ISPP Early Career Committee Newsletter — Issue 2, 2024
Welcome to the ISPP ECC Newsletter!
For Issue 2, 2024, we’ve continued with our previous format. Rather than having the full newsletter sent to your email (which can be rather long), you can again click to read more for each of the contributions, and you’ll be directed to the full version of the newsletter on Medium. Watch this space!
Chair’s Address
Dr. Boglarka Nyul (Tel Aviv University and ELTE Eötvös Lorand University)
Dear ISPP Early Career Colleagues,
Welcome to the first ECC newsletter of the academic year. It is both an honor and a challenge to step into the role of Chair during a time marked by deep turmoil and painful conflicts, with immense violence affecting millions worldwide in regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa. As a social psychologist from Hungary who began a postdoctoral fellowship in Israel days before October 7, and witnessing the ongoing violence as an outsider yet from within has given me an alarming and peculiar perspective. However, as someone who has never experienced anything like this before, I keep thinking of how frightening, hopeless, and devastating these days must feel for civilians in Gaza or Lebanon with no access to safe shelters. While social sciences cannot single-handedly resolve the complexities of collective violence, as a social psychologist I believe that our field has a unique role and responsibility in keep thinking of those who suffer from violence or oppression, and raising awareness, fostering understanding, challenging forces that normalize injustice, and guiding societies toward paths of dialogue and reconciliation.
The theme of this newsletter — collective violence — couldn’t be more relevant, and I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to our dedicated ECC Newsletter Officers, Andrea Correa Chica, and Evelyn Hye Kyung Jeong, for their diligent work in bringing together insights on this critical topic. I also deeply appreciate the contributors to this edition who have shared their expertise, offering perspectives and guidance that we hope will be valuable to our community in these turbulent times.
The ECC remains dedicated to advancing and supporting the work of Early Career Scholars within Political Psychology, helping them navigate the unique challenges of this stage while embracing its many opportunities. It’s my pleasure to warmly welcome this year’s new ECC members, who are committed to making meaningful contributions to our community: Sarah Zahreddine, Evelyn Hye Kyung Jeong, Hüseyin Batuhan Şar, and Deren Onursal. Special thanks to our new Chair-Elect, Kostas Papaioannou. I would also like to express my gratitude to the ECC officers continuing their service for a second or third term: Erika Arias, Andrea Correa Chica, Mete Sefa Uysal, and Ruri Takizawa. On behalf of the ISPP, I extend our appreciation for your dedication, which makes a significant and positive impact on our community.
Lastly, my heartfelt thanks to the outgoing ECC Chair Ex-Officio, Myrto Pantazi. Her leadership brought numerous impactful activities over the past year, from the inspiring events at the Annual Meeting in Santiago de Chile to a range of online programs accessible to our ISPP early career members. Her work set a high standard of commitment and creativity.
In the 2024–2025 year, we’re excited to build on this tradition. The Annual Meeting in Prague will again feature our Mentoring Luncheon and Early Career roundtables, designed to offer valuable professional development resources. We are also committed to assisting early career scholars with travel through our travel awards program, which prioritizes research excellence and diversity. If you’re planning to attend, be sure to submit your abstracts on time!
We’re also developing a range of online activities in the lead-up to the annual meeting. These aim to spark conversations on pressing issues in Political Psychology and to spotlight the work of early career scholars, with a special emphasis on diversity. This focus will span multiple dimensions — from diverse research samples to the challenges and perspectives of scholars from non-WEIRD countries, minority academics, and those exploring underrepresented research topics.
Our ECC blog series is already open to accepting submissions [ click here to see the call], offering early career scholars a platform to share their political psychology research with a broad audience through our social media. Like last year, we’re pleased to offer the option for multilingual presentations paired with English translations. Keep an eye out for these calls, and we look forward to engaging with many of you through these exciting initiatives.
Thank you for reading, and I hope this newsletter inspires all of us to contribute, however we can, to a better future.
Warm regards,
Boglarka Nyul
ISPP-ECC Chair 2024–2025
2024 Issue II Theme: Awe, Collective Encounter and Art at Carnival of Blacks and Whites
By Laura María Pazmiño-Ramírez (laura.pazmino@unisabana.edu.co; Communications Manager at Universidad de la Sabana) and Camilo Rincón-Unigarro (camilo.rincon2@unisabana.edu.co; Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Universidad de la Sabana)
Political violence remains a persistent issue in today’s world, taking various forms such as violent protests, organized insurgencies, terrorism, and state-sponsored repression. While the causes of political violence are complex, emotions play a crucial role in driving both collective actions, whether violent or non-violent, and in shaping people’s experiences. Fear, anger, resentment, and a sense of injustice can fuel the flames of political violence, while feelings of solidarity, loyalty, and a desire for change can sustain it. To effectively address political violence, it is essential to understand the emotional dynamics of collective gatherings and their potential to either promote unity or exacerbate division.
