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This paper draws on Hannah Arendt's political thought to question the relationship between theory and practice in psychology and the public role of psychologists. One of Arendt's main contributions to political theory was to underline the specificity of political action, and to stress that politics should not be ruled by pure theoretical reason or reduced to the technical management of social issues. Applied to psychology, a view of the relationship between theory and practice that ignores this specificity may well lead to efficacious applications, but it has a certain number of politically problematic consequences. These include the a priori disqualification of opinions, a loss of common sense, the a priori definition of the world as a set of variables, and the a priori definition of people as "material" to be shaped rather than as political actors. Such consequences are problematic insofar as they can lead to the exclusion of people from the public realm and undermine the very possibility of genuine political action. These points are illustrated and discussed through examples drawn from psychoanalysis and experimental social psychology.

This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137291172. Reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. ; Political behaviour always involves social groups, whether these take the form of concrete networks and gatherings of individuals such as pressure groups, demonstrations, governments, cadres or committees, or whether they are constituted as large-scale institutions or imagined communities (Anderson, 1991) such as polities, states, political parties, interest groups, publics, constituencies or electorates. In so far as social groups are central to politics, it follows that the psychology of groups should be relevant to our understanding of political psychology. Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory represent major theoretical attempts to clarify the social psychological processes associated with group membership and action, and should therefore be in a good position to provide a significant contribution to that understanding.

Of bikers, teachers and Germans: Groups' diverging views about their prototypicality. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43, 385–400] have shown that ingroup members often tend to judge the ingroup as more prototypical of the superordinate group than other subgroups. In this paper, we argue that, in addition to the motivational processes that have been posited to explain this phenomenon, prototypicality judgments may vary according to instrumental considerations. In particular, those who believe their ingroup interest to be undermined by remaining part of the common group will downplay ingroup's prototypicality as a way to sustain their separatist position. In a first study (N = 63), we found that Scottish respondents who support Scottish independence judged the Scots to be less prototypical of Britain than the English, as compared with Scots who do not support independence. In a second study (N = 191), we manipulated the rhetorical context within which prototypicality judgments were made. Results showed that the pattern found in study 1 only applied when the issue of independence was made salient. When the issue of the importance of Scottish history in Britain was made salient, the opposite pattern appeared, i.e. supporters of independence judged the Scots more prototypical than the English compared to non-supporters. These results were also interpreted in instrumental terms. [author's abstract]

Cet article présente quelques réflexions psychosociologiques sur la construction d'une identité européenne et sur ses relations avec les identités nationales. Tout d'abord, quelques commentaires introductifs serviront à montrer l'importance des identités collectives dans les relations internationales en général, ainsi que dans le processus d'intégration européenne en particulier. Par la suite, nous nous concentrerons sur la question des identités nationales. Notre analyse mettra en évidence le caractère construit des identités nationales ainsi que la dimension fonctionnelle de ces constructions. En un troisième temps, nous nous pencherons sur le statut spécial des identités nationales dans le panorama des identités collectives. Nous évoquerons quelques-unes des raisons pour lesquelles celles-ci ont connu un succès important et jouissent aujourd'hui d'une importance particulière dans la structuration de notre monde social, et pourquoi elles sont souvent l'objet d'un investissement plus intense que bon nombre d'autres types d'identités. Enfin, nous ouvrirons quelques pistes de réflexions sur les conséquences de ce parcours pour la construction de l'Europe et d'une identité européenne. L'objectif global de cette contribution est de développer un cadre théorique qui permette d'appréhender les processus d'identification collective, et de souligner les conséquences pratiques et politiques des définitions identitaires particulières qui sont ou pourraient être utilisées dans le processus d'intégration européenne.

The impact of identities encompassing all human beings (e.g., human and/or global identities) on intergroup relations is complex, with studies showing mostly positive (e.g., less dehumanization), but also negative (e.g., deflected responsibility for harm behavior), effects. However, different labels and measures have been used to examine the effects of these all‐inclusive superordinate identities, without a systematic empirical examination of the extent to which they overlap or differ in their sociopsychological prototypical content. This study examined whether different labels activate the same contents in laypeople's conceptualization. Two hundred and forty‐eight participants openly described one of six labels: "All humans everywhere"; "People all over the world"; "People from different countries around the world"; "Global citizens"; "Citizens of the world"; and "Members of world community." Results from quantitative content analyses showed that the different labels activated different thematic attributes, representing differences in their core prototypical meaning. We propose that a general distinction should be made between labels that define membership based on human attributes (e.g., biological attributes) and those that evoke attributes characteristic of membership in a global political community (e.g., attitudinal attributes), as their effect on intergroup relations may vary accordingly.

"The concepts of power and identity are vital to many areas of social research. In this edited collection, a prominent set of contributors explore the double relationship between power and group identity, focusing on two complementary lines of enquiry:In what ways can the powerful dictate the identities of the powerless? How can the powerless redefine their identity to challenge the powerful? Each chapter is written by leading authorities in the field, and investigates a particular aspect of the interplay of identity and power via a range of empirical contexts such as colonialism, nationalism, collective action, and electoral politics.The case studies include early modern Goa under Portuguese rule, the tribes of modern-day Jordan, the use of sexual stereotyping and objectification by female activists seeking to transform social systems, and a revisiting of the classic Stanford Prison Experiment. The chapters include contributions from a variety of social disciplines and research methodologies, and together provide a comprehensive overview of a subject at the cutting-edge of social and political psychology.Power and Identity will be of great interest to researchers, graduates and upper-level undergraduate students from across the social sciences.