Wolfgang Wagner

University of Tartu · Institute of Psychology

In this study, we analyse the public perception of military AI in Estonia, a techno-optimistic country with high support for science and technology. This study involved quantitative survey data from 2021 on the public’s attitudes towards AI-based technology in general, and AI in developing and using weaponised unmanned ground systems (UGS) in parti...

This study is about how lay persons perceive and represent artificial intelligence in general as well as its use in weaponised autonomous ground vehicles in the military context. We analysed the discourse of six focus groups in Estonia, using an automatic text analysis tool and complemented the results by a qualitative thematic content analysis. Th...

In this paper I discuss how the issue of climate change becomes a social phenomenon and a social object. This process follows the model of how the public comes to represent scientific issues in the course of discursive and media events. The process unfolds from communal forms of discourse through institutionalisation, uptake by mass media and polit...

First paragraphs: Permita-me colocar-lhe uma questão: por que motivo se encontra aqui, com um livro na sua mão e a ler este capítulo? Poderei formular um palpite e supor que irá responder que está a fazer o que está a fazer neste momento porque pen- sou que o livro seria interessante, e que este pensamento o fez pegar fisicamente no livro, abri-lo...

The past decade has seen a shift in the way that minorities exert their influence in society. Where in previous decades the emphasis was on winning the hearts and minds of the population at large, a recent strategy has been to ignore general public discourse and only to target specific influential bodies. In this paper we use the example of transge...

In this essay I analyse Verkuyten's paper on discursive uses of the notion of tolerance in their classical and modern meaning. The latter term is widely employed in contemporary cancel culture, identity politics, and the 'wokeness' movement. In this comment I argue that the term modern tolerance is first a semantic misnomer and second a repressive...

Social and cultural groups are characterised by shared systems of social objects and issues that constitute their objective reality and their members' identity. It is argued that interpersonal interactions within such groups require a system of comprehensive representations to enable concerted interaction between individuals. Comprehensive represen...

The past decade has seen a shift in the way that minorities exert their influence in society. Where in previous decades the emphasis was on winning the hearts and minds of the population at large, a recent strategy has been to ignore general public discourse and only to target specific influential bodies. In this paper we use the example of transge...

Más que un malentendido? R ecuerdo vívidamente un incidente, una conversación con un mu-sulmán conocido, refugiado de Iraq, hace unos años. De algún modo, surgió el tema de los animales y en broma mencioné de manera retórica que es gracioso pensar que los humanos son descendientes de simios. Esta declaración fue recibida inicialmente con un profund...

This paper presents an analysis of interviews of participants in a political manifestation in Indonesia about the reasons for the rally and the resulting riot. The rally was held in the middle of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, against a non-Muslim incumbent who was accused of having insulted the Quran. We argue that there is a deep relationshi...

This analysis departs from social identity being part and parcel of the system of social representations a group holds. Additionally, social identity is seen as being affectively laden with religious or other deeply ingrained ideological beliefs. These systems delimit the space of norms and behaviours where people socially construct the objects def...

This paper presents results from a study exploring representations of “happiness” and “unhappiness.” Word associations with these concepts were produced by 16–18 and 29– 34-year-old women from Finland, the country that the United Nation’s World Happiness Report has ranked the “happiest” in the world. Correspondence Analysis (CA) and Hierarchical Cl...

The concept of social representation (SR) was developed by Serge Moscovici in 1961 as a social psychological approach articulating individual thinking and feeling with collective interaction and communication. SRs are conceived as symbolic forms that come about through interpersonal and media communication. They are the ways individuals think, inte...

In the present study we investigate the mutability of essentialist ingroup and outgroup attributions in relation to positive and negative ingroup trait priming for ethnic minority and majority members in two countries (Study 1 in Austria: with Austrians and Austrian Turks; Study 2 in Lithuania: with Lithuanians and Lithuanian Poles). Both studies d...

Since 1965, in Indonesia, people labelled as communists and their descendants have been mistreated. Recently, there has been an issue to apologize to them, but up until now, no official apology has been offered by the Indonesian government. The present study aims to understand how communism is perceived in Indonesia and why communism attributes lab...

Teachers of history will sooner or later encounter issues that are met with disbelief, protest, or feelings of discomfort by the pupils. This special issue aims to contribute to the field of research into teaching sensitive and controversial issues in history by integrating historical, educational and socio-psychological perspectives and theories....

