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An Existential-Humanistic Perspective on Black Lives Matter and Contemporary Protest Movements
Abstract
Contemporary protests movements, which are distinguished from historic movements by relying on decentralized leadership and utilizing social media and technology, have a central role in addressing social justice issues. Black Lives Matter represents one of the most influential and controversial of the contemporary protests movements. Much of the controversy is connected to misunderstanding, distorted portrayals, and attempts to discredit the movement. Through an examination of the history of Black Lives Matter, and consideration of issues such as privilege and polarization, it can be recognized that the Black Lives Matter movement is providing a healthy cultural critique and creative use of pain, anger, and suffering to advocate for human dignity and positive cultural change. Furthermore, the principles of existential–humanistic psychology can be used to deepen the understanding of Black Lives Matter and other protest movements, while also offering important guidance on how to avoid various potential risks to the movement’s success.
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... The assessment of the impact of SM on polarization has been underway for at least a decade. The extant work has explored the phenomenon in several ways, e.g., conceptually (Hoffman et al., 2016) or empirically (Yarchi et al., 2021), using single (Dogu, 2020) or multiple national contexts (Gonawela et al., 2018), concentrating on a specific issue (Wang and Song, 2020) or a generalized issue-independent discussion of polarization , placing SM within a broader informational canvas (Lovari et al., 2021) or restricting investigation to it (Allcott et al., 2020), studying the elite actors (Gonawela et al., 2018) or the masses (Min and Yun, 2018), limiting the discussion to humans or including bots (Yan et al., 2021), and employing experimental (Kim and Kim, 2019), observational (North et al., 2021), survey (Lee and Choi, 2020), or simulation-based (Kaligotla et al., 2020) research designs, in addition to adopting different conceptualization and measures of polarization as a dependent variable. Further regarding the valence of the association, while there are conceptually valid arguments on both sides of the divide, empirical validation also paints a mixed picture (Carpini et al., 2004;Fiorina et al., 2008;Messing and Westwood, 2014). ...
... Additionally, socioeconomic and political systems create, accentuate, and maintain access divides and inequities. Some degree of polarization is necessary and conducive for people from such disadvantaged sections to rally around each other (Hoffman et al., 2016). In such situations, the question of whether polarization benefits or harms becomes a matter of degree. ...
... SM enables ideological activists to seek diversified support and highlight both the vitality of the issue and the widespread support for their side of the argument (Humprecht et al., 2020a). Often, this is intended to change public policies and push for beneficial regulation (Hoffman et al., 2016;Huang, 2016). Equally vitally, SM facilitates populist politicians to directly communicate with the masses they claim to represent, thereby acting like a tool. ...
The world of today presents a duality of phenomenal progress and persistent ills. Amid such existential contradictions, public deliberation forms one of the central pillars of a functional and progressive society. Though its relevance remains undoubted, interactions in the public sphere may often give way to misinformation, affect-driven predisposition, and homophily-based interactions, all reminiscent of polarization. While polarization remains a concern worldwide, structural changes, most notably, social media's advent and remarkable progress, have further redefined the meaning, scale, and diffusion of information. Accordingly, a tireless debate rages regarding the valence and strength of social media's influence on polarization. As an incremental means of resolving the complexity, we perform a systematic review of the extant scholarship and identify contingencies and mechanisms of social media's relationship with polarization. Further, we provide a conceptual framework, incorporating these intricacies while emphasizing the need to place this association in a broader frame. Our work contributes to theory by being one of the few reviews linking social media to polarization and providing a synthesis of contingent factors and underlying processes. We guide policy and practice by suggesting a future research framework.
... Data on substance use in the United States indicates that White and Black citizens consume illicit drugs at approximately the same rate, suggesting that the rates of arrest and incarceration for drug-related offenses should be similar across ethnic groups. However, Black Americans are significantly more likely to be arrested and subsequently incarcerated for drug offenses, often with substantially more severe sentences (Darden & Godsay, 2018;Hoffman et al., 2016). A combination of factors contributes to this disparity, all of which have roots in institutional and cultural racism. ...
... Redlining and economic oppression, combined with the dehumanizing stereotypes of Black people as violent criminals, lead to increased policing of poor neighborhoods and disproportionate enforcement of drug laws (Darden & Godsay, 2018). The policies enacted to combat drug use, although perhaps not overtly racist, placed stricter and more severe sentencing laws on those drugs associated more with use by Black people, despite no empirical evidence suggesting that those substances were any more dangerous or lethal than those typically seen in higher-income White neighborhoods (Hoffman et al., 2016). These discrepancies in enforcement and sentencing resulted in the mass incarceration of Black citizens, further exacerbating the racial biases of most Americans, cementing in the minds of many the ideas that Black men are violent criminals (Darden & Godsay, 2018;Hetey & Eberhardt, 2014). ...
