Psychology Research Digest
British Journal of Social Psychology
The British Journal of Social Psychology is an international journal that publishes impactful basic and applied social psychological research from all parts of the world. Our aim is to showcase research at the forefront of theoretical and methodological innovation that contributes to informing psychological perspectives of social-contextual challenges and audiences beyond academia. We value diverse perspectives and are committed to robust and transparent research practices.
Predictors of affect across social contexts: An integration of existing diary datasets
Daily life is characterized by periods of complete and public solitude, face-to-face interactions and digitally mediated interactions when alone or with others, all of which elicit varying degrees and different types of affect. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of affect during these distinct everyday contexts. By combining data from 11 distinct datasets, we examined how time spent in complete solitude (not interacting and with no-one around), digitally mediated interactions when alone, public solitude (not interacting but with others present), interacting face-to-face and digitally mediated interactions when with others, as well as individual differences in age and extraversion, were associated with four types of affect distinguished on two dimensions (arousal and valence) and loneliness. Results showed that prior face-to-face interactions were associated with increased high-arousal positive affect and decreased low-arousal positive affect. This research offers nuanced insights into how social and solitary contexts, personality and age contribute to everyday affective experiences.
Publication date: Fri, 14 Aug 2026 05:09:24 -0700 Access the article >>Escaping Russia, trapped by identity: National identity negotiation in light of ingroup wrongdoing
The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a wave of emigration, with vast numbers of people fleeing Russia due to political persecution or safety concerns. The study explored how anti-war Russian emigrants negotiate their national identity and moral responsibility amid ingroup wrongdoing. Previous research has shown that having a stigmatized identity can lead to self-group distancing. Yet those studies concerned groups that can be characterized as victims of violence or discrimination, and there is a lack of research on identity performance and negotiation of people who represent perpetrator groups. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with Russian emigrants (N = 12) in two rounds between March 2023 and early 2024. We analysed data using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Participants described feelings of collective guilt and fear from identity disclosure, accompanied by a sense of vigilance in how they perform their identity in interactions. To avoid any implication that they supported the State's actions, participants tended to mitigate potential moral judgement by positioning themselves as morally aware yet lacking agency. Although participants actively disidentified from Russian identity, they still emphasized struggling with navigating collective responsibility and guilt. We discuss the implications of our findings for the potential resistance and future post-conflict reconciliation.
Publication date: Tue, 11 Aug 2026 22:56:09 -0700 Access the article >>Entity morality beliefs increase prosocial behaviours: A self‐attribution perspective
Incremental/entity beliefs refer to individuals' views on whether traits are malleable/static. Previous research, mostly from a target attribution perspective, identified a positive relationship between entity beliefs and harsh moral judgements towards moral transgressors. Little research has examined the relationships between entity beliefs and positive moral behaviours (e.g., prosocial behaviours) from a self-attribution perspective. The current study filled this gap. Two correlational studies, Studies 1a (N = 1229) and 1b (N = 328), revealed positive correlations between entity beliefs, prosocial behaviours and the tendency to attribute behaviours to one's own traits. In Study 2 (N = 167), beliefs were manipulated. Entity theorists exhibited higher levels of helping intentions and self-trait attribution than incremental theorists. Studies 3a (N = 1737) and 3b (N = 183) further explored the moderating effects of prosocial cost and helping efficacy and found that by holding a strong connection between one's own traits and behaviour, entity theorists were less influenced by increased prosocial costs and reduced helping efficacy compared to incremental theorists. These findings establish a more grounded and dialectical understanding of entity and incremental beliefs.
