Suchergebnisse

Η πανδημία COVID-19 έχει θέσει μια τεράστια πρόκληση σε ιατρικό, οικονομικό και πολιτικό επίπεδο τους τελευταίους μήνες. Η απειλή της ασθένειας, οι περισσότερο ή λιγότερο αυταρχικές βιοπολιτικές των κρατών, η έννοια της κοινωνικής απόστασης, υπαγορεύουν τη διερεύνηση των συνεπειών της πανδημίας σε ιδεολογικό επίπεδο. Χρησιμοποιώντας τα δεδομένα που προέκυψαν από μια έρευνα που διεξήχθη πριν την πανδημία (N = 82) ως σημείο αναφοράς, ο στόχος της παρούσας μελέτης ήταν να ελέγξει εμπειρικά την υπόθεση ότι ο δεξιόστροφος αυταρχισμός (Αυταρχισμός - Συντηρητισμός - Παραδοσιακρατία; ACT; Duckitt et al., 2010) αυξάνεται υπό συνθήκες απειλής (Adorno et al., 1950; Sales, 1973). Παράλληλα, διερευνάται ο πιθανός ρυθμιστικός ρόλος του πολιτισμικού φιλελευθερισμού. Επιπλέον, εξετάζεται η υπόθεση ότι η απειλή προβλέπει την προκατάληψη, όπως μας υποδεικνύουν σχετικά ευρήματα (π.χ. Florack et al., 2003). Πραγματοποιήθηκε συλλογή δεδομένων κατά τις εξής τρεις φάσεις της πανδημίας στην Ελλάδα: τις πρώτες εβδομάδες (N = 85), την απαγόρευση κυκλοφορίας (N = 131) και την άρση των περιοριστικών μέτρων (N = 126). Οι υποθέσεις επιβεβαιώθηκαν: υπήρξε αύξηση του Συντηρητισμού και της Παραδοσιοκρατίας, ιδίως μεταξύ των λιγότερο φιλελεύθερων συμμετεχόντων, ενώ οι φιλελεύθεροι φαίνεται να εκφράζουν μειωμένα επίπεδα δεξιόστροφου αυταρχισμού κατά την άρση των περιοριστικών μέτρων σε σύγκριση με την προ COVID-19 περίοδο. Βρέθηκε, επίσης, μια βαθμιαία έκφραση προκατάληψης, με τον πολιτισμικό φιλελευθερισμό να παίζει έναν περιορισμένο, αλλά και πάλι ρυθμιστικό ρόλο. Συζητούνται οι επιπτώσεις της πανδημίας στο ιδεολογικό επίπεδο. ; The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an enormous challenge in medical, economic, and political terms during the past months. The threat of disease, the more or less authoritarian biopolitics of the states, the concept of social distancing, dictate the need to examine the consequences of the pandemic on an ideological level. Making use of data collected before the pandemic (N = 82) as a point of reference, the aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that right-wing authoritarianism (Authoritarianism – Conservatism – Traditionalism; ACT; Duckitt et al., 2010) increases under conditions of threat salience (Adorno et al., 1950; Sales, 1973), while appraising the possible moderating role of cultural liberalism. Furthermore, the hypothesis that threat predicts prejudice (e.g., Florack et al., 2003) was examined. Data were collected during three phases of the pandemic in Greece: the first weeks (N = 85), the lockdown (N = 131) and the lifting of the lockdown measures (N = 126). Results confirmed our hypotheses. An increase was found in Conservatism and Traditionalism, especially among less liberal participants, whereas more liberals appeared to express reduced levels of right-wing authoritarianism during the lifting of lockdown measures compared to the pre-COVID-19 period. A progressive expression of prejudice was also found, with cultural liberalism playing a limited but still moderating role in all three phases. Implications of the pandemic for the ideological level are discussed.

