the debate on the boundaries between hate‐speech and freedom of speech. ; Peer reviewed

In this chapter, we examine the Protestant roots of four Finnish values: egalitarianism, work-related (or Protestant ethic) values, education-related values (Bildung in German, sivistys in Finnish), and honesty. We distinguish three levels: cultural, individual, and behavioural. In terms of these three levels, equality seems to be part of the cultural (behavioural) programming of the Finns as a nation, even though it does not figure prominently in the social representation of national identity or rank high in individual value hierarchies. Work-related values seem to be quite central to Finnish national identity, as well as empirically linked to honesty, also a central Finnish value. Education as a value seems to be more on a cultural level, and thus unites a more general Protestant approach, rather than being more specifically Finnish. Honesty is a value for which all three levels – national, individual, and behavioural – are in an agreement in Finland. This chapter advances evidence of a social psychological mechanism through which egalitarianism, Protestant work ethic, and education values jointly produce honesty and other ingredients of a functioning democracy. However, it should be noted that those associations are statistical and not deterministic or straightforward. The Finnish (and Nordic) honesty norm could be seen as a result of a joint influence of several values, not just attributable to the impact of one or two values. ; Peer reviewed

Among minority members, positive contact with the majority was previously found to improve not only the attitudes towards the majority but also the attitudes towards minority outgroups (the secondary transfer effect; STE). However, the role of negative intergroup contact and ingroups' social status in a receiving society in the development of the STE have not been yet examined. Therefore, in the present study we investigated the association between positive and negative contact with the national majority group (Finns) and mutual attitudes among high-status Estonian (n = 171) and low-status Russian (n = 180) immigrants in Finland. Two mediators of the STE were tested: attitudes toward the majority (attitude generalisation) and collective self-esteem (diagonal hostility). While positive and negative STEs emerging via attitude generalisation were expected to occur among both immigrant groups, the mediating effect of collective self-esteem was assumed only for members of the low-status group. Among members of both groups, the relationship between positive contact with majority members and attitudes towards the other immigrant group was positive and indirect, and occurred through more favourable attitudes towards majority members. The same mechanism was followed by negative contact, where the indirect effect was mediated by less positive attitudes towards Finns. As predicted, collective self-esteem mediated the effects of positive and negative contact with majority members on attitudes towards the other minority only among low-status Russian immigrants. The results call for the acknowledgement of different mechanisms underlying the development of the STE among minority groups enjoying different social status in host society. ; Peer reviewed

This chapter explores Finnish populist radical right politicians' discursive denials of racism against Muslims following the 2015 European "refugee crisis". The critical discursive psychological analysis of the politicians' Facebook accounts identifies four ways in which racism was denied: first, through constructing the statements as mere displays of undisputable facts and common-sense; second, through personal narratives and ontological gerrymandering that acted as 'proof' of the politician's non-racist disposition; third, through transferring the discussion from issues about race to concern matters of cultural threats; and, fourth, through reversing racism to the politicians' political antagonists. The analyses show that in their discursive denial of racist hate-speech against Muslims, the Finnish politicians relied more on cultural arguments than welfare-protectionist ones. That is, the denials were primarily warranted through nostalgic references to Finnish national identity, people and values, and rhetorical promises that the hope of saving these rests on resisting the cultural threat posed by Islam. ; Peer reviewed

The introduction of Web 2.0 technology, along with a population increasingly proficient in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), coupled with the rapid advancements in genetic testing methods, has seen an increase in the presence of participant-centred research initiatives. Such initiatives, aided by the centrality of ICT interconnections, and the ethos they propound seem to further embody the ideal of increasing the participatory nature of research, beyond what might be possible in non-ICT contexts alone. However, the majority of such research seems to actualise a much narrower definition of 'participation'—where it is merely the case that such research initiatives have increased contact with participants through ICT but are otherwise non-participatory in any important normative sense. Furthermore, the rhetoric of participant-centred initiatives tends to inflate this minimalist form of participation into something that it is not, i.e. something genuinely participatory, with greater connections with both the ICT-facilitated political contexts and the largely non-ICT participatory initiatives that have expanded in contemporary health and research contexts. In this paper, we highlight that genuine (ICT-based) 'participation' should enable a reasonable minimum threshold of participatory engagement through, at least, three central participatory elements: educative, sense of being involved and degree of control. While we agree with criticisms that, at present, genuine participation seems more rhetoric than reality, we believe that there is clear potential for a greater ICT-facilitated participatory engagement on all three participatory elements. We outline some practical steps such initiatives could take to further develop these elements and thereby their level of ICT-facilitated participatory engagement. ; Peer reviewed

