The present study explored whether variables previously shown to relate to pro-social attitudes and behaviours could be applied to the intention to engage in bystander anti-racism on behalf of Indigenous Australians. 149 non-Indigenous participants were asked to indicate how likely they were to engage in bystander anti-racism in response to an ‘everyday’ racial discrimination scenario presented within an online survey. Being female, older, and politically left leaning correlated with bystander anti-racism intentions, as did higher levels of collective guilt, anger, empathic concern and lower levels of prejudice. Regression analysis revealed that being older and having higher levels of empathic concern predicted the intention to engage in bystander anti-racism. While it may seem rational that the ability to feel for the plight of another (empathic concern) is necessary for bystander anti-racism to ensue, older individuals may feel more competent in their ability to effectively intervene.

Self-conscious emotions are a distinct category of emotional responses that are rooted in social contexts. Previous findings suggest that negative self-conscious emotions might be elicited by a specific social factor, that is, symbolic intergroup threat. The present study tested the hypothesis that this is true, with three experiments conducted in the Chinese-context. In particular, the Mandarin words for shame (羞愧), guilt (内疚) and loss of face (丢脸) were examined. Symbolic threats were manipulated in all three experiments, with participants randomly divided into a symbolic threat condition and a control condition in each experiment. As expected, participants in the symbolic threat condition always reported more negative self-conscious emotions compared to participants in the control condition. These results suggest that symbolic intergroup threat can lead to self-conscious emotions as well as basic emotions, as was demonstrated by previous research.

As there is no research on forced migration of African migrants to New Zealand, in particular on the interrelations among psychological motives to migrate and psychological acculturation preferences, the present study aims to address this gap. One hundred and five forced and voluntary African migrants to New Zealand completed a questionnaire, which included two measures (a) the Psychological Motives to Migrate (Tharmaseelan, 2005) and (b) the Psychological Acculturation Index (Mace, 2004). Demographic information, including data on the New Zealand government immigration categories through which the migrant gained entry and length of time in New Zealand, was also collected. Multivariate analyses indicated that motivations to migrate do matter when it comes to acculturation preferences. Further, it was found that psychological motives to migrate were better predictors of acculturation preferences than the government immigration categories. Specifically, voluntary migrants (those motivated by ‘family life improvement’ and ‘exploration’) preferred to adapt to New Zealand culture, while forced migrants (those motivated by ‘escaping’) had a higher preference to maintain their culture of origin. Duration of time in New Zealand was correlated with acculturation preferences. Implications of the findings point to the importance of assessing motivations to migrate from a psychological perspective.

Natural disasters provide humanity with a setting in which to examine core dimensions of life. How people respond to and make sense of their experiences due to the ruptures of trauma and devastation remains vital in grief recovery. An earthquake of 8.3 magnitudes on October 29, 2009 triggered a galulolo (tsunami wave) that devastated parts of Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga. This calamity provided an ideal setting for a case study examination of how those directly impacted recovered from the devastation. In this article, the experiences of one couple in the context of Samoan grieving processes becomes the key focus. Disaster and grieving literature is examined to inform and provide interpretation to their experiences. It is through such an examination that this article seeks to makes an important contribution to understanding the complexities of loss and culturally patterned responses of Samoan people, like this couple, to disaster recovery.

This article reports on an investigation into the use of Incident Control Systems (e.g., AIIMS/ CIMS) by personnel involved in emergency incident management in fire and emergency services agencies in Australia and New Zealand. A questionnaire was distributed that aimed to assess how information flowed between emergency incident management personnel at different layers of the incident control system, and what enabled and constrained coordination between those personnel. Data were collected from personnel on the fire or incident ground; members of Incident Management Teams; as well as staff operating in regional and state centres of coordination. To date there have been 579 responses spread across 24 agencies. The findings reveal that while there is a high level of satisfaction with overall organisational arrangements and reporting relationships, there are some systemic tensions in, and dissatisfaction evident with, communication arrangements. The extent to which Incident Control Systems facilitate the organisational flexibility needed during dynamic and often unpredictable situations is also discussed. Where appropriate, comparisons are made with similar questionnaire data collected in 2003 by AFAC (Australasian Fire Authorities Council).

