Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： After an emergency occurs, inferring the cause of the incident and attributing responsibility is an essential characteristic of people’s psychological activities. Attribution of responsibility in emergencies refers to the public's cognitive tendency and attitude toward the inference of the cause of the incident. Further, it includes the assessment of the responsibility of the subject involved in the process of occurrence and handling. In adverse events, people have stronger motivations for attributing responsibility. It is a protection mechanism for individuals to find fault or accord blame for unfortunate events. This leads us to believe that disasters can be avoided if individuals or groups can determine the relationship between events and control the situation. Therefore, individuals need responsibility attribution after emergencies. The purpose and psychological significance of responsibility attribution are to meet the need to alleviate the sense of uncertainty and maintain a sense of control. The sense of uncertainty due to emergencies results in a need to explain exigencies in achieving cognitive closure. Through attribution of responsibility, people can obtain explanations regarding emergencies that occur, making such situations predictable. Conversely, the pursuit of certainty may lead to the public believing in conspiracy theories of adverse events. Responsibility attribution can also be used as a way to meet the needs of the people's order to compensate for the lack of sense of control. Simultaneously, the accountability or punishment of the offending party can make people feel controllable. Meeting people’s psychological needs depends on the strategies adopted by the responsible subject in dealing with the attribution of people’s responsibilities. These strategies can be divided into negative coping strategies that violate psychological needs and positive coping strategies that meet people’s psychological needs. For example, organizations to which fault is attributable may adopt negative, responsibility-avoidance behaviors to maintain a positive image and project moral values, which makes it more difficult for the public to get a clear picture of the incident. This further aggravates the public’s sense of uncertainty, and causes other negative effects. The situational crisis communication theory proposed by Coombs considers various crises. It provides targeted suggestions for coping strategies, but the approach pays less attention to the psychological needs of the public in the attribution of responsibility. Starting from the people’s psychological needs, we have proposed two principles for coping with responsibility attribution: 1) ensuring complete transparency of information to alleviate people’s sense of uncertainty, and 2) ensuring reasonable and orderly actions to increase people’s sense of control. Finally, we further provided suggestions for response strategies at different stages of the incident. In the initial stage, it is necessary to provide timely guidance information to establish security. In the mid-term, a reasonable explanation of the causality of the event should be provided to alleviate the sense of uncertainty. Further, the structure and order of various measures should be ensured to compensate for the sense of control. Later, detailed information needs to be released, including instructions and suggestions for future preventive measures, to achieve cognitive closure. We also discuss future research in this area. First, we can supplement the integrated empirical evidence on the relationship between psychological needs and accountability in emergencies. Second, we distinguish the characteristics of the public’s responsibility attribution and active response strategies in different types of emergencies. Third, we focus on the connection between responsibility attribution and other social-psychological variables. Finally, we explore practical strategies for the government in responding to the attribution of public responsibility based on Chinese society.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2022-02-07
Abstract：
Previous research on the relationship between social inequality and the system-justifying beliefs of disadvantaged individuals remains inconclusive. On the one hand, self-interest-oriented theories (e.g., social identity theory) argue that inequality decreases the system-justifying beliefs of the disadvantaged, given that inequality conflicts with their self-interest. System justification theory, on the other hand, predicts that when inequality in the system is made especially salient, then system justification motivation is activated (or increased); thus, individuals (including the disadvantaged) would be more likely to defend and support the unequal status quo. In this article, we intend to advance the debate by proposing a dual-process model. Specifically, when the realistic threat of inequality at the individual or group level is salient, it is more likely to activate the self-interested motivation of the disadvantaged (and thus inhibit their system justification motivation), and in turn weaken their system-justifying beliefs. However, when the symbolic threat of inequality at the system level is salient, it is more likely to activate their system justification motivation (and thus inhibit their self-interested motivation), thereby enhancing their system-justifying beliefs. Our dual-process model offers a new approach to bridging the research gap, and future research is needed to test and develop this model.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2021-12-08
Abstract： The main objective of the psychological activities in a public emergency is to determine its source and who is to take responsibility. Emergencies often increase individuals’ sense of uncertainty and give them a sense of unpredictability about the future, thus, driving individuals to seek explanations for emergencies to achieve cognitive closure. Additionally, crises threaten individuals’ control, making them feel less influential in their outcomes, making them more concerned about the order of the external world. Related organizations who are responsible for the emergency should adopt appropriate response strategies to reshape their reputation and re-win the trust of the public. Significantly, researchers need to establish a more systematic and complete model to supplement empirical evidence based on psychology. Further, there is a need to study the attribution of responsibility in various emergencies, explore effective coping strategies suitable to the Chinese socio-cultural context, and examine the connection between responsibility attribution and other social-psychological variables."
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Hits
Hits
Downloads
Comment