Η πανδημία COVID-19 έχει θέσει μια τεράστια πρόκληση σε ιατρικό, οικονομικό και πολιτικό επίπεδο τους τελευταίους μήνες. Η απειλή της ασθένειας, οι περισσότερο ή λιγότερο αυταρχικές βιοπολιτικές των κρατών, η έννοια της κοινωνικής απόστασης, υπαγορεύουν τη διερεύνηση των συνεπειών της πανδημίας σε ιδεολογικό επίπεδο. Χρησιμοποιώντας τα δεδομένα που προέκυψαν από μια έρευνα που διεξήχθη πριν την πανδημία (N = 82) ως σημείο αναφοράς, ο στόχος της παρούσας μελέτης ήταν να ελέγξει εμπειρικά την υπόθεση ότι ο δεξιόστροφος αυταρχισμός (Αυταρχισμός - Συντηρητισμός - Παραδοσιακρατία; ACT; Duckitt et al., 2010) αυξάνεται υπό συνθήκες απειλής (Adorno et al., 1950; Sales, 1973). Παράλληλα, διερευνάται ο πιθανός ρυθμιστικός ρόλος του πολιτισμικού φιλελευθερισμού. Επιπλέον, εξετάζεται η υπόθεση ότι η απειλή προβλέπει την προκατάληψη, όπως μας υποδεικνύουν σχετικά ευρήματα (π.χ. Florack et al., 2003). Πραγματοποιήθηκε συλλογή δεδομένων κατά τις εξής τρεις φάσεις της πανδημίας στην Ελλάδα: τις πρώτες εβδομάδες (N = 85), την απαγόρευση κυκλοφορίας (N = 131) και την άρση των περιοριστικών μέτρων (N = 126). Οι υποθέσεις επιβεβαιώθηκαν: υπήρξε αύξηση του Συντηρητισμού και της Παραδοσιοκρατίας, ιδίως μεταξύ των λιγότερο φιλελεύθερων συμμετεχόντων, ενώ οι φιλελεύθεροι φαίνεται να εκφράζουν μειωμένα επίπεδα δεξιόστροφου αυταρχισμού κατά την άρση των περιοριστικών μέτρων σε σύγκριση με την προ COVID-19 περίοδο. Βρέθηκε, επίσης, μια βαθμιαία έκφραση προκατάληψης, με τον πολιτισμικό φιλελευθερισμό να παίζει έναν περιορισμένο, αλλά και πάλι ρυθμιστικό ρόλο. Συζητούνται οι επιπτώσεις της πανδημίας στο ιδεολογικό επίπεδο. ; The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an enormous challenge in medical, economic, and political terms during the past months. The threat of disease, the more or less authoritarian biopolitics of the states, the concept of social distancing, dictate the need to examine the consequences of the pandemic on an ideological level. Making use of data collected before the pandemic (N = 82) as a point of reference, the aim of the ...

This study examines the effects of the evaluation of the majority or minority consensus attributed to a message on the influence the latter can exert, in a between subjects factorial design 2 (consensus status: majority vs minority) × 3 (orientation of the consensus evaluation: non-evaluation, size evaluation, intensity evaluation). Its innovative aspect consists in its explicit focus on participants' evaluation of the intensity and size of the support allegedly attributed to the message of the source. The main results show that with regard to direct influence: a) in a non-evaluation condition, the majority consensus tends to be more influential than the minority consensus, whereas in the intensity evaluation condition, the minority consensus is the most influential; b) the impact of minority consensus increases when its intensity is evaluated compared to the non-evaluation condition. Regarding the indirect influence: a) the non-evaluation of the majority consensus favors its impact compared to that obtained by the minority consensus, but b) the evaluation conditions make this difference fade away, by decreasing the influence of majority consensus while increasing that of minority consensus. We discuss the significance and the limitations of these results, which seem to put aside the barriers usually encountered by the sources of influence (diminished direct influence for the minority and restricted indirect influence for the majority).

1. Introduction / Antonis Gardikiotis, Gerasimos Prodromitis, Stamos Papastamou -- 2. Conversion to active minorities : the chronicle of a successful theory and the uncertain result of a minority influence attempt / Stamos Papastamou, Antonis Gardikiotis, Gerasimos Prodromitis -- 3. The context/comparison model of majority and minority influence : different processes, different outcomes / William D. Crano -- 4. Multiple categorizations and minority influence : an integration of dissociation and self-categorization theories / Alain Quiamzade. [et al.] -- 5. Majority versus minority source status and persuasion : processes of primary and secondary cognition / Javier Horcajo, Pablo Brinol, Richard E. Petty -- 6. Attitude persistence to persuasive messages : as a function of numerical majority versus minority source status / Robin Martin, Miles Hewstone -- 7. Mind over matter : target states, not stimulus characteristics, determine information processing in minority influence / Deborah F. Hellmann. [et al.] -- 8. Influencing people's (negative) attitudes towards active minorities : the case of feminist movements / Fabrizio Butera, Jean-Pierre Vernet, Jorge Vala -- 9. A case for diversity in research on minority influence / Radmila Prislin, Marisa Crowder, Kristin Donnelly -- 10. Conclusions / Gerasimos Prodromitis, Stamos Papastamou, Antonis Gardikiotis.