... Unjust laws, disproportionate enforcement and prosecution, and systemic pressures contribute to continued implicit biases in individuals and organizations that profess not to be racist. These biases inform the basis for unequal responses to events by law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the general public (Hetey & Eberhardt, 2014;Hoffman et al., 2016;Robinson, 2017). Darden and Godsay (2018) examined the effects of these biased responses in the school system and what is referred to as the "school-to-prison pipeline" that negatively affects children of color. ...
Anti-Black racism has plagued the United States since the birth of the nation. It is apparent in acts of violence, in individual interactions, and in the systems that create and maintain our society. Psychology has evolved from promoting racist theories to exploring implicit biases and the effects of racism on the physical and mental health of marginalized communities. In light of recent social unrest following the death of an unarmed Black man due to police brutality, psychology’s organizations have published statements condemning racism. This article explores the connections between values espoused by the Black Lives Matter movement and humanistic psychology and argues that statements against racism are not sufficient. It is time for humanistic psychologists to take action and stand for social justice.
... The racial identity of Black teens is a particularly salient topic now, as the United States is in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, a response to systemic issues in the legal and political systems that perpetuate inequality (Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016). The Black Lives Matter movement is providing a critique of U.S. culture and advocating for human dignity and cultural change. ...
... Consequently, dialogue around race in our culture remains a struggle. Hoffman et al. (2016) argued that if the United States can come to a place of empathy and understanding around the painful history of Black people and other marginalized groups in this country, it may be possible to begin to break the cycle of polarization around race. Again, it is imperative to hear the voices of marginalized groups on their experiences of racial identity, which is why we sought to understand the experiences of Black teens in this study. ...
... This can inform counselors' collaborative work with clients, as counselors must seek to understand clients' worldviews so that they will be more aware of the ways culture, power, privilege, and oppression play out in the counseling relationship (Ratts et al., 2016). Particularly in the present day, with overt, explicit racism on the rise and the Black Lives Matter movement underway as a response (Hoffman et al., 2016), hearing from Black teens about their experiences of racial identity is critical. Therefore, we will use a racial identity development theory, William E. Cross's (1991) Nigrescence model, as a framework to discuss the findings of this study. ...
Multiculturally competent counselors and researchers are called to understand individuals’ worldviews and experiences (Ratts, Singh, Nassar‐McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2016). Therefore, in this study, the authors explored Black teens’ experiences of their own racial identity using a qualitative participatory action research method called photovoice. Eight participants ranging in age from 14 to 17 took part in this study. Three themes emerged from the data: places you don't belong, comfort places, and strengths/concerns. The authors address implications for counselors.
Consejeros e investigadores multiculturalmente competentes están llamados a entender los cosmovisiónes y experiencias de los individuos (Ratts, Singh, Nassar‐McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2016). Por lo tanto, en este estudio, los autores exploraron las experiencias de adolescentes negros sobre su propia identidad racial, usando un método cualitativo de investigación‐acción participativa llamado fotovoz. Ocho participantes de edades comprendidas entre los 14 y 17 años tomaron parte en este estudio. De los datos obtenidos surgieron tres temas: lugares a los que no perteneces, lugares de comodidad y fortalezas/preocupaciones. Los autores abordan las implicaciones para consejeros.
... Yet, reactionary frames that are hostile to movement values can also be found (Shahin et al., 2024). This could be due to the mis-portrayals in the media and some who seek to discredit the movement (Hoffman et al., 2016). Understanding the discussion and perception of blackness in the non-US context such as Taiwan explains the challenges to cross-racial solidarity with the BLM movement, both online (e.g., the lack of solidarity narratives on social media) and offline (e.g., unwilling to understand and sympathize Black people's status). ...
... Racist terms such as 'nigger,' 'chink,' or 'spic' should be avoided (unless one wants to be perceived as racist) (Bonilla-Silva, 2002). Yet, the influence of mis-portraying Black people and discrediting BLM on social media reinforced the negative stereotypes of African Americans as 'thugs,' violent and lazy, whereas White citizens are 'under attack' (Carney, 2016;Hoffman et al., 2016). This post provides a typical example of cultural racism and the comments on this post replicate the same cultural stereotypes of Black people among Taiwanese netizensconnecting them to aggressive, sexually violent, lazy, and culturally backward behavior based on their racial background (Taylor et al., 2019). ...