The article traces the genealogy of the Minimum Information About Biobank Data Sharing model, created in the European Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure to facilitate collaboration among biobanks and to foster the exchange of biological samples and data. This information model is aimed at the identification of biobanks; unification of databases; and objectification of the information, samples, and related studies – to create a completely new 'bio-object infrastructure' within the EU. The paper discusses key challenges in creating a 'universal' information model of such a kind, the most important technical translations of European research policy needed for a standardised model for biobank information, and how this model creates new bio-objects. The author claims that this amounts to redefinition of biobanks and technical governance over virtually bio-objectified European populations. It is argued here that old governance models based on the nation-state need radical reconsideration so that we are prepared for a new and changing situation wherein bodies of information that lack organs flow from one database to another with a click of a mouse. ; Peer reviewed

Friends tend to be similar on many characteristics, including personality traits. Yet, a real-world similarity-attraction effect based on actual personality traits is not supported by current research. One reason for this apparent contradiction could be that dark personality traits have been absent from this literature. In a sample (N = 181) of military cadet freshmen, we investigated homophily ("love of the same") based on the traits identified by the Five-Factor Model (FFM) and two dark personality traits, Manipulativeness and Egotism. We did not find homophily based on the FFM traits. However, platoon-mate dyads with similar levels of trait Manipulativeness or Egotism were more likely to mutually like each other. Furthermore, response surface analyses revealed that homophily for these two traits occurred only at the low, or bright, end of these traits. Our results support arguments derived from evolutionary theory that argue for the importance of trait honesty in friendship formation. ; Peer reviewed

In April 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared influenza A H1N1 a public-health emergency of international concern. This event was especially significant for marking the first pandemic outbreak to fall under 2005's new International Health Regulations, an ambitious binding agreement to regulate international health. Since then, other communicable diseases have provoked similar international responses, with Ebola and Zika among the latest examples. Each of them has occasioned scrutiny of the ability of national and international health organisations – the WHO among them – to handle health threats and emergencies situated at global level. Among the issues recurrently rearing their head amid controversy are uniformity in enforcement of international regulations across contexts, promotion of specific lines of research, rapid development of new drugs, the management of local and international health-care workers' activities, and engagement with local populations. One of the main ways in which health organisations respond to the uncertainty generally associated with pandemic threats is through biopreparedness policies – policies that articulate response and resource management mechanisms before a pandemic event is declared or even before its characteristics are known. The thesis examines the discourses and practices of institutional and scientific actors, for greater understanding of how knowledge is constructed and later carried into implementation in such conditions of uncertainty. The focus is placed on processes of boundary-making, categorisation, and identification. The analysis of how health and scientific institutions identify, categorise, and describe the various human and nonhuman actors involved in pandemic events employs theoretical tools from science and technology studies, Foucauldian approaches, and understandings of the more-than-human in the social sciences. These shed light on the boundaries, categories, and identities at play during pandemic processes as shared among the many humans, animals, and molecular forms of life involved in pandemic events. The approach of assemblage ethnography is engaged with as an aid to navigating digital and material networks of public health from an empirical perspective. Public documents, interviews with public-health professionals, and field visits linked with diverse international organisations are used in combination with items of scientific news and articles from various journals to illuminate how pandemic threats and emergencies unfold. The empirical work suggests that knowledge-making in institutional and scientific settings always involves notions of threat and protection. In the material analysed, there is a tendency to identify and categorise a given actor as threatening, vulnerable (in need of protection), or expert (able to protect). This argument is unfolded in tandem with discussion of three, interconnected areas of focus in pandemic preparedness and response wherein boundaries are made: 1) the establishment of governmental stand-by networks, 2) knowledge-making and knowledge distribution practices, and 3) the conceptualisation and governance of threatening life. Each of these areas connects with one of the three main lines of analytically grounded argument. Firstly, institutional boundaries are challenged in efforts to construct more prepared governmental networks that are able to protect societies from pandemic threats and emergencies. As these networks emerge mostly in a context of uncertain and virtual threats, they impose a need for threats' identification and characterisation. Secondly, practices of making and distributing knowledge are productive in that they determine the boundaries between expert, vulnerable, and threatening assemblages, creating differentiated communities by regulating who can produce knowledge and who may access it. The third main area of discussion involves how, from a governmental perspective, certain life forms (both human and nonhuman) come to be identified as hybrid threats because of its sociotechnical interactions. Such hybridity is a key element for the design of pandemic governance and response measures. Accordingly, the way in which actors are categorised in terms of threat, vulnerability, and expertise is defined with regard to their engagement with elements such as space, technology, nationality, and gender. The thesis concludes with discussion of three ways in which boundary-making, categorisation, and identification processes interact with pandemic preparedness and response: 1) by shedding light on the establishment of more-than-human modes of pandemic governance; 2) by drawing attention to the need for portable, permeable, and flexible boundaries between threat and protection; and 3) by considering how boundary-making reinforces intersectional inequalities in international health. These conclusions point to a need to incorporate, from both an academic and a policy perspective, alternative pandemic narratives that pay heed to the intersectional, changing, and situated definitions of threat and protection.