Abstract
In this paper, we investigated the utility of data mining to classify individuals into predefined categories of a target variable, based on their social and political attitude. Data collected for a social psychology study conducted in Greece in 1994 were used for this purpose. We established the theoretical background of our analysis through explanatory factor analysis. We ran the decision tree algorithm CHAID in order to build a predictive model that classifies the study participants in terms of their attitude toward physical and symbolic violence. The CHAID algorithm provided a decision tree that was easily interpreted, and which revealed meaningful predictive patterns. CHAID algorithm showed satisfactory predictive ability and promising alternatives to social psychology data analysis. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other evidence in the literature that the decision tree algorithms can be used to identify latent variables.

In recent years Greece has faced a terrible economic crisis that became social, political and humanitarian and challenged its relationship with the European Union. In this paper, through a survey research with an opportunity sample of Greek people (N = 739) of different ages and professions, we investigate whether participants' image of the relationship between Greece and the EU relates to their agreement with a) harsh austerity and decrease of national sovereignty, b) decrease of the public sector and c) Grexit measures. We hypothesized and observed that this relationship is mediated by beliefs about norms of justice and beliefs of individual mobility and relative position. In particular, a positive relationship between Greece and EU predicts agreement with harsh austerity and decrease of the public sector through justice beliefs of equity whereas the relationship with Grexit is not mediated by beliefs about norms of justice. In addition, perceiving the GR-EU relationship as a relationship of domination predicts the different measures through feelings of personal or relational relative position. Legitimation of a relationship of domination and acceptance of harsh measures is observed the less people feel relatively deprived personally in comparison to their past position or in comparison to others, whereas this relationship with Grexit is observed the more relative relational deprivation is felt. These results highlight that perception of asymmetric relationships and status (at an individual or group level) between the national group and the EU and distribution of resources should be taken into account when discussing measures to combat the crisis.

This research was conducted in Greece during a period of major economic crisis when everyday events contributed to a changing and threatening socio-political environment. The paper looks at the structure of reactions Greek people (N=1040) have towards the crisis. Informed by social psychological theories of collective action and relative deprivation it is hypothesized that these reactions would depend on people's actual financial position, their sense of grievances and feelings of vulnerability and the emotions they felt towards the crisis. Results show that people have multiple ways of reacting that go from radical and even violent practices towards individual solutions and depression. These reactions are differently predicted by people's position, feelings of vulnerability and sense of grievances and by different emotions. It is not people's actual position that influences reactions and feelings of vulnerability are a major predictor. Moreover, sense of grievances are linked to more radical forms of action but also to depression. Emotions play an important role in predicting reactions to the crisis. Anger is confirmed as a predictor of political participation and collective action whereas fear and frustration are a major predictor of depression. Positive emotions also predict collective action with the exception of violent practices.

This article reports on the results of a survey that was conducted in Greece. It explored 1,027 respondents' (a) definitions of and beliefs about terrorism, (b) tolerance of restrictive measures against terrorism, (c) tolerance of violations of the human rights of those accused of terrorism, and (d) political affiliations. Respondents were classified according to their endorsement of anti‐terrorist and anti‐power beliefs. A multiple correspondence analysis indicated that respondents who endorsed neither anti‐terrorist nor anti‐power beliefs were most tolerant of restrictive anti‐terrorist measures and violations of human rights. These respondents either identified politically with the extreme Right, or refused to place themselves on the political continuum.

