Leda Blackwood

University of Bath | UB · Department of Psychology

We study a transcript of discourse recorded on an open mic during the mass suicide/murder of 909 members of a religious community in Jonestown in 1978. The ‘Jonestown massacre’ is often cited in psychology textbooks as a warning example of how powerful situations and charismatic leaders can lead ordinary people to extreme and destructive behaviours...

Moralized minority actors can play important roles in social change processes by rejecting majority social norms and modeling alternative societal pathways. However, being a minority actor can be difficult, often resulting in stigma, derogation, and hostility from the majority group. For actions intrinsically linked with daily life (e.g., eating),...

Background The under-representation of women and other minority group members in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) academia is a problem internationally and is attributed in part to hostile workplace cultures. We draw on the social identity perspective to examine the dynamic inter and intragroup processes entailed in these ex...

Acute behavioural disturbance (ABD), sometimes called ‘excited delirium’, is a medical emergency. In the UK, some patients presenting with ABD are managed by advanced paramedics (APs), however little is known about how APs make restraint decisions. The aim of this research is to explore the decisions made by APs when managing restraint in the conte...

Introduction Despite efforts to increase girls’ interest in subjects related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, there remains a large gender gap in STEM academic faculty. Methods We conducted a national survey comprising 732 early career and senior academics from 40 universities in the UK to investigate the role o...

Previous studies have emphasized culturally sensitive curricula in the context of enhancing minoritized students’ education. We examined the relationship between second-year higher education students’ perceptions of the cultural sensitivity of their curriculum and both majoritized and minoritized students’ interest in their course. A total of 286 (...

Moralised minority actors can play important roles in social change processes by rejecting majority social norms and modelling alternative societal pathways. However, being a minority actor can be difficult, often resulting in stigma, derogation and hostility from the majority group.For actions intrinsically linked with daily life (e.g. eating), su...

The use of a moderator has become ubiquitous when using focus groups for social science research. While a skilled mod-erator can facilitate discussion, we argue that, in some instances, moderators can potentially hinder the generation of the types of group discussions that academic researchers may seek to access. In this paper we outline some of th...

Twenty-four percent of Black and minority ethnic students in the UK report facing racial harassment at university, and one in twenty leave their studies due to this. But how do those who remain negotiate a hostile climate and what can we learn from their strategies? In our focus groups conducted with 16 Black students at a predominantly white insti...

The use of a moderator has become ubiquitous when using focus groups for social science research. While a skilled moderator can facilitate discussion, we argue that moderators can potentially also hinder the generation of the types of group discussions that academic researchers seek to access. We suggest a need for critical reflection on the role,...

Opening data promises to improve research rigour and democratize knowledge production. But it also presents practical, theoretical, and ethical considerations for qualitative researchers in particular. Discussion about open data in qualitative social psychology predates the replication crisis. However, the nuances of this ongoing discussion have no...

The school climate-strike movement has become a powerful force, shaping how people engage with climate change. Here we use a qualitative interview methodology to give voice to adolescents in the United Kingdom. We show how our participants—strikers and non-strikers alike—were united in framing climate change as an issue of intergenerational injusti...

Our research, conducted with 30 Black students at a predominantly White institution, used mixed qualitative methods to investigate Black students' sense‐making of experiences that signalled their non‐belonging. All participants experienced both overt and covert racism including the n‐word, racist humour, and negative stereotyping; and this occurred...

People living with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes (T1DM &T2DM) report that media – including journalism, health promotion, and popular culture – are a primary source of stigmatic representations of diabetes, and that this compromises their physical and mental health. This view of diabetes as stigmatised is not shared by many health professionals and no...

Background Acute behavioural disturbance, also known as excited delirium, is a medical emergency. Paramedics are required to balance competing concerns, including the risks of restraint to the patient, the need for diagnostic accuracy and the need for compliance with relevant legislation. Decisions take place in the context of challenging situation...