Accessing information online is now easier than ever. However, also false information is circulated in increasing quantities. We sought to identify social psychological factors that could explain why some people are more susceptible to false information. Specifically, we investigated whether psychological predispositions (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, system justification beliefs (SJB), openness, need for closure, conspiracy mentality), competencies (scientific and political knowledge, interest in politics) or motivated reasoning based on social identity (political orientation) could help explain who believes fake news. Hungarian participants (N = 295) judged political (anti- and pro-government) and non-political news. The Hungarian context—characterized by low trust in media, populist communication by the government and increasing polarization—should be fertile ground for the proliferation of fake news. The context in making this case particularly interesting is that the major political fault line in Hungary runs between pro- and anti-government supporter groups and not, for instance, between conservative and liberal ideology or partisanship. We found clear support for the motivational reasoning explanation as political orientation consistently predicted belief in both fake and real political news when their contents aligned with one's political identity. The belief in pro-government news was also associated with higher SJB among pro-government supporters. Those interested in politics showed better capacity to distinguish real political news from the fake ones. Most importantly, the only psychological predisposition that consistently explained belief in all types of fake news was a conspiracy mentality. This supports the notion of ideological symmetry in fake news belief—where a conspiracy mentality can be found across the political spectrum, and it can make people susceptible to disinformation regardless of group-memberships and other individual differences. ; Peer reviewed

This N = 173,426 social science dataset was collected through the collaborative COVIDiSTRESS Global Survey - an open science effort to improve understanding of the human experiences of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic between 30th March and 30th May, 2020. The dataset allows a cross-cultural study of psychological and behavioural responses to the Coronavirus pandemic and associated government measures like cancellation of public functions and stay at home orders implemented in many countries. The dataset contains demographic background variables as well as measures of Asian Disease Problem, perceived stress (PSS-10), availability of social provisions (SPS-10), trust in various authorities, trust in governmental measures to contain the virus (OECD trust), personality traits (BFF-15), information behaviours, agreement with the level of government intervention, and compliance with preventive measures, along with a rich pool of exploratory variables and written experiences. A global consortium from 39 countries and regions worked together to build and translate a survey with variables of shared interests, and recruited participants in 47 languages and dialects. Raw plus cleaned data and dynamic visualizations are available. Measurement(s) psychological measurement center dot anxiety-related behavior trait center dot Stress center dot response to center dot Isolation center dot loneliness measurement center dot Emotional Distress Technology Type(s) Survey Factor Type(s) geographic location center dot language center dot age of participant center dot responses to the Coronavirus pandemic Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens Sample Characteristic - Location global Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: ; Peer reviewed

"This book has been developed from two main theses which justify my venture into the field of social psychology. The first is that the visceral-organic structure of man is basic to the understanding of psychology. However extreme the assertion may seem, I think it fair to say that the thinkers who have formed the knowledge of mind in its largest and truest terms have been those who have shown the relationship of drive, emotions, and intelligence to the structures of the body, and vice versa. The second thesis is that apart from his group a man is a mere potentiality. He is developed in a milieu that fosters, modifies, or destroys his capacities. And how that milieu works, the psychiatrist and physician has ample opportunity to witness. To explain the individual and discuss his psychology as something distinct from the psychology of the society that daily becomes more complex and ranges from the remote past far into the future is, as the anatomists would say, a false dissection, by which structures are isolated from one another artificially and their organic connection destroyed. Therefore I have begun with the structure and organic functions of the individual and have endeavored to show how social forces, like the gases of the environment, sweep in and out of him--taking command of his viscera and transforming their functions into approved deeds, and creating within him both the pleasures of conformity and the bitter, self-dividing struggle that results from the disharmony of individual capacity and desire with social authority. While the facts presented are not new, the emphasis and formulation of principles are to a certain extent original, and they merit appreciative attention. I make no pretense of having fulfilled my aim completely, the shortcomings of my work being as discernible to me as to any critic; but withal, I hope and even feel assured that both the visceral-organic and the sociological bases of social psychology are here given the emphasis they deserve"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

In order to know how Catalonian citizens account water controversies in Spain, we analyzed six focus groups carried out in Catalonia in 2006. A concept of 'urban social identity' is used for our interpretations, having been adapted to highlight its interactional character. Tracking the spatial categories used in the discussions, we identified the variety of denominations employed to debate water problems in Spain. The analysis is focused on the most frequent categories to establish their utility and identify discursive actions that participants produce. Results indicate that speakers account the "water problems" mobilizing a common sense political geography that highlights the socio-spatial and conflicting character of water issues. ; In order to know how Catalonian citizens account water controversies in Spain, we analyzed six focus groups carried out in Catalonia in 2006. A concept of 'urban social identity' is used for our interpretations, having been adapted to highlight its interactional character. Tracking the spatial categories used in the discussions, we identified the variety of denominations employed to debate water problems in Spain. The analysis is focused on the most frequent categories to establish their utility and identify discursive actions that participants produce. Results indicate that speakers account the "water problems" mobilizing a common sense political geography that highlights the socio-spatial and conflicting character of water issues. ; Peer reviewed