This article reports on the results of a survey that was conducted in Greece. It explored 1,027 respondents' (a) definitions of & beliefs about terrorism, (b) tolerance of restrictive measures against terrorism, (c) tolerance of violations of the human rights of those accused of terrorism, & (d) political affiliations. Respondents were classified according to their endorsement of anti-terrorist & anti-power beliefs. A multiple correspondence analysis indicated that respondents who endorsed neither anti-terrorist nor anti-power beliefs were most tolerant of restrictive anti-terrorist measures & violations of human rights. These respondents either identified politically with the extreme Right, or refused to place themselves on the political continuum. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

In the current research, we investigated the lay representations of the recent economic downturn, that had severe consequences on the lives of the involved people. We compared data of respondents from two countries that were affected to a different degree by the crisis: Greece (N = 529) and Italy (N = 327). We examined laypeople's representations of the perceived causes of the crunch (e.g., overconsumption, obscure power conspiracy), the strategies that are believed to be useful to overcome it (e.g., conforming to EU request, EU exit), and the political participatory activities (e.g., legal and illegal activism) that people intend to adopt. These variables were analyzed in light of two main predictors: political orientation and subjective economic vulnerability. The main hypothesis was that self-positioning on the left/right axis may be a strong driver of lay representations and political participation. However, we expected that in conjunction with the linear effect of this variable, its quadratic effect should be considered as well. The latter specifies that in some circumstances the opinions of people self-positioned at the poles of the political spectrum may be closer to each other than to the opinions of the people that position themselves in the center which sometimes do not behave as moderate but appear more conformist. Additionally, we hypothesized that vulnerability may be a motive to seek for explanations of the crisis, to find strategies and to engage in activities to overcome it. Findings were generally in line with predictions and were discussed in the light of recent research and the context of analysis.

In this paper, we analyse the responses of 450 students from Greece, Portugal and Italy, who were asked to assess the efficacy of 32 actions as reactions against the austerity measures implemented to deal with the financial and economic crisis. These actions were organized into six types by a principal component factor analysis, and were ranked as follows from the most effective to the least effective: protectionism, civic participation, political resistance to government measures, individual financial protection, economic resistance to government measures and violence. Results showed that Greek respondents, who were in the most difficult socioeconomic situation, viewed all types of actions, except civic participation and individual financial protection, as more effective than the other respondents did. Regression analyses revealed, however, that crisis-related variables, in particular the attribution of responsibility for the crisis to internal factors and not to the people, and individual-related variables, such as political orientation and the intensity of depressive feelings, were strong predictors of the assessment of the efficacy of actions, in addition to the socioeconomic situation of the countries.

International audience ; As part of a larger research project, we asked 1,806 adults from France, Greece, and Italy (in the larger project, Portuguese students were included) to discuss the causes of the current economic crisis and the strategies that should be adopted by the countries to overcome it. The six factors extracted by the factor analysis revealed that the economic crisis was attributed to the depletion of resources, the weakness of the financial system, planned conspiracy, system inequality, overconsumption, or the weakness of the political system. These causes had cross-national structural equivalence and overconsumption – a people-blaming cause – as opposed to conspiracy attributions to a global power or to structural inequalities inherent to the system. Further analyses found three types of strategies to exit the crisis – conforming to EU requests, rationalizing the public sector, and leaving the European Union – but failed to establish cross-national structural equivalence. Results thus suggest that there is some similarity in the discourses of the media that is reflected on people's perceptions about the causes of the economic crisis, but that the strategies to exit the crisis are more linked to the socioeconomic conditions of the countries.

International audience ; As part of a larger research project, we asked 1,806 adults from France, Greece, and Italy (in the larger project, Portuguese students were included) to discuss the causes of the current economic crisis and the strategies that should be adopted by the countries to overcome it. The six factors extracted by the factor analysis revealed that the economic crisis was attributed to the depletion of resources, the weakness of the financial system, planned conspiracy, system inequality, overconsumption, or the weakness of the political system. These causes had cross-national structural equivalence and overconsumption – a people-blaming cause – as opposed to conspiracy attributions to a global power or to structural inequalities inherent to the system. Further analyses found three types of strategies to exit the crisis – conforming to EU requests, rationalizing the public sector, and leaving the European Union – but failed to establish cross-national structural equivalence. Results thus suggest that there is some similarity in the discourses of the media that is reflected on people's perceptions about the causes of the economic crisis, but that the strategies to exit the crisis are more linked to the socioeconomic conditions of the countries.