Suchergebnisse

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement arose to put a much-needed spotlight on police brutality and systemic racism. In two comprehensive studies, we sought to investigate the determinants of support for the BLM movement. First, in a systematic review 1,588 records were identified and findings from twenty-four studies (Npooled=27,691) were narratively synthesized along five categories relating to demographics, race, partisanship and ideology, discrimination and prejudice, and psychology. Second, we exhaustively examined the determinants of BLM support across thirteen probability-based nationally representative datasets (Npooled=31,779), finding thirty-seven common predictors for which individual meta-analyses were conducted to estimate the strength and robustness of their associations. Our results suggest a near perfect match between BLM opposition and positive attitudes towards political actors and institutions rooted in systemic racism in the United States. The present work contributes to a broad categorization of correlates of support for BLM across social, psychological, and political domains.

AbstractThe gender gap in political knowledge is a well-established finding in Political Science. One explanation for gender differences in political knowledge is the activation of negative stereotypes about women. As part of the Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence (SCORE) program, we conducted a two-stage preregistered and high-powered direct replication of Study 2 of Ihme and Tausendpfund (2018). While we successfully replicated the gender gap in political knowledge – such that male participants performed better than female participants – both the first (N = 671) and second stage (N = 831) of the replication of the stereotype activation effect were unsuccessful. Taken together (pooled N = 1,502), results indicate evidence of absence of the effect of stereotype activation on gender differences in political knowledge. We discuss potential explanations for these findings and put forward evidence that the gender gap in political knowledge might be an artifact of how knowledge is measured.

Surveys conducted across multiple countries show that most people view seeking lower immigration to help maintain the majority group's population share as a sign of racial self‐interest—as opposed to racism. We investigated whether the belief that it is not racist to want immigration restrictions for cultural reasons is associated with ingroup identification (a positive attachment to and solidarity with one's group) or collective narcissism (a conviction that the ingroup is exceptional and deserves special treatment). We argue that if this belief reflects concern for the ingroup, it should be linked to ingroup identification. However, if it is a defensive justification of the ingroup's privileged position, it should be linked to collective narcissism. Across four studies, national (Study 1: United Kingdom, N = 467; Study 2: Poland, N = 1,285) and ethnic (Study 3a: United States, N = 2,000; Study 3b: United States, N = 2,938) narcissism emerged as predictors of the belief that ethnoculturally motivated immigration restrictions are racial self‐interest (vs. racism). This belief was also associated with justifying collective violence against migrants (Study 2) and supporting the alt‐right (Studies 3a–3b). We found less consistent evidence for an association between ingroup identification and immigration‐restriction beliefs. We discuss implications for intergroup relations and political extremism.

Recent research in the populism literature has devoted considerable efforts to the conceptualisation and examination of populism on the individual level, that is, populist attitudes. Despite rapid progress in the field, questions of adequate measurement and empirical evaluation of measures of populist attitudes remain scarce. Seeking to remedy these shortcomings, we apply a cross-national measurement model, using item response theory, to six established and two new populist indicators. Drawing on a cross-national survey (nine European countries, n = 18,368), we engage in a four-folded analysis. First, we examine the commonly used 6-item populism scale. Second, we expand the measurement with two novel items. Third, we use the improved 8-item populism scale to further refine equally comprehensive but more concise and parsimonious populist measurements. Finally, we externally validate these sub-scales and find that some of the proposed sub-scales outperform the initial 6- and 8-item scales. We conclude that existing measures of populism capture moderate populist attitudes, but face difficulties measuring more extreme levels, while the individual information of some of the populist items remains limited. Altogether, this provides several interesting routes for future research, both within and between countries.

