EASP Summer School 2010

On broadening perspectives of Social Psychology

Professor Willem Doise, University of Geneva

 

The conference will address mainly the following four points:

- The context of social psychology when the EAESP was created

- The advantages and limits of experimentation in social psychology.

- A recurrent criticism: the absence of societal perspectives.

- From four to six levels of explanation: neuro-physiological processes and intersocietal right principle

From perception to mobilisation: reconsidering our understanding of understanding

Professor Steve Reicher, University of St Andrews

Minority Influence: The prototypical fate of the epistemology of Social Psychology

Professor Stamos Papastamou, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

The talk will address research on minority influence from the '60s till today. The methodological, theoretical, epistemological as well as the ideological options that differentiated work on minority influence from"classic" research on social influence will be discussed.  Then, it will be argued that progressively the innovative character of its epistemological conflicting objectives was transposed, as its international impact grew, to a refinement of methodology and techniques. Finally, the talk will conclude on the conditions that would enable research on minority influence to regain its original ideological commitment; conditions that would confer to social psychology its lost societal sensitivity and perspective. Examples will be drawn from research on political violence and terrorsim.

Collective Identity and Political Engagement

Professor Bernd Simon, University of Kiel

Although social psychologists have long acknowledged that social (or collective) identity operates as an intervening causal mechanism in situations of 'objective' social change, they have only recently begun to systematically apply the social identity and self-categorization perspective to issues of political engagement. In this presentation I elaborate on the notion of politicized collective identity (PCI) and
examine how PCI facilitates political engagement thus enabling people to act collectively on social structure. To elucidate this process I draw upon our earlier research on social movement participation as well as upon an ongoing programme of research conducted in the context of immigration in which the role of dual identification in the development of a politicized collective identity among (im)migrants is examined.

The Psychology of Creativity

 Professor Carsten K.W. De Dreu, University of Amsterdam

  

Creativity affects individuals and societies in a number of ways, and psychological science has greatly advanced our understanding of the processes that enable or inhibit creativity. In this talk I present an overarching theoretical framework that seeks to integrate past research findings and to highlight critical gaps in our knowledge. This Dual Pathway to Creativity Model has been tested in a series of experimental studies, which I will present. I will explore the extent to which DPCM can be used to understand group creativity and innovation in applied settings, and present some recent and supportive data. Discussion focuses on new avenues for research into creativity at the individual and group level.

 

 

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