While the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was proliferating in the United States, the movement did not gain similar degrees of support in Taiwan. Instead, on social media there is even a term, 'Black Self-serve,' meaning that Black people always use race as an 'excuse' to demand whatever they want. Analyzing computer-mediated communication about blackness from the largest bulletin board system in Taiwan-PTT, this article highlights how and why Taiwanese netizens used the term 'Black self-serve' to accuse Black people of fighting for rights. Centering cultural processes of racialized vision and division, this article shows that the depreciation of blackness is deeply connected to Taiwanese navigation of its tenuous status along the racial hierarchy, sense of inferiority, colonization experience, cultural alienation, and the image of Black people as accomplices of anti-Asian racism-all are deeply embedded in systemic racism. ARTICLE HISTORY
... TMT is originally an existential approach that originated in close connection to the writing of Ernest Becker (Greenberg et al., 1986;Pyszczynski et al., 2015). Existential theories provide a valuable ground for a broad research area since they are anchored in commitments to human dignity, empathy, and compassion (Hoffman et al., 2016), relating to Ernest Becker's (1973) approach, exploring how human beings develop meaning under severe existential conditions. According to TMT, humans aim at preserving their lives when they are threatened by death (Niemiec et al., 2010). ...
... The findings may support that women are particularly worried about family and friends and not as much about themselves. At the same time, the findings support the TMT proposal (Hoffman et al., 2016) that empathy and compassion are important in dealing with death and death anxiety (Becker, 1973). This compassion for others and the empathy, care, and concern felt about others are a particular focus of the findings. ...
During times of crises, humanistic-existential experiences can become extreme in terms of how individuals cope with negative emotions. Research during the year 2020 has shown that on the one hand, women are more challenged on different levels than men with regard to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, women leaders have shown high-quality leadership to guide nations through the crisis. This study sought to explore the humanistic-existential experiences of women through the terror management theory and from a qualitative perspective. It used a qualitative research paradigm with a hermeneutical research approach and purposeful and snowball sampling. The sample consisted of 16 women aged between 22 and 81 years and of 10 different nationalities who encountered COVID-19 themselves or experienced it in their family, colleagues, or friends. Data were collected from qualitative questionnaires/written interviews and analyzed through content analysis. Data are reported in a qualitative reporting style; quality criteria are presented and limitations discussed. Ethical considerations are addressed. Findings show that women are impacted by negative emotions, in particular anxiety and fear, which they cope with in different ways and which contribute to their meaning making. Conclusions and recommendations for future research and psychological practice are given.
... Racial gaslighting is present in many forms in contemporary culture, such as labeling social justice activists who are involved in protesting as criminals and labeling justified anger as pathological. For example, the Black Lives Matter movement is frequently misunderstood and misrepresented, which serves to undermine the ability of the movement to enact change (Hoffman et al., 2016). ...
... In concluding, it is valuable to consider that meaning often is derived from engaging in activism that seeks to tear down the institutions of White supremacy and White privilege. For example, Hoffman et al. (2016) illustrate how engaging in movements such as Black Lives ...
“White privilege is a given in contemporary society with destructive social and personal implications, including its relevance for access to meaning and freedom from meaning frustration. These implications are relevant to social justice work that therapists engage in outside of the therapy room as well as dynamics that emerge within the psychotherapy process. Existential psychology is committed to the dignity of all people and helping people enhance their personal freedom. Furthermore, one’s freedom is necessarily bound to the freedom of others. Therefore, existential therapists striving to live their values authentically must be committed to social justice both inside the consulting room and in society in general. Social justice work can increase meaning in life through engaging in meaningful work (i.e., dismantling White supremacy and White privilege) and tearing down barriers to meaning access.”
... As part of building knowledge and awareness of the sociopolitical context surrounding the BLM movement, it is important for the counseling profession to understand the movement's origin. The BLM organization was founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in 2013 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin (Cullors, n.d.;Hoffman et al., 2016). According to Cullors (n.d.), the mission of the movement and organization is to promote the voice and liberation of the collective Black community through combating anti-Black racism. ...
