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AbstractThis article examines the relationship between nationalism and liberal values and, more specifically, the redefinition of boundaries between national communities and others in the rhetoric of radical right parties in Europe. The aim is to examine the tension between radical right party discourse and the increasing need to shape this discourse in liberal terms. We argue that the radical right parties that successfully operate within the democratic system tend to be those best able to tailor their discourse to the liberal and civic characteristics of national identity so as to present themselves and their ideologies as the true authentic defenders of the nation's unique reputation for democracy, diversity and tolerance. Comparing the success of a number of European radical right parties ranging from the most electorally successful Swiss People's Party, the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List and Party for Freedom to the more mixed French Front National, British National Party and National Democratic Party of Germany we show that the parties that effectively deploy the symbolic resources of national identity through a predominantly voluntaristic prism tend to be the ones that fare better within their respective political systems. In doing so, we challenge the conventional view in the study of nationalism that expects civic values to shield countries from radicalism and extremism.

Despite the fact that raising children contributes to the public good, parents receive little government assistance with their childrearing expenses. We suggest that people believe parents deserve little public assistance in part because they accept common myths that idealize the emotional rewards of parenthood. We review research demonstrating that parents accept these parenthood idealizing myths to alleviate dissonance about their costly investments in children whereas nonparents accept these myths to defend against the idea that the system unjustly exploits parents. Furthermore, when these parenthood idealizing myths are experimentally primed both parents and nonparents become less supportive of expanding government assistance to parents. We conclude by reviewing suggestions for how this research into the psychological functions of parenthood idealizing myths can help design more effective messaging strategies to persuade people to support policies that would expand public assistance to parents.

Summer camps in Canada provide services to hundreds of thousands of youth each year, giving opportunities for growth and development. However, summer camps in Canada remain understudied. Using one phase of data from the Canadian Summer Camps Research Project (CSCRP), analysis was conducted on the effect of camper self-concept on their environmental awareness, mediated by perceived level of social inclusion. A relationship between camper self-concept and environmental awareness existed, and that relationship was enhanced when campers were socially included. These findings show preliminary connections between self-concept and environmental awareness in summer camps, and open opportunities for further research into personal and long-term effects of camp participation on environmental viewpoints, social group integration, and self-concept.

AbstractWe test a method for applying a network-based approach to the study of political attitudes. We use cognitive-affective mapping, an approach that visually represents attitudes as networks of concepts that an individual associates with a given issue. Using a software tool called Valence, we asked a sample of Canadians (n= 111) to draw a cognitive-affective map (CAM) of their views on the carbon tax. We treat these networks as a series of undirected graphs and examine the extent to which support for the tax can be predicted based on each graph's emotional and structural properties. We find evidence that the emotional but not the structural properties significantly predict individuals' attitudes toward the carbon tax. We also find associations between CAMs' structural properties (density and centrality) and several measures of political interest. Our results provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of CAMs as a tool for studying political attitudes. The study data are available athttps://osf.io/qwpvd/?view_only=6834a1c442224e72bf45e7641880a17f

We propose a complex systems approach to the study of political belief systems, to overcome some of the fragmentation in the current scholarship on ideology. We review relevant work in psychology, sociology, and political science and identify major cleavages in the literature: the spatial vs. non-spatial divide (ideologies as reducible to a spatially organized set of dimensions vs. as complex conceptual structures) and the person-group problem (ideologies as driven by psychological needs of individuals vs. by institutional and power structures of society). We argue that construing ideologies as conceptual networks of cognitive-affective representations embedded in social networks of people may provide a path for bridging these existing gaps and epistemological disputes. Tools from cognitive science and computational social science such as cognitive-affective mapping, connectionist simulations, and agent-based modeling are appropriate methods for a new research program that substantiates our complex systems perspective on ideology. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

We propose a complex systems approach to the study of political belief systems, to overcome some of the fragmentation in the current scholarship on ideology. We review relevant work in psychology, sociology, and political science and identify major cleavages in the literature: the spatial vs. non-spatial divide (ideologies as reducible to a spatially organized set of dimensions vs. as complex conceptual structures) and the person-group problem (ideologies as driven by psychological needs of individuals vs. by institutional and power structures of society). We argue that construing ideologies as conceptual networks of cognitive-affective representations embedded in social networks of people may provide a path for bridging these existing gaps and epistemological disputes. Tools from cognitive science and computational social science such as cognitive-affective mapping, connectionist simulations, and agent-based modeling are appropriate methods for a new research program that substantiates our complex systems perspective on ideology.