The youth climate movement has gathered pace and notoriety since its inception at COP21. Here we show that although adolescents share the view that climate change is an injustice and that urgent action is required, they express varied views about strikes and strikers. These differences appear aligned with their own choices to participate, or not, i...

Opening data promises to improve research rigour and democratise knowledge production. But it also poses practical, theoretical, and ethical risks for qualitative research. Despite discussion about open data in qualitative social psychology predating the replication crisis, the nuances of this discussion have not been translated into current journa...

“Old” universities in the UK are typically populated with White middle‐class students who hail from White majority hometowns, whilst “new” universities have more diverse cohorts from diverse hometowns. Our research conducted with 17 Black students at a predominantly White university, examined the initial encounters in which Black students first rea...

Mental health interpreters play a crucial role in clinical support for refugees by providing a bridge between client and clinician. Yet research on interpreters’ experiences and perspectives is remarkably sparse. In this study, semi-structured interviews with mental health interpreters explored the experience of working in clinical settings with re...

COVID‐19 mitigating practices such as ‘hand‐washing’, ‘social distancing’, or ‘social isolating’ are constructed as ‘moral imperatives’, required to avert harm to oneself and others. Adherence to COVID‐19 mitigating practices is presently high among the general public, and stringent lockdown measures supported by legal and policy intervention have...

COVID-19 mitigating practices such as “hand-washing”, “social distancing” or “social isolating” are constructed as ‘moral imperatives’, required to avert harm to oneself and others. Adherence to COVID-19 mitigating practices is presently high among the general public, and stringent lockdown measures supported by legal and policy intervention has fa...

The past decade has witnessed burgeoning efforts among governments to prevent people from developing a commitment to violent extremism (conceived of as a process of radicalization). These interventions acknowledge the importance of group processes yet in practice primarily focus on the idiosyncratic personal vulnerabilities that lead people to enga...

In this paper we examine the role of out-group signals and in-group leader tactics in the choice and evaluation of rival in-group leader candidates. Study 1 found preference for a negotiating in-group leader over an oppositional leader, mediated by perceived leader effectiveness and prototypicality. In Study 2 participants chose a leader who had re...

Two correlational studies of activists examined the association between belonging to community organizations or groups and sustained activism within a particular domain. In Study 1 (N = 45) larger activist networks, controlling for activist identification and greater political knowledge, were associated with stronger activism intentions. In Study 2...

Covering a topic applicable to fields ranging from education to health care to psychology, this book provides a broad critical analysis of the assumptions that researchers and practitioners have about causation and explains how readers can improve their thinking about causation. In virtually every laboratory, research center, or classroom focused o...

We are grateful to the editors for this stimulating opportunity to reflect on the nature of causality in our field, focusing on the social psychology of collective action and political behavior. Harré and Moghaddam in their introductory chapter of this volume identify a number of dimensions along which causality may be mapped, and we shall follow t...

Contemporary analyses of citizenship emphasise the importance of being able to occupy public space in a manner that does not compromise one’s sense of self. Moreover, they foreground individuals’ active engagement with others (e.g., being concerned about others) and the active exercise of one’s rights. We explore such issues through considering the...

Post-9/11, airports are one place where citizens are more likely to have interactions initiated by authorities and this may be even more so for Muslims; certainly, this is suggested by the phrase, ‘flying while Muslim’. In this article, I first review research conducted with Scottish Muslims, which found that the experience of being routinely stopp...

There are several psychological analyses of the processes of radicalisation resulting in terrorism. However, we know little about how those in authority (e.g., the police) conceptualise the psychological dynamics to radicalisation. Accordingly, we present a detailed account of an official UK counter-terrorism intervention, the Workshop to Raise Awa...

Contemporary analyses of citizenship emphasise the importance of being able to occupy public space in a manner that does not compromise one’s sense of self. Moreover, they foreground individuals’ active engagement with others (e.g., being concerned about others) and the active exercise of one’s rights. We explore such issues through considering the...

Three field studies conducted with academics and students examined the dynamic role of threat and normative support for a union in qualifying the relationship between union-related legitimacy and efficacy beliefs, and union intentions. There was evidence for interplay between threat and norms in facilitating people acting in accordance with their u...