The present study is about sensitive issues in history teaching that have probably been experienced by most teachers in the field. We conducted a questionnaire study in Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Serbia and The Netherlands to assess which issues were experienced as sensitive in class, what the reasons were f...

History teaching is a contested field in school and often used for political machinations by marginally democratic and even democratic governments. This chapter investigates the role of identities, political interests and perspective on representations of historical events in school teaching. It is concluded that history teachers are well advised t...

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women-are-wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is...

In this chapter the authors present the Theory of Social Representation from the perspective of creating social objects in communities. The theory states that a tripartite and circular sequence of processes is involved that comprises beliefs and communication, behaving and acting and interaction and cooperation, the latter bringing us back to belie...

This paper analyses history teaching through the lens of communication styles – dissemination, propagation, and propaganda – as proposed by Social Representation Theory. We view a history classroom as a communicative space and history teaching as situated standpoints-in-action. These standpoints can occupy different places on a continuum between th...

The way recent and old intergroup conflicts are presented around the world in curricula, textbooks, civil society and social representations can be characterised by four main approaches. In the first approach, a moratorium is imposed and any reference to the conflictual past is avoided; the second is a selective approach where nation-states or grou...

Samples of two hundred forty-five majority Sunny Muslims, 87 Ahmadiyya Muslims, and 145 Christians were used to investigate the determinants and mediators of prejudice in interreligious context in Indonesia. First, the study extends the idea of in-group and out-group metaprejudice; both of which were found to mediate the relationship between percei...

Minority groups tend to balance their self-image in a way that maximizes their political standing and the value they are attributed in a society. For achieving this, groups may attempt and need to change the image that others hold of them. One way is to take an influence on the degree of essentialization that others project upon them. If projected...

This study is on the relationship between a dominant nominal Lithuanian majority and a Polish minority in regions with either a straight dominance of the majority or with a high proportion of minority members, who outnumber the local majority. Compared to ‘normal’ regions, the latter situation creates an inverted power differential that we expect t...

Smiling individuals are usually perceived more favorably than non-smiling ones - they are judged as happier, more attractive, competent, and friendly. These seemingly clear and obvious consequences of smiling are assumed to be culturally universal, however most of the psychological research is carried out in WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Indu...

In this paper I emphasize that Social Representation Theory is compatible with the embodied mind-approach and discuss problematic areas diagnosed by O'Connor (this issue) in the foregoing paper. Referring to Moscovici's (1976/2008) conceptualisation I suggest four areas where the 'missing link' between body and representation can be found: The role...

This study is on the relationship between a dominant nominal Lithuanian majority and a Polish minority in regions with either a straight dominance of the majority or with a high proportion of minority members, who outnumber the national majority. Compared to 'normal' regions, the latter situation creates an inverted power differential that we expec...

In this chapter, we show that in contexts of cultural and religious difference a social and political commitment to secularism can lead to enhanced religious tolerance, increased social capital and political change. Interview data from the Indian context with Muslim and Hindu young men shows that a non-western interpretation of secularism, drawn fr...

This is a commentary on certain aspects of norm theory in terms of social representation theory. The aspects are the issue of conformism versus nonconformism, semantic grounding of norms, and change and transmission. It refers to some of the articles collected in the special issue on Advances in Intersubjective Norm Research.

Behaviour and action Of ducks and men My office window opens on to a large pond where ducks, swans, coots and the occasional bird-loving person with an interest in feeding them can be observed. As soon as a bird lover approaches the rim of the pond and opens a paper bag, a lot of birds start eagerly moving in the direction of the rustling sound pro...

The 2009 Swiss minaret ban was widely regarded as a blatant act of discrimination against Muslims. We analyzed postings in threads related to the minaret ban in two German language internet forums for young Muslims. The first forum was hosted by a fundamentalist group whereas the second represented a more secular or moderate segment of German Musli...

Emergent properties of global political culture were examined using data from the World History Survey (WHS) involving 6,902 university students in 37 countries evaluating 40 figures from world history. Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis techniques found only limited forms of universality in evaluations across Western, Catholic/Orthodox,...

The 2009 Swiss minaret ban was widely regarded as a blatant act of discrimination against Muslims. We analyzed postings in threads related to the minaret ban in two German language internet forums for young Muslims. The first forum was hosted by a fundamentalist group whereas the second represented a more secular or moderate segment of German Musli...