In Colombia, a country with a long history of internal conflict and racial tensions — as between the Afro-Colombian population and the dominant mestizo population — the Carnival of Blacks and Whites, a mixed-race festive celebration held in the city of Pasto, southwest of Colombia, provides a unique opportunity to examine the interplay between collective emotions, cultural expression, and the potential for social transformation. This event, declared in 2009 by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, articulates the manufacture of traditional crafts, oral expressions, performing arts, rituals and festive events (Villanueva, 2021). In January 2025, we will conduct an ethnographic study of the Carnival, to investigate the emotional experiences of artists (dancers, musicians, actors, painters, sculptors) who work to safeguard intangible cultural heritage.
Our research will focus on the phenomenon of awe, a self-transcendent emotion triggered by an appreciation of being in the presence of something so vast that it transcends the current understanding of the world (Li et al., 2024). Awe can envelop a person and make them feel part of something greater than themselves (Schaffer et al., 2024). In those moments, people appraise its default self as dissolving and gives way to an experience of shared connection, which drives collective actions and attitudes. It is an immensity of feeling united to something bigger, of sharing the emotion with those around us. This emotion arises in moments of collective effervescence, such as a concert, a religious demonstration, or a protest (Pizarro et al., 2021).
While the Carnival is fundamentally a collective encounter, it encompasses diverse human expressions known to evoke awe: moral beauty, collective effervescence, music, visual design, spiritual experience, as well as themes of life and death (Muñoz, 2007). By documenting these unique and ephemeral moments, we aim to create a documentary that not only captures the phenomenon but also promotes an understanding of how collective emotions influence decisions and experiences of art. Collective expressions of art allow participants to experience a sense of “we” rather than just “self”, reinforcing a shared identity and values (Rimé & Páez, 2023). This transformation can have significant implications for political violence, by fostering unity and understanding instead of division and conflict.
The goal of producing an audiovisual product is to communicate political-psychological theory through audiovisual means, promoting the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. Safeguarding involves identifying, documenting, researching, preserving, protecting, promoting, improving, transmitting, and revitalizing human expressions (Lázaro Ortiz & Jiménez De Madariaga, 2022). Our aim is to return to the community a representation of its culture through symbols and safeguard its heritage.
In a world where political violence continues to tear communities apart, the capacity to feel and generate authentic emotions, experience wonder, and provoke genuine connections serve as a reminder that emotion and art are vital aspects of our humanity. They underscore the unique ability to feel collectively, which distinguishes us as human beings. Recognizing the influence of collective emotions on our perceptions, attitudes, and actions is a critical step toward developing effective interventions to prevent and mitigate political violence, ultimately fostering a more just, compassionate, and peaceful world.
References
Lázaro Ortiz, S., & Jiménez De Madariaga, C. (2022). The UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage: A critical analysis. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 28(3), 327–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2021.1941914
Li, R., Hou, Z., Zhang, C., Xu, Q., & Nie, A. (2024). A meta-analysis examining the relationship between awe and prosocial behavior. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06039-9
Muñoz, L. I. (2007). Memorias de espejos y de juegos. Historia de la fiesta y de los juegos del carnaval andino de San Juan de Pasto. Ediciones EDINAR.
Pizarro, J. J., Basabe, N., Fernández, I., Carrera, P., Apodaca, P., Man Ging, C. I., Cusi, O., & Páez, D. (2021). Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Effects: Awe, Elevation and Kama Muta Promote a Human Identification and Motivations to Help Others. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.709859
Rimé, B., & Páez, D. (2023). Why We Gather: A New Look, Empirically Documented, at Émile Durkheim’s Theory of Collective Assemblies and Collective Effervescence. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17456916221146388. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221146388
Schaffer, V., Huckstepp, T., & Kannis-Dymand, L. (2024). Awe: A Systematic Review within a Cognitive Behavioural Framework and Proposed Cognitive Behavioural Model of Awe. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 9(1), 101–136. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41042-023-00116-3
Villanueva, L. (Ed.). (2021). Patrimonio para el desarrollo en Colombia: 30 años de cooperación cultural. Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID).
Advice Column
“This is an injustice!”