Differences in psychological needs and interests have been connected to the endorsement of different belief systems (Jost, Federico & Napier, 2009, p. 314). In 2017, Jost summarized findings connecting existential, relational and epistemic needs to ideology (Jost, 2017, p. 167). This thesis reevaluates the reported results concerning their assessment of ideology, differentiating between indirect and direct measures, symbolic and operational as well as economic and social ideology. Further, additional information on direct measures was derived from the source samples indicated in Jost, 2017. A total of 295 effect sizes was analyzed. Overall, Jost's (2017) results were reproducible, with the averages reported in it and the results found never deviating more than r = .10 from each other and straying r ≤ .05 in nearly 89%. Next, separate analyses were conducted to assess the impact of scale-type on the results. Indirect and direct averages differed around r(8) = .12 (.35 < r < .03) from each other, the symbolic and operational averages deviated r(9) = .07 (0 < r < .28) and social and economic ideology differed on average the most with around r(8) = .19 (0 < r < .36). As the sample size for social and economic ideology was rather small, an overall average across the epistemic needs was assessed as well, supporting the previously established impact of measures with the average magnitude sizes deviating r = .21 from each other. All in all, the findings support a more detailed differentiation on measures of ideology in regard of asymmetric psychological predispositions, with averages of different measures only coinciding in three cases and deviating r ≥ .05 in 16 out of 25 cases.

It is often claimed that conspiracy theories are endorsed with the same level of intensity across the left‐right ideological spectrum. But do liberals and conservatives in the United States embrace conspiratorial thinking to an equivalent degree? There are important historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons dating back to Richard Hofstadter's book The Paranoid Style in American Politics to doubt this claim. In four large studies of U.S. adults (total N = 5049)—including national samples—we investigated the relationship between political ideology, measured in both symbolic and operational terms, and conspiratorial thinking in general. Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general (r = .27, 95% CI: .24, .30). Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals (Hedges' g = .77, SE = .07, p < .001). The relationship between ideology and conspiratorial thinking was mediated by a strong distrust of officialdom and paranoid ideation, both of which were higher among conservatives, consistent with Hofstadter's account of the paranoid style in American politics.

In three convenience samples (combined N = 3,755) and one nationally representative survey (N = 1,500), we investigated whether and how right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) were associated with support for Donald Trump during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In all samples, facets of RWA and SDO predicted support for Trump (compared to other Republican, Democratic, and Libertarian candidates), even after adjusting for demographic factors and religious affiliation. In comparison with supporters of other Republican candidates, Trump supporters were consistently higher in group-based dominance and authoritarian aggression (but not submission or conventionalism). These results highlight the real-world significance of psychological theories and constructs and establish that Trump voters were uniquely driven by the desire to dominate out-group members in an aggressive manner.

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated selfreported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of nitrogen and potassium fertilization on the morphogenetic and structural characteristics and production of Urochloa ruziziensis in two summer seasons (summer 1, 2010–2011and summer 2, 2011–2012) and the autumn and spring of 2011. A randomized complete block design with four treatments (0, 120, 240, and 360 kg ha-1 year-1 of N and K2O) and five replications was used, with repeated measurements in each season, in a split plot arrangement. The treatments were allocated to the plots and the seasons of the year to the subplots. The phyllochron (PHY),leaf appearance rate (LAR), leaf elongation rate (LER), stem elongation rate (SER), tiller population density (TPD), tiller appearance rate (TAR), tiller mortality rate (TMR), leaf growth rate (LGR), stem growth rate (SGR), senescence rate (SR), forage accumulation rate (FAR), and leaf accumulation rate (LAR) of Urochloa ruziziensis were evaluated. There was a positive quadratic effect for the PHY and ELR, with maximum values of 4.3 days leaf-1 and 0.43 cm tiller-1 day-1, respectively. While the SER increased linearly (0.0012 cm day-1 kg-1 of N and K2O) during summer 2. The TPD, TAR, and TMR increased linearly (averages of 1.53 tillers m-2, 0.04% and 0.02% per kg of N and K2O, respectively) with nitrogen and potassium fertilization during spring and both summer seasons. The LGR, SGR, and SR also increased linearly with N and K2O application rates during summer 2 (0.2809, 0.0082, and 0.0411 kg DM ha-1 day-1, per kg of N and K2O, respectively), while the FAR and LAR increased in a quadratic positive form (maximum values of 175 and 129 kg dry matter (DM) ha-1, corresponding to 294 and 237 kg ha-1 of N and K2O, respectively) during summer 2. Urochloa ruziziensis is a forage plant with a high DM production capacity during the summer and a high seasonal forage production.

Abstract
At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic.

This study explores how researchers' analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers' expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each team's workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers' results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated selfreported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = −0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.