It is often postulated that history as a school subject is a prominent means of identity and patriotism building in students. In fact, the subject probably does function that way in most countries, even when the stated aims of history teaching differ. But countries also differ with regard to the contentions among the present representations of thei...

Transformative actions which emphasize two-way acculturation, cultivation of syncretic cultures, and acceptance of the fact that Islam is not an entitative unit are highlighted, and it is argued that bonding within religious groups is not necessarily counterproductive. Further the need to go beyond psychological contact theory is underscored. Inste...

Growing globalisation of the world draws attention to cultural differences between people from different countries or from different cultures within the countries. Notwithstanding the diversity of people's worldviews, current cross-cultural research still faces the challenge of how to avoid ethnocentrism; comparing Western-driven phenomena with lik...

A frequent expert assumption is that the public will consider cisgenics more natural and therefore more acceptable than transgenics. Experimental (Studies 1 and 2) and representative survey (Eurobarometer) data highlight that public concerns indeed are stronger when the boundaries of species are crossed. However, genetic combinations that could com...

This article explores identity work and acculturation work in the lives of British mixed‐heritage children and adults. Children, teenagers, and parents with mixed heritage participated in a community arts project that invited them to deliberate, construct, and reconstruct their cultural identities and cultural relations. We found that acculturation...

This Brief looks at the illustrative case of the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, with the aim of understanding the dynamics of lived secularism as it exists in traditional multi-faith societies such as India. The data analyzed in this Brief comprise many interviews, conducted amidst Hindus and Muslims, with respondents of both sexes living in slum...

In this chapter research concepts, design, coverage, data collection, and other field-related issues are presented. It is stressed that a holistic social representational approach is required to transcend divisions and examine the interconnections between societal, institutional, and everyday levels and their impact on secularism. Finally the perce...

“Othering” leads to a binary world view which demarcates “us” from “them,” and this in turn escalates conflict. Instead, the present research emphasizes a reconceptualization of the relationship between religion and secularism that is not simply bipolar, insular, and isolated. In India these two categories are often viewed as transactional units. A...

Since 1991, the triennial Eurobarometer survey has assessed public attitudes about biotech and the life sciences in Europe. The latest 2010 Eurobarometer survey on the Life Sciences and Biotechnology (http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/europeans-biotechnology-in-2010_en.pdf), based on representative samples from 32...

Six million migrants from over 170 countries have resettled in Australia since 1945 ensuring religious diversity is now a hallmark of Australia's population. However, not all religious groups are perceived in the same way. In this paper, we explore how representational processes differentially essentialise religious groups, in particular how some g...

Based on five focus groups (total N = 56) with German Muslims, we analyze discourses on the experience of discrimination and feelings of national and religious attachment. The focus groups took place in mid to late 2010 in four German cities. Whereas only few participants describe personal discrimination by non-Muslim Germans, almost all participan...

This study compares Muslim women's views on wearing the veil in a Muslim majority society, Indonesia, with the Muslim minority in India. In-depth interviews reveal significant differences between the two: Majority women talk in terms of convenience, fashion, and modesty with little reference to religion as their reasons for veiling. The responses o...

Dixon et al. have highlighted the importance of a political conceptualisation of intergroup relations that challenges individualising models of social change. As important as this paper is for the development of critical debates in psychology, we can detect at least three issues that warrant further discussion: (a) the cultural and historical condi...

Whenever a new, potentially controversial technology enters public awareness, stakeholders suggest that education and public engagement are needed to ensure public support. Both theoretical and empirical analyses suggest, however, that more information and more deliberation per se will not make people more supportive. Rather, taking into account th...

The universality versus culture specificity of quantitative evaluations (negative-positive) of 40 events in world history was addressed using World History Survey data collected from 5,800 university students in 30 countries/societies. Multidimensional scaling using generalized procrustean analysis indicated poor fit of data from the 30 countries t...

Within Internet forums, members of certain (online) communities discuss matters of concern to the respective groups, with comparatively few social restraints. For radical, extremist, and other ideologically "sensitive" groups and organizations in particular, Internet forums are a very efficient and widely used tool to connect members, inform others...