Political Violence and Social Injustice through the Lens of Liberation Psychology
By Efraín García-Sánchez (egarcias@stanford.edu; Postdoctoral Scholar in Psychology at Stanford University) and Juan Diego García-Castro (juandiego.garcia@ucr.ac.cr; Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at University of Costa Rica, Sede de Occidente)
“This is an injustice!”’ Those were the last words Ignacio Martín-Baró shouted before being murdered, along with four Jesuit priests and two more people, on the campus of the José Simeón Cañas Central American University in El Salvador in 1989 (Martín-Baró et al., 1994). It was these words we thought of when we were writing this blog: “Political violence is an injustice.”
In this article, we aim to discuss two ideas. First, social injustice — understood as poverty and inequality — can simultaneously be a precursor and a manifestation of political violence. Second, psychology and psychologists hold significant potential in understanding and breaking this cycle of injustice and political violence.
Political violence floods newspaper headlines: bombings in Gaza, assassinations of political leaders in Mexico, police repression in Central America, and we could go on. These stories highlight the most visible forms of political violence — war, state repression, and civil conflicts.
However, each case of political violence is rooted in a history of injustice and exploitation. For example, Colombia’s armed conflict has been fueled by stark inequalities in land distribution and political repression. In Central America, the armed conflicts of the last century deepened the poverty and exclusion that later facilitated the rise of gangs and criminal violence in the present. Just to mention a few.
In Latin America, social injustice and political violence are part of its structural conditions. Globally, it is the region with the highest inequality in land distribution (Desterrados, 2016), where one in three people lives in poverty (CEPAL, 2022), and where there are some of the highest rates of economic inequality (Chancel et al., 2022), homicides (World Bank Open Data, 2024), and social unrest (Ortiz et al., 2022). In this context, poverty and inequality become forms of political violence, forcing people to live under conditions that undermine their fundamental rights, impeding them from meeting their basic needs and obstructing their development opportunities (Ellacuría, 1989; Martín-Baró, 1989).
Poverty and inequality also foster the psychosocial conditions that fuel social and political conflict. For example, economic inequality increases support for authoritarian leaders, exacerbates polarization, reduces social and political trust, and decreases individual well-being (García-Sánchez, García-Castro, et al., 2024; García-Sánchez, Matamoros-Lima, et al., 2024; Jetten et al., 2021; Sprong et al., 2019). Thus, poverty and inequality create a breeding ground for political violence.
This vicious cycle of injustice and violence can feel overwhelming and insurmountable. When coupled with the job insecurity and political uncertainty that many early-career scholars face, it’s easy to feel hopeless and helpless. Still, we believe Liberation Psychology offers valuable insights for early-career scholars and political psychologists to break this pernicious cycle of injustice and violence.
A core premise of Liberation Psychology is that we must raise our consciousness about our reality and our role in changing it (Martín-Baró, 1990, 2006). This is aligned with what Paulo Freire called “critical consciousness,” a process of being aware of the social, historical, and psychological conditions that sustain structures of inequality and oppression (Freire, 1992). We invite our readers to reflect on two starting points to raise this consciousness — analyzing and challenging narratives that sustain injustice and violence and participating actively in our communities.
Liberation Psychology ideas suggest that psychology cannot play a liberation role if we do not liberate ourselves from cultural narratives — or ideologies — that naturalize social injustice and violence. Thus, we must keep a critical eye on these narratives that ideologize facts, demonize people, and criminalize political actions that seek greater equality. We can see some examples with the misinformation surrounding face masks and COVID, the motivation to attack the Capital in the United States, and the persecution of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. These narratives fuel misperceptions and misconceptions of our reality, sustaining injustice and scaffolding political violence.
Another idea from Liberation Psychology is the need to work side by side with/in/for/from the community. Extending Kurt Lewin’s ideas about Action Research, Latin American researchers have emphasized that raising consciousness requires integrating actionable knowledge with the community (Fals-Borda, 1987). As early-career scholars, we must be closer to people’s reality instead of distancing ourselves to achieve “objectivity.” Bringing the social context back into the center of psychological analysis and engaging more with the community is crucial to achieve a more significant impact. Ultimately, participating in our communities may be more meaningful than the number of citations we get and the papers we publish.
It would be naive to think that psychology alone can solve these structural issues of social injustice and political violence. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, we can intervene in those subjective processes that legitimize and perpetuate unjust and violent structures and reclaim our sense of belonging to the community we seek to serve.
Raising consciousness of our role in sustaining unequal and violent institutions will not change reality, but it is a first step in doing so.