Publication date: Tue, 11 Aug 2026 22:37:51 -0700 Access the article >>Whether we win or with whom we watch: How international sporting events link to life satisfaction and work motivation
International sporting events like the UEFA EURO 2024 provide a powerful natural context to study how social identity dynamics and social processes link to well-being and motivation beyond the sporting domain. In this pre-registered longitudinal experience-sampling study (N = 842; k = 2,414 post-game responses) across five European countries, we examined how social context (watching alone vs. with others) and game result (win vs. loss) link to spectators' life satisfaction and work motivation. Drawing on social identity and self-categorisation theory, we explored mediating processes including team, football, and national identity, as well as social processes—social connectedness and game-related socialising. Multilevel analyses revealed that watching games with others was unexpectedly associated with lower work motivation, an effect explained by alcohol consumption. The social context was unrelated to life satisfaction. Game result (i.e., a win) was positively related to life satisfaction and work motivation, mediated by social identities and social processes. These findings demonstrate that collective success—rather than shared spectating—coincides with positive psychological spill-overs from leisure to work. By situating these effects within a social identity framework, the study highlights how collective experiences relate to both evaluative well-being (i.e., life satisfaction) and motivational outcomes (i.e., work motivation) in everyday and organisational life.
Publication date: Fri, 07 Aug 2026 23:44:49 -0700 Access the article >>Contrast bias, not confirmation bias, shapes daily impression updating across social and non‐social targets
Previous literature on impression updating has paid extensive attention to confirmation bias - the tendency to seek out, favour, interpret or remember information in a way that reinforces existing beliefs. Fewer studies examined the contrast effect/bias in the sequential updating of impressions. Contrast bias occurs when the difference between current beliefs and new information is exaggerated, leading to a stronger shift in evaluation than the new information alone would justify. In this work, we conducted two Ecological Momentary Experiments to capture real-world impression formation and updating on both social (e.g. an employee) and non-social (e.g. a vacation house) targets. We also developed novel computational models of biased impression updating based on parametric distortions of Bayesian ideal observers. Across the two studies, we found that daily impression updating exhibited significant contrast bias, with negative contrast bias exerting a stronger influence than positive ones. Additionally, we found no evidence for differences in impression updating between social and non-social targets. By focusing on within-person impression updating over time, these findings reveal contrast bias as a core dynamic of impression updating, systematically shaping how impressions change in response to inconsistent information.
Publication date: Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:44:45 -0700 Access the article >>Beyond proximity: The social and spatial dynamics of collaboration in community energy initiatives
This research examines how actual and perceived spatial distance from group members shape collaboration intentions in the context of community energy initiatives. While previous studies highlight in-group identification and interpersonal contact for community engagement, the role distance plays in this has received less attention. Across two studies (N total = 195, N total = 287), we tested across spatially different groups (neighbourhood, city, nation, family, workplace) whether indicators of greater (perceived) spatial distance were indicative of less interpersonal contact, lower identification with the group and weaker collaboration intentions. Our results indicate that perceived spatial distance did not correspond to actual spatial differences across groups, suggesting that perceived distance does not always reflect actual distance. However, members who perceive other members as less distant report stronger interpersonal contact, identification (Studies 1 and 2) and collaboration intentions (Study 2). Associations between interpersonal contact, identification and collaboration intentions were consistent across groups, suggesting that these processes are rather universal, while the role and interpretation of distance fluctuate between the groups tested. These results contribute to t/0258heory by clarifying the interplay between spatial and social dimensions of groups, and by showing how perceptions of space shape identification and intentions to engage in community-based energy.
Publication date: Fri, 07 Aug 2026 02:42:16 -0700 Access the article >>National identity as both cure and curse: The effects of three facets of national identification on post‐traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms in wartime Ukraine
The social cure hypothesis proposes that national identification can be beneficial to the well-being and mental health of ingroup members. However, research has also identified a social curse phenomenon in which identification can exacerbate distress and undermine recovery after trauma. We propose that these seemingly paradoxical phenomena arise from the effects of different dimensions of identification. To test this approach, we examined the context of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, as the actions of Russian troops, bombings, and the loss of homes and relatives are all sources of trauma for Ukrainians. Our research hypothesised that ingroup ties and ingroup affect would serve as protective factors, while identity centrality would serve as a risk factor for post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. Using two studies conducted among Ukrainians living in Ukraine (N 1 = 1012) and Ukrainian refugees in Poland (N 2 = 381), we consistently found that identity centrality was positively associated with PTS symptoms. In addition, Study 2 provided evidence for the protective role of ingroup ties and affect. These findings clarify how specific dimensions of national identification may function as either a ‘social cure’ or a ‘social curse’ during ongoing conflict, with important implications for mental health interventions for war-affected populations.