... Misinformation and inaccurate portrayals of the BLM movement serve as distractions from the history of undue police violence toward Black people. While the origins of the BLM movement are traced back to the murder of Trayvon Martin (Cullors, n.d.;Hoffman et al., 2016), undue police violence and subsequent resistance have existed all throughout the history of the United States. For example, Emesowun (2017) likened the existence of slave patrols to an early law enforcement system that racially profiled Black people. ...
The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black individuals during the summer of 2020 was accompanied by widespread public demonstration and protest. Despite the peaceful nature of most demonstrations, data indicate that protesters experienced police violence at a disproportionate rate compared to demonstrations associated with other movements. Due to the crisis and unrest that undue police violence toward Black communities can cause, it is imperative that counselors identify ways to support communities in their collective acts toward resistance and liberation. This article reviews how counselors can integrate the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies and the American Counseling Association’s Advocacy Competencies into crisis counseling responses that support protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement.
... Although activism in general can benefit health, engagement in Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements are particularly relevant for African Americans. Yet psychology disciplines have not fully realized or explored the potential benefits linked to BLM activism (Hargons et al., 2017;Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016). BLM, a grassroots social justice activist movement, was created in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi following the lack of conviction for George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin (Garza, 2014). ...
... to transform their pain, anger, and distress into advocacy for self-respect, dignity, and radical sociocultural change (Hoffman et al., 2016). Such efforts can, in turn, safeguard against feelings of stress, isolation, and depression that arise due to racial discrimination. ...
Additional research is needed on the link between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms over time as well as the risk and resilience moderators that influence this link. One understudied factor that may exacerbate this link is perseverative cognition—chronic activation of stress-related cognitive representations. However, race-specific activism, like Black Lives Matter (BLM) activism, may attenuate this association. Given this, the current study investigated autoregressive and cross-lagged associations between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms across two time points over 6 months. We also tested if perseverative cognition and two domains of Black Lives Matter activism—support and behavior—moderated the cross-lagged associations between racial discrimination and depressive symptoms. Using data from 232 African Americans, findings revealed a significant cross-lagged effect of Time 1 racial discrimination on Time 2 depressive symptoms (but no cross-lagged effect of T1 depressive symptoms on T2 racial discrimination). This cross-lagged effect was moderated by both perseverative cognition and support for BLM activism such that the association between Time 1 racial discrimination was only associated with Time 2 depressive symptoms at lower levels of perseverative cognition and lower levels of BLM support.
... The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began in 2013 with a hashtag. #BlackLivesMatter was created by activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi to bring attention to police violence against Black men and boys in response to the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman for his murder of Trayvon Martin; nationwide protests followed (Herstory, n.d.;Hoffman et al., 2016). In 2014, Eric Garner was killed by police officer Daniel Pantaleo in New York City, and just weeks later Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. ...
Objective: The social category of race plays an important role in how people navigate their identities and social worlds, especially in societies where racial injustice is salient. The present study considers the racial identity experiences of Multiracial and monoracial Black adults in the United States during a race-salient moment: the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Using survey data collected in the fall of 2020, our study seeks to understand racial identity and activism experiences among age-diverse monoracial and Multiracial Black people during BLM 2020. Method: Participants were 183 Black adults in the United States (73 Multiracial, 110 monoracial). Regressions were conducted to examine (a) how identity exploration and commitment differed by age and by Multiracial status during a time of heightened racial salience, and (b) how identity exploration and commitment was associated with BLM engagement. Results: We found that Multiracial and monoracial individuals engage with racial identity differently across age groups, reflecting their different relationships with dominant societal narratives of race. We also found positive associations between racial identity and BLM engagement regardless of participants’ Multiracial status or age. Conclusions: While our findings did underscore several commonalities across Multiracial and monoracial Black people, they also indicated a need to revisit the relevance of established (mono)racial identity development models for Multiracial individuals, especially outside of adolescence and young adulthood. Revisiting previous models is critical to engage with the m(ai)cro process of racial identity and how the cultural context of anti-Blackness and monoracism shapes individual development across the life course.
... This incident ignited a wildfire of public protests across the United States and beyond. While the Black Lives Matter movement had been protesting against racial inequality and raciallymotivated violence since the 2013 acquittal of civilian George Zimmerman in the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin (Hoffman, et al, 2016), the killing of George Floyd seemed to capture the fear and fury of the nation to an infinitely higher degree. ...