In this paper we introduce our special thematic section on societal change. We begin by providing an overview of the aims of the section, and how these aims grew out of a need to address conceptual and empirical challenges in the study of societal change. In response to these challenges, the section was intended to provide a forum for theoretical a...

What leads to the alienation and political (dis)engagement of minority groups is a critical question for political psychologists. Recently, research has focused attention on one particular minority group – Muslims in the West – and on what promotes “anti-Western” attitudes and behavior. Typically, the research focus is on factors internal to the in...

What leads to the alienation and political (dis)engagement of minority groups is a critical question for political psychologists. Recently, research has focused attention on one particular minority group – Muslims in the West – and on what promotes “anti-Western” attitudes and behavior. Typically, the research focus is on factors internal to the in...

(from the chapter) The UK government's "Prevent" strategy, which aims to "prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support", is underpinned by this conceptualization of the crisis we face. Under the umbrella of "Prevent" a raft of initiatives has been funded to build resilient communities,...

Abstract In this paper we report an analysis of individual and group interviews with thirty-eight Scottish Muslims concerning their encounters with authority ? especially those at airports. Our analysis shows that a key theme in interviewees? talk of their experience in this context concerns the denial and misrecognition of valued identities such a...

Recent theorizing on citizenship encourages a broader consideration of the degree to which individuals are able to participate in social life without valued elements of their self-definition being compromised. This paper seeks to illustrate how social psychology can contribute to such an approach through providing an analysis of British Muslims' ac...

The present article reports a longitudinal study of the psychological antecedents for, and outcomes of, collective action for a community sample of activists. At Time 1, activist identification influenced intentions to engage in collective action behaviours protesting the Iraq war, both directly and indirectly via perceptions of the efficacy of the...

Most current attitude research focuses on range of non-social attitudinal targets, including health-related and consumer outcomes. In this paper, a program of research that considers the relations among intergroup attitudes, group norms, and behavior will be described. The first study examined the effect of ingroup norms relating to multiculturalis...

Asurvey-based field study was conducted with 232 members and nonmembers of the National Tertiary Education Union to investigate the psychological processes underpinning union support. Drawing on value-expectancy models and social identity/self-categorisation theory, this study investigated the role that both individual and grouprelated factors play...

The concerns of human capability development have ostensibly been claimed by human resource management (HRM) discourse and practice that depoliticises (and individualises) the employment relationship, providing top-down approaches where the focus is on policies and practices that are aimed at the agentic and motivated worker, but designed in the in...

Research has shown limited support for the notion that perceived effectiveness of collective action is a predictor of intentions to engage in collective action. One reason may be that effectiveness has been in terms of whether the action will influence key decision makers. We argue that the effectiveness of collective action might be judged by othe...

We examined how rhetorical style affects evaluations of group advocates, and how these evaluations are moderated by group identification. University students were given a letter to the editor defending student welfare. The argument was either constructed using personal language ('I believe') or collective language ('we believe'). Furthermore, the l...

Industrial relations research that attempts to grapple with individuals' union-related sentiments and activities often draws on one of two traditions of psychological research—the individual-level factors tradition (for example, personality and attitude-behaviour relations) and the social context tradition (for example, frustration-aggression and r...

This paper reports the results of Victoria University's Industrial Relations Centre's annual survey of trade union membership in New Zealand for 2004. The survey has been conducted since 1991, when the Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA) ended the practice of union registration and the collection of official data. This year we report changes in uni...

What are the social factors that can change apathy to action? Two survey-based field studies were conducted with National Tertiary Education Union members, to investigate the interplay between individual and group-based psychological processes in union support. The first study was conducted in an industrially calm context and the second, following...

Like all social movements, unions experience alternating periods of member apathy and fervent activity. This is invariably linked to the demands of the industrial relations context (Fosh, 1993). Yet, much of the research that has investigated union activity has sought explanations in enduring qualities of the individual. Where social context has be...