References
Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, Gabriel. (2022). World Inequality Report 2022. https://wir2022.wid.world/Grigoryan L. (2020). Perceived similarity in multiple categorization. Applied Psychology, 69(4),1122–1144.
Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe. (2022). CEPALSTAT Bases de Datos y Publicaciones Estadísticas [Dataset].
Desterrados: Tierra, poder y desigualdad en América Latina. (2016). Oxfam Colombia. https://www.oxfamcolombia.org/desterrados-tierra-poder-y-desigualdad-en-america-latina/
Ellacuría, I. (1989). La Teología de la liberación frente al cambio sociohistórico en América Latina (pp. 69–89). Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos.
Fals-Borda, O. (1987). The Application of Participatory Action-Research in Latin America. International Sociology, 2(4), 329–347. https://doi.org/10.1177/026858098700200401
García-Sánchez, E., García-Castro, J. D., Willis, G. B., & Rodríguez-Bailón, R. (2024). Economic Inequality and Unfairness Evaluations of Income Distribution Negatively Predict Political and Social Trust: Evidence From Latin America Over 23 Years. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 19485506231221310. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231221310
García-Sánchez, E., Matamoros-Lima, J., Moreno-Bella, E., Melita, D., Sánchez-Rodríguez, Á., García-Castro, J. D., Rodríguez-Bailón, R., & Willis, G. B. (2024). Perceived Economic Inequality Is Negatively Associated with Subjective Well-being through Status Anxiety and Social Trust. Social Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-024-03306-x
Hamedani, M. G., Markus, H. R., Hetey, R. C., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2024). We built this culture (so we can change it): Seven principles for intentional culture change. American Psychologist, 79(3), 384–402. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001209
Jetten, J., Peters, K., Álvarez, B., Casara, B. G. S., Dare, M., Kirkland, K., Sánchez‐Rodríguez, Á., Selvanathan, H. P., Sprong, S., Tanjitpiyanond, P., Wang, Z., & Mols, F. (2021). Consequences of Economic Inequality for the Social and Political Vitality of Society: A Social Identity Analysis. Political Psychology, 42(S1), 241–266. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12800
Martín-Baró, I. (1989). Political Violence and War as Causes of Psychosocial Trauma in El Salvador. International Journal of Mental Health, 18(1), 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207411.1989.11449115
Martín-Baró, I. (1990). Acción e ideología. Psicología social desde Centroamérica. (Décima). UCA Editores.
Martín-Baró, I. (2006). Hacia una psicología de la liberación. Revista Electrónica de Intervención Psicosocial y Psicología Comunitaria, 1(2), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Martín-Baró, Ignacio., Aron, Adrianne., & Corne, Shawn. (1994). Writings for a liberation psychology / ignacio martín-baró ; edited by adrianne aron and shawn corne. In Writings for a liberation psychology. Harvard University Press.
Ortiz, I., Burke, S., Berrada, M., & Saenz Cortés, H. (2022). World protests: A study of key protest issues in the 21st century. Palgrave Macmillan.
Piketty, T. (2020). Capital and ideology. In Capital and ideology. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Piketty, T. (2022). A brief history of equality (1st ed.). Harvard University Press.
Sprong, S., Jetten, J., Wang, Z., Peters, K., Mols, F., Verkuyten, M., Bastian, B., Ariyanto, A., Autin, F., Ayub, N., Badea, C., Besta, T., Butera, F., Costa-Lopes, R., Cui, L., Fantini, C., Finchilescu, G., Gaertner, L., Gollwitzer, M., … Wohl, M. J. A. (2019). “Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now”: Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader. Psychological Science, 30(11), 1625–1637. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619875472
World Bank Open Data. (2024). World Bank Open Data. https://data.worldbank.org
Kudos Column
By Ramzi Abou Ismail (r.abou-ismail@kent.ac.uk; Postgraduate Researcher and Associate Lecturer in School of Psychology at University of Kent)
I am deeply honoured to receive the International Society for Political Psychology’s Best Dissertation Award for my thesis, “The Structure of Collective Violence Beliefs: Scale Development, Predictors, and Outcomes”. This work reflects my personal and academic journey, growing up in Lebanon, a country that has been both a backdrop and a participant in the conflicts that have shaped the modern Middle East. As we face the reality of war today in this region, understanding violence remains crucial — not only as an academic pursuit but as a pathway toward meaningful change.