Publication date: Wed, 05 Aug 2026 23:17:23 -0700 Access the article >>Beyond mere novelty: Categorization drives differentiation
Stereotype formation is shaped by differentiation, that is, the tendency to prioritize attributes that render a novel group distinct from comparison groups. While differentiation is well documented, it remains unclear whether it is intrinsic to categorization or whether it is a byproduct of a general processing advantage of novel stimuli. We conducted three preregistered experiments to disentangle these accounts. In all experiments, participants learned a set of social traits that were either assigned to a single group or distributed across two groups. Crucially, novel traits presented in the second half of the stimulus set marked intergroup distinctiveness only in the two-groups condition while being equally novel in the single-group condition. In line with a category-based account of differentiation, recall for novel traits was enhanced in the two-groups condition compared to the single-group condition (Exp. 1 & 3) and an additional control condition without groups (Exp. 3). Moreover, novel traits were judged as more typical for their group than initially learned traits, but only in the two-groups condition (Exp. 2). These findings suggest differentiation is not a fixed response to novelty but a genuine categorization effect, serving a functional role in distinguishing groups. We discuss implications for category learning and stereotype formation.
Publication date: Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:56:51 -0700 Access the article >>Polarizing trajectories of colonial ideologies: A latent class growth analysis of historical negation and symbolic exclusion
The impassioned advocacy both for and against Indigenous rights in recent years suggests a polarization of public opinion. Accordingly, we theorize increasingly divided endorsement of two ideologies that challenge Indigenous rights to material and symbolic equality—historical negation and symbolic exclusion, respectively (the ‘Dark Duo’). Using latent class growth analysis, we test for distinct classes of change in the Dark Duo over 16 years (2009–2025) among a national probability sample of New Zealand adults (N = 43,020). As expected, results reveal a subgroup of Progressives (76.84%) with lower levels of historical negation and symbolic exclusion that decreased over time and a smaller subgroup of Reactionaries (23.16%) with higher levels of these ideologies that increased over the same period. Demographic and socio-political variables predicted class membership, and support for political parties varied across classes. Thus, the current study illustrates the presence and implications of ideological polarization towards Indigenous rights.
Publication date: Sun, 02 Aug 2026 23:01:23 -0700 Access the article >>Beyond procedural justice: Power, identity and the asymmetric architecture of public trust in security services
Public trust in security services is a critical social-psychological phenomenon, yet existing theoretical accounts remain fragmented and insufficiently attentive to the structural power asymmetries characterising security–public relations. This article argues that the dominant paradigm, procedural justice theory, requires fundamental revision within intergroup and institutional power dynamics. Drawing upon procedural justice theory (Why people obey the law, 1990, Yale University Press; Why people obey the law, 2nd ed., 2006, Princeton University Press), social identity and self-categorisation theory (The social psychology of intergroup relations, 1979, 33, Brooks/Cole; Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory, 1987, Blackwell), the integrative model of organisational trust (Academy of Management Review, 1995, 20, 709), intergroup contact theory (The nature of prejudice, 1954, Addison-Wesley), system justification theory (British Journal of Social Psychology, 1994, 33, 1), institutional betrayal theory (American Psychologist, 2014, 69, 575) and the political trust tradition (A systems analysis of political life, 1965, Wiley; Trust and trustworthiness, 2002, Russell Sage Foundation; Annual Review of Political Science, 2000, 3, 475), the article advances three propositions. First, trust formation is asymmetric: trust erodes faster than it accrues, with the asymmetry amplified for subordinate-status groups. Second, procedural justice effects are identity-contingent: perceived fairness operates differently depending on whether the authority is categorised as in-group protector or out-group enforcer. Third, trustworthiness appraisal under institutional betrayal requires reconceptualising Mayer et al.'s integrity dimension as epistemic credibility. A four-pathway model is proposed, with power asymmetry as a structural moderator and recursive feedback producing virtuous or vicious trust spirals.
Publication date: Wed, 29 Jul 2026 02:16:38 -0700 Access the article >>Issue Information
British Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 65, Issue 4, October 2026.
Publication date: Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Access the article >>