In the past 10 years, under the common problems of unemployment of people with a higher education and the devaluation of diplomas, the concepts and practices of higher education governance have emerged and have gradually been embedded in university operations. Higher education in Taiwan faces the same problems as the rest of the world. Thus, guided by policies of the Taiwanese Ministry of Education (TMOE) and fuelled by the media, the education-job gap is becoming a discursive truth. With this background, the TMOE has invested numerous resources to establish an information system (IS) that attempts to guide the direction of university education using information technology. If the IS is poorly designed, the scope of its side effects and harm will be magnified by a massive number of IS users and the characteristics of procedure standardisation. We suggest another form of action — IS competition, in which more positive social changes can be created. Based on the analysis of the available data, the action of IS competition does have a positive impact on society.

Research suggests people try to protect their social self-esteem from threats from the ingroup or the outgroup. However, how members react to a threat to social self-esteem from a third party remains unclear. Three studies were conducted to examine the influence of a threat to social self-esteem from an authoritative third party on ingroup favoritism. We explored the effect of negative (versus positive) evaluation from the testing system on explicit and implicit ingroup favoritism in Study 1 and Study 2 respectively. We compared the effect of negative evaluation posed by the testing system or the competitive outgroup on ingroup favoritism in Study 3. Results suggested that individuals experiencing a threat to social self-esteem from an authoritative third party manifested less ingroup favoritism than those experiencing no threat or outgroup threat. The theoretical implications of this research on social identity theory and the practical implications of reducing intergroup bias are discussed.

Conceptualising foreign aid as a controversial social object, this study utilised Social Representations Theory as a social constructionist framework to understand the meanings that arise from people's social interactions in relation to foreign aid practice in a particular historical, political and social context such as the province of Sulu in Southern Philippines. Key informant interviews and group discussions with representatives of various social groups involved in the practice of foreign aid in Sulu were conducted. Research data were examined using thematic analysis. Results showed two interrelated representational systems about foreign aid in the province. First, foreign aid was understood as a valuable resource for peace and development in Sulu. Second, based on narratives of aid practice in the province, the same social object was also represented as a profiteering enterprise that operates at various levels of the aid structure. Results are discussed in terms of meaning-making in aid practice; the possible psychological, social and political consequences of the social meaning of foreign aid as a profiteering enterprise; and the potential of these social representations for reflection, critique and transformation in the practice of foreign aid.

This thematic Special Issue is the second in a five-year series on social psychology of social change that aims to feature the science and practice of interventions for social change. But, current work in the social psychology of social change still focuses on theoretical analysis of social problems; the action-oriented approach to social psychology research is not yet a strong movement in social psychology in the region. This is reflected in the research features in the Special Issue, where only one exemplifies the action research approach. Nevertheless, there is progress towards applying the theoretical lenses and methodological tools of social psychology to develop sharper understanding of particular social problems and the theoretical analysis that draws from close social contextual analysis and from indigenous concepts plays an important role in this progress. Even as we reflect on the challenges for moving towards action-oriented social psychology research, we note how social psychologists in the Asian and Pacific region are focusing their attention on local social concerns.

The Virtue Existential Career Model (VEC) is a Chinese career development model based on the Classic of Changes. It is designed to supplement the person-environment fit paradigm of Taiwan's 12-Year Basic Education for junior high school students. We adopted an action research approach with two parts, reflection-on-action and critical-emancipatory. An easy-to-use VEC career curriculum and a career information system (Career Genesis; CG) were developed by a team of staff members from government agencies (Tainan Department of Education and Student Counseling Centers), junior high schools, and the Chinese Career Research Center of National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan. The outcome of this project was strong on fostering interconnectedness. Implementing our VEC curriculum and CG to 30 junior high school students received statistically significant immediate increases in resilience, adaptation, and liking of career decision. The feedback and reflections suggest that mandating, attracting, and simplifying are useful strategies to promote our VEC model as well as to facilitate social change and create a multiple-win situation for all parties involved. This approach also follows the tao (道) of the Classic of Changes to provide new knowledge.