Policing in the United States is facing trials and tribulations like never before in its history. Its problems are highlighted in every media form, creating demands for reform, defunding, and even abolition. Police are under extreme stress and the inability to fill vacant police officer positions has become a crisis. From assassinations of police officers to police officers being arrested for unjust killings of unarmed people, the problems facing U.S. police are complex and seemingly intractable. Competing worldviews that have created the culture wars are adding to the intensity of the problem, with different factions seeing the problem through different lenses. This theoretical thesis examines the history of U.S. policing and the issues that brought U.S. policing to its current state. It then introduces the elements of Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory and AQAL Framework and applies it to U.S. policing, examining the problems and potential solutions via the five elements of the AQAL Framework (quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types). The criminal justice system, police reform, and police leadership are all examined through the Integral lens. Based on these analyses, a transformational model of policing is offered: Integral Policing. Intentions and principles of Integral Policing are proposed, to include the potential for transformation of the individual police employee, police leaders, and policing agencies. This thesis concludes with a summary of the need for Integral Policing, an acknowledgement of limitations within this thesis, as well as recommendations for future research. The author’s subjective, first-person personal reflections are included with objective, third-person content in the thesis.
... Although the climate movement has some commonalities globally (Haugestad et al., 2021;Wahlström et al., 2019), injustice perceptions of people protesting in the Global South could differ in important ways (see Kleres & Wettergren, 2017). Additionally, marginalized and young people could rely more on civil disobedience for they could perceive they have less options within the system while law-breaking is less appealing to activists of color (Hoffman et al., 2016). Therefore, translating our insights to other climate movements and national contexts warrants caution. ...
Facing the looming threat of the climate crisis, climate movements using strategies of nonviolent civil disobedience have recently attracted attention. To better understand what drives such groups to protest possibly in law-violating ways, we conducted qualitative interviews among 106 people involved with Extinction Rebellion in the Netherlands. These interviews had two main goals: (1) to explore the relevance of perceived injustice as a motivation for protesters to participate in climate action and (2) to determine protesters’ justifications for breaking the law with civil disobedient protest. Our findings show that perceived injustice was an important motivation for the protesters we interviewed. Specifically, they perceived injustice in their personal futures, government actions (or lack thereof), the unequal distribution of climate change impacts and responsibility, police treatment, and societal systems. Furthermore, protesters indicated a willingness to break certain laws with civil disobedient protests in a nonviolent manner, but their definitions of nonviolence varied. In particular, protesters legitimized disruptive actions by citing the current urgency of addressing what is at stake, future moral goals, and the past effectiveness of disobedient strategies. These findings help to understand how climate protesters’ injustice perceptions and their intentions to participate in disruptive actions are shaped in today’s society.
... This approach allows for a deeper understanding of the forces shaping human behavior and societal responses to social justice issues. against police brutality, White supremacy, and violence, rooted in anti-racism and allyship (Hoffman et al., 2016;Jones, 2020). ...
The social, economic, political, and civil unrest surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 United States election, and the increased activity of the racial justice movement has seemingly divided not just the nation but the world. Thoughts and behaviors are guided by ideological beliefs—collections of ideas or philosophies associated with power structures. I examined the overlap between positions on controversial topics and identified how ideological alignment, values, and identity characteristics influenced the holders’ views. I found significant relationships among the variables categorized as social, political, health and medical, and safety, security, and legal ideologies. The results indicated that participants’ views in one ideological category were similar to those in the other ideological categories. Finally, the current study presents models of integrating worldviews in which ideological viewpoints in the various categories align, supported by the Moral Foundations Theory, Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis, and the Rigidity-of-the-Right Hypothesis.
... For on one hand these biased, anticommunity narratives impact the self-esteem of those population (Green, Kaufman, Flanagan, & Fitzgerald, 2017). On the other hand, the already existing awareness about equality and human rights forces these underprivileged and oppressed population to advocate for change (Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016). Hence, in context to Aboriginal people as well, it could be argued that such cultural education which has become easily accessible through social media allows for greater Aboriginal mobilization against the ongoing oppression against the women from the Aboriginal communities and forces these population to bring forth the hidden narratives that has been suppressed since long. ...
... Here, visuals are often used as part of a deliberative engagement to draw attention to racial injustices, to display the reasons for protests, and to highlight the inclusive and solidaristic nature of the movement (see Figure 1). These images stand in sharp contrast to the mass media image of BLM protests, which often portrays the protesters as violent and destructive (Hoffman et al. 2016;Atkins 2019). When oriented towards deliberative engagement, nonverbal performances seek to reach out to potential allies, convert them to causes, and build a broad, inclusive social movement. ...