For most human beings, it is close to inconceivable to do harm or kill other humans unless there is the threat of being attacked. Yet the atrocities of war crimes against innocent civilians and the cruelties of genocide or ethnic cleansing are ubiquitous. The question arises: How can people commit such crimes? In the majority of cases it is ordinar...

In this essay I liken social representation research to listening to syncopated rhythms. Just like the offbeat makes music captivating, the verbal raw material in qualitative research is discourse in action and everyday life. Through this tune, researchers need to feel and extract the 'beat', which, when done properly, may be called the underlying...

Since 1991, the triennial Eurobarometer survey has assessed public attitudes about biotech and the life sciences in Europe. The latest 2010 Eurobarometer survey on the Life Sciences and Biotechnology (http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/europeans-biotechnology-in-2010_en.pdf), based on representative samples from 32...

According to the United Nations official statistics for 2002, there were one billion poor people in the world, 70 per cent of whom were women, a figure that reflects a serious problem of gender inequity and a harsh social inequality. Some 40 million of the world’s poor live in Mexico, 26 per cent of them in conditions of extreme poverty. Given this...

Subjects watched a video-recording of a police interrogation of a woman who alleged she had been raped. They were randomly divided into pairs. In the individual-dyadic (ID) condition subjects first individually, and subsequently as a dyad, free-recalled the interrogation, answered specific questions about it, and gave ratings of confidence. In the...

Dieser Bericht handelt von ambivalenten muslimischen Lebenswelten in Deutschland und von den Beziehungen zwischen der deutschen, nichtmuslimischen Mehrheitsgesellschaft und den in Deutschland lebenden Musliminnen und Muslimen.

This article presents a theory of the perception of hybrids, resulting from cross-breeding natural animals that pertain to different species and of children parented by couples with a mixed ethnic or racial background. The theory states that natural living beings, including humans, are perceived as possessing a deeply ingrained characteristic that...

This manuscript addresses some theoretical elements that converge with the epistemology of social representations. Its links and structure are discussed following specific examples surrounding the debate on social knowledge accounting for the difficulties in explaining human conduct and the relations between what is shared and what is consensual. A...

This manuscript addresses some theoretical elements that converge with the epistemology of social representations. Its links and structure are discussed following specific examples surrounding the debate on social knowledge accounting for the difficulties in explaining human conduct and the relations between what is shared and what is consensual. A...

We present insights from a study on communicating Synthetic Biology conducted in 2008. Scientists were invited to write press releases on their work; the resulting texts were passed on to four journalists from major Austrian newspapers and magazines. The journalists in turn wrote articles that were used as stimulus material for eight group discussi...

We investigated a total of 4997 postings on an extreme right-wing Internet discussion board with regard to the groups and themes mentioned. The most frequently mentioned target groups were Africans, Jews, Muslims, Poles, and Turks; the most prominent themes and contexts were conspiracy, criminality, exploitation, threats to German identity, infiltr...

Projecting essence onto a social category means to think, talk, and act as if the category were a discrete natural kind and as if its members were all endowed with the same immutable attributes determined by the category's essence. Essentializing may happen implicitly or on purpose in representing ingroups and outgroups. We argue that essentializin...

This study analyses the history of Hindu fundamentalism up to the present time, as it developed since India’s independence. In the course of its rise, Hindutva destroyed the Gandhian symbolism of non-violence, reinterpreted cultural symbols to become political signs and prepared the ground for communal violence. Secularists and the religious out-gr...

The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was witness to Hindu Muslim conflict at its peak. In the 1990s, ethnic conflict was used by right wing ideologues to change the fabric of secular India. Using interview data and within a social representational framework the study demonstrates the processes whereby out-groups/in-groups are formed. Fu...

The imaginary of biotechnology and how it relates to traditional depictions of hybrid and artificial organisms. Media cartoons of genetically modified organisms. Ideas of monstrosity.

In the social science literature on peace-making, some scholars have found it useful to distinguish between conflict resolution and reconciliation (Nadler and Liviatan 2004). Conflict resolution involves formal or structural changes to intergroup relations, often initiated by leadership, in the form of signing and honoring peace treaties, maintaini...

This chapter proposes to analyze the nature of moral responsibility. It does not explore how moral responsibility is practiced in specific cultural communities, in certain periods of time, or what kind of cognitive biases are observed according to social circumstances (Heider 1958; Weiner 1995). My concern is neither how human beings learn the attr...