This study examined the impact of media use on political engagement among South Korean voters. The two major strengths of the current study were the examination of multiple dimensions of media use and citizen communication, and the consideration of mediating variables. Multigroup structural equation modelling was used to examine the direct and indirect effects of media use on political engagement via mediator online citizen communication. The present study used data from the 19th General Election Survey in Korea conducted by the Korean Social Data Center. A nationally representative sample of 829 Korean voters (age range: 21–59) was included for analysis. Results indicated: (1) for those in the 20–30 year age group, political efficacy positively predicted online media use and this, in turn, was related to political engagement via mediator online citizen communication; and (2) for those in the 40–50 year age group, political efficacy positively predicted both offline and online media use, with online media use affecting political engagement directly.

Recent studies suggest that personality traits affect not only ordinary citizens’ political ideology but also their opinions on specific social or political issues. In line with these studies, this article examines the relationship between personality traits — measured by the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) — and South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korea. The results from statistical analysis of two nationally representative surveys reveal that people who are conscientious are less likely to feel close to North Korea and more likely to believe North Korea is a hostile nation, whereas those high on Openness are more likely to harbour positive attitudes toward North Korea. Given that attitudes toward North Korea have been the most important determinant of political ideology in South Korea, these findings seem to be consistent with those of pre-existing studies.

In risky decision making, whether decision makers follow an expectation rule as hypothesised by mainstream theories is a compelling question. To tackle this question and enrich our knowledge of the underlying mechanism of risky decision making, we developed a series of new experimental paradigms that directly examined the computation processes to systematically investigate the process of risky decision making and explore the boundary condition of expectation rule over the course of a decade. In this article, we introduce these methods and review behavioural, eye-tracking, event-related potential, and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that employed these methods. Results of these studies consistently showed that decision makers in the single-application condition did not perform the weighting and summing process assumed by the expectation rule. Moreover, decision makers were inclined to adopt a non-compensatory strategy, such as a heuristic one, in risky decision making. Furthermore, results indicated that the expectation rule was only applicable for conditions that involved decisions applied to numerous events (multiple applications) or to people (everyone). The findings indicated that using an index based on expected value to prescribe human risk preferences appears to be an artificial or false index of risk preference, and emphasised a new methodological direction for risky decision-making research.

Two studies were conducted to examine the relationship between three different types of intergroup contact (i.e., direct contact, extended contact, and online contact) and outgroup evaluation, and the moderating effect of group status and sociopolitical contexts across two cultural contexts. A total of 75 European Americans (majority) and 44 Chinese Americans (minority) participated in Study 1; whereas 61 Javanese (majority) and 72 Chinese Indonesians (minority) participated in Study 2. In both studies, participants completed an outgroup feeling thermometer as well as a set of questionnaires measuring intergroup contact, perceived outgroup political power, perceived outgroup economic power, perceived government support, and perceived quality of the current intergroup relations. Results from the two studies revealed that although contact was beneficial in both cultural contexts, there were notable moderators of the links between contact and outgroup evaluations. Specifically, the value of direct contact was greater for the minority group members in the United States, extended contact only mattered in a specific condition when the perceived government support was taken into account in the United States, and online contact was beneficial across group status in the Indonesian context. Overall, the findings provide evidence of the need to take into account the role of specific sociopolitical relations between the two groups in intergroup relations research.

Adolescents who immigrate face particular adjustment challenges. This study investigated (a) levels of wellbeing and depression in migrant adolescents and their Australian native counterparts, (b) associations between adjustment and four psychosocial resources, and (c) moderating effects of country of birth on the relationships between these resources and adjustment indices. The sample (N = 327) included students born in Australia, English-speaking countries other than Australia, and non-English-speaking countries. Students born outside of Australia in English-speaking countries reported highest mean levels of wellbeing and ethnic identity. Ethnic identity did not have the expected protective effects on migrant adolescent adjustment. In contrast, a sense of school membership affected Australian-born adolescents more positively than it did their overseas-born peers. The results raise questions regarding sources of support and connectedness that might particularly help migrant adolescents.