My dissertation focuses on the psychological mechanisms that drive collective violence, exploring the role of social identities and group dynamics in shaping beliefs about violence. Through the development of a new scale measuring collective violence beliefs, I sought to differentiate between violence directed at outgroup members and violence aimed at outgroup leaders. This distinction is key, especially in regions like the Middle East, where narratives of violence are woven deeply into political and social fabrics.
The research spanned diverse settings, including Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and the U.S., using a mix of quantitative methodologies such as cross-sectional surveys and experimental designs. The scale I developed was rigorously validated through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, establishing its relevance across different sociopolitical contexts. Key findings showed that collective violence beliefs are structured based on targets rather than the intensity of violence and that factors like authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and collective narcissism uniquely predict these beliefs across contexts.
In addition to theoretical insights, this research has practical implications, suggesting that targeted interventions addressing specific violence beliefs can be a strategic approach to mitigating intergroup conflict.
Coming from Lebanon, I’ve always felt an acute awareness of how conflict shapes identities and communities. The current war only deepens this urgency. Social scientists, I believe, have a crucial role to play in helping societies make sense of these violent episodes. We have the tools to not only understand why people turn to violence but also to help them find meaning and, ultimately, paths toward peace. My work aims to contribute to that effort by shedding light on the psychological and social factors that perpetuate violence and offering insights into how we might break these cycles.
The ISPP community has been instrumental in my academic journey. From attending the ISPP Summer School during my first PhD year to presenting my research at three consecutive conferences, I have received invaluable feedback that has greatly enhanced both my research and approaches. The support I received from my colleagues at the Political Psychology Lab and my supervisors at the University of Kent has also been critical to my development as a scholar.
Receiving this award during such a tumultuous time in my home country underscores the relevance of political psychology today. I hope that my research adds to the important conversation about collective violence, identity, and the prospects for reconciliation, not just in Lebanon, but in any society grappling with conflict. I am profoundly grateful to the ISPP for this recognition and for their commitment to fostering the work of scholars in this critical field.
Call for Labs: Join ISPP’s Open Research Lab Initiative
I’m sure many of us know the feeling: sharing your research ideas and receiving feedback can be invaluable. This need for input and connection can be especially strong when there’s no tradition of research labs at your institution, you’re not part of a research lab, or you’re working on a unique topic by yourself. I experienced this firsthand as a PhD student. Although I was part of an amazing research group, I was the only one researching gender-based violence at my institution in Hungary — where doing research on this topic can be challenging. I found myself searching for feedback from those whose daily work centers on gender-based violence, craving insights from experts who shared my focus. This is how the first idea of the “Open Research Lab” was born.
The Open Research Lab initiative aims to bridge this gap for ECRs worldwide by connecting them with research labs open to hosting ECRs from outside their institutions. Through these online meetings, ECRs will have a chance to present their work, receive feedback, and engage in discussions with experts in their field. Typically, this will be a one-time session during a regular lab meeting for the lab and the ECR to connect, though there are no restrictions if both parties wish to continue collaborating.
This initiative is not only about knowledge-sharing but also about fostering diverse and enriching professional connections. It’s a chance to create collaborative spaces where labs and researchers who might not otherwise cross paths can exchange insights and support one another.
We invite labs to join us in creating this supportive and collaborative environment. By participating, your lab can provide ECRs with feedback and guidance on specific research topics while also expanding your own professional network. Labs that join will be listed on the ISPP website, making it easy for ECRs to reach out to you to arrange presentations and discussions. Together, let’s build a global research community that values connection and shared learning.
If your lab is interested, please fill out a short questionnaire using this link https://forms.gle/sxPhtwEeCWAi5nkK9, and consider sharing the initiative with your lab head and others who may be interested.
Boglarka Nyul
ISPP-ECC Chair 2024–2025
ECC on the Web
The ISPP invites you to stay engaged with the ECC online through the society’s X, (formerly Twitter) (@PolPsyISPP), Facebook( https://fb.com/PolPsyISPP), Linkedin ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/intlsocpolpsych), blog ( https://ispp.org/category/ispp-blog/) and medium ( https://polpsyispp.medium.com/) sites. Stay up-to-date on conferences, publications, open positions, and discussions of interest to scholars in political psychology through our social various media!
We are always on the look-out for new and interesting articles to be featured in our ECC blog. Articles can range from communicating your research to a more general audience to writing about current social issues in the world through an interdisciplinary, political, sociological, and/or psychological lens. If you are willing to contribute, please get in touch with us through the e-mail address ecc@ispp.org.
Originally published at https://polpsyispp.medium.com on November 25, 2024.