Part of a larger research project aimed at performing the meta-theoretical analysis of the worldwide literature published on social representations theory (SRT), this article explores the state of art of the theory in the geocultural context of Asia, spatially and temporally, as well as from a conceptual, disciplinary, theoretical, empirical and thematic point of view. The Grid for MetaTheoretical Analysis was used on 194 sources, extracted from the So.Re.Com “A.S. de Rosa”@-library. Multi-step strategies of data analyses offer a diversified picture of findings: (a) descriptive statistics and geomapping with Tableau Desktop the bibliometric impact country by country; (b) structural multidimensional view of significant intersections between “meta-data” performing hierarchical clustering on the top of the multiple correspondence analysis. The three clusters detected reveal a shift from a more generic and applied tradition of research on SRT in 2002–2011 to a more theoretically oriented empirical research trend starting from 2011, identifying the scientific production anchored into different Asian regions (Indonesia, China and Israel) and mainly differentiated by the methodology employed. Results revealed that SRT was adopted due to its epistemological and empirical compatibilities with the purpose of creating an original Asian social psychology, interested in indigenous social phenomena specific to cultural backgrounds.

From the perspective of studying natural hazards, the peace and tranquillity that might be expected from a literal translation of its name does not always capture the reality of life for communities on the Pacific Rim. This reality is more readily discerned in its alter ego: the Ring of Fire. The latter leaves one in less doubt as to the hazardous circumstances likely to prevail in this region. In addition to the hazards posed by the numerous volcanoes that resulted in the ‘Ring of Fire’ appellation, communities situated around the Pacific Rim also have to contend with earthquakes, tsunami, storms, cyclones/typhoons, flood and bushfire. To this list of acute events can be added hazards of a chronic nature such as salinity, environmental degradation and sea-level rise that represent growing threats to many Pacific Rim countries. The region also faces increased risk from health-related hazards. Sydney, for example, has been identified as a pandemic hotspot as a result of it being a hub linking the airways of Asia and the United States.

In this web-based survey, 60 non-Indigenous Australian human resource (HR) professionals reviewed four fictitious job resumés for an Indigenous male, Indigenous female, non-Indigenous male and non-Indigenous female. Participants rated the resumés against five key selection criteria and then ranked them in terms of suitability for a HR position, team fit (TF) with participants' current HR team, and suitability for a customer service (CS) position. Finally, participants completed a modified Attitude toward Indigenous Australians scale. Although participants' gender and attitudes and applicants' gender and ethnicity did not have an effect on resumé ratings, rank differences for the HR position and TF for the whole sample were significantly different, with the non-Indigenous male applicant being preferred to the Indigenous male and female applicants. Participants holding a negative attitude toward Indigenous people consistently ranked the non-Indigenous male applicant more favourably than the Indigenous male and female applicants and the non-Indigenous female applicant more favourably than the Indigenous male applicant. Female participants ranked the non-Indigenous male applicant more favourably than the Indigenous male and female applicants for the HR position and TF. Implications for Indigenous Australian employment disadvantage are examined with reference to social identity and contemporary racism theories.

This research examined the role of humour in power-differentiated wage bargaining conversations. We collected transcripts of wage bargaining between the local labour union and management negotiators of a multinational beverage company operating in the Philippines. Through conversation analysis, we determined how both parties utilised humor to challenge or maintain power relations even as both labour and management worked towards a wage bargaining agreement. Findings show that humour was used to maintain intergroup harmony, subvert authority and control the negotiation. Our findings may be useful for labour organisations and multinational corporations that operate in Southeast Asian countries with historically tumultuous labour relations such as the Philippines. Studies have shown how humour can play a significant role in various social interactions, such as business meetings (Rogerson-Revell, 2007), conversations between friends (Hay, 2000) and co-workers (Holmes, 2000), problem solving (Dunbar, Banas, Rodriguez, Liu, & Abra, 2012), conflict negotiations (Maemura & Horita, 2012) and price haggling (O’Quin & Aronoff, 1981). We note, however, that humour analysis rarely considers asymmetric features of social interactions occurring within the context of negotiation.