Contemporary protests draw on a rich variety of performances to communicate their messages, attract attention to societal problems and display potential solutions. In addition to verbal and textual expressions, protesters employ various forms of nonverbal expression, such as images, sounds, silence as part of their public performances. This article offers a way of making sense of nonverbal protest performances, relying on insights from contemporary democratic theory. It proposes a ‘democratic lens’, which supplements the ‘performative lens’ often used to comprehend performative protests and their effects on diverse audiences. The democratic lens enables us to distinguish between deliberative, agonistic, and antagonistic modes of democratic engagement and examine the ways they are enacted in performative protests. The article illustrates the utility of the democratic lens by focusing on the nonverbal performances of Black Lives Matter in the USA, pot and pan protest in Brazil, and the Knitting Nannas in Australia.
... Race and ethnic relations have been the catalyst for social and political upheaval throughout the history of the United States-from the civil war in the 19 th century, to the Black Lives Matter movement of the 21 st century. Blacks in America, as victims of systemic racism, live with emotional pain and anguish rooted in a responsiveness to ongoing discrimination in a racially hierarchical society that sustains White supremacy (Aymer, 2016;Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016;Prager, 2017). Racism elicits outcomes for both Blacks and Whites. ...
This content analysis used a purposive sample of three Black women leading characters seen on popular television series aired during prime time. This study analyzed the quality of character portrayals in comparison to historical negative stereotyped portrayals of Black women, especially whether the characters were sexualized. Cohen's kappa was used to test for inter-rater reliability based on a composite of raters' observations of seven episodes of each of the three series. The variables stereotypes, sexually erotic behavior, and age of the leading character resulted in κ of 0. For sexual behavior κ was 0.691. The variables skin tone, character's attire, body type, and attractiveness yielded κ of 1, indicating perfect agreement. Character's temperament yielded a κ of 0.215 and degree of aggressiveness resulted in a κ of 0.24. Using a social identity framework, the character portrayals did not reflect the historical negative stereotypes of Black women as constructed for this study-mammy, tragic mulatta, Jezebel, Sapphire, or welfare queen. The results of this study suggest these representations of Black women can serve as positive exemplars of the breadth and complexity of Black women's lives in a racially hierarchical society where they are historically devalued.
... It could be to help the police department get better equipment; it could be to foster better relations between the community and the police department, it could be to honor the service of police officers as public servants-these nonprofits may reflect multiple public values in relation to their brokering place between external stakeholders and the police departments. In addition, in the time period examined in this study, police departments' relationships with their communities are increasingly complex, as evidenced by protest around the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in 2014, Freddie Grey in Baltimore, MD in 2015, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY on March 12, 2020, George Floyd on in Minneapolis, MN on May 25, 2020, and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement (Hoffman et al., 2016;Jean, 2020;Lebron, 2017;Merkey, 2015;Williamson et al., 2018). This makes understanding images of policing and the choice behind them even more imperative and raises the question of what images and values the nonprofits convey in relation to the police departments they serve. ...
Visual imagery is a fundamental element of our communication systems. Unlike spoken or written words that deliver meaning one word at a time, images convey multiple messages instantly with powerful impact. This study explores the content embedded in the social media images used by nonprofit police foundations in the United States through archeological visual analysis. Findings reveal that public service organizations navigate curation choices when selecting images for social media accounts, such as how best to depict the mission of the organization. The prioritization of image curation is imperative, especially with the growth of social media as a space for promoting encounters with, not just information distribution to, citizens. In the public service, the importance of image curation lies in the potential to reinforce the work of organizations, but the risk is miscommunication with consequences for public trust.
... Such means include training, tutoring, and encouragement individually, vicariously, and/or collectively to raise the ability (Chenli and Abrokwah 2021). These means happen in protest participation (Hoffman et al. 2016). ...
While both life satisfaction and participation in protest occupying public or private places are crucial, their relationships are uncharted and uncertain. Nevertheless, conflict theory suggests that conflict over sociopolitical class interests triggered by protest participation is dissatisfying (Freelon et al. 2018; E. Liu 2010). In examining this possibility, this study conducted a random-sample telephone survey of 1,075 Chinese adult residents. The survey measured every adult’s participation in occupying protests in various places in the past month and satisfaction with life in the recent week. The study estimated effects with and without control for the endogeneity between occupying protest participation and life satisfaction. Results revealed that the participation attenuated life satisfaction but not vice versa. Moreover, the attenuation was greater when the adult was married or had more adults in the household, higher income, or education. These results imply sustaining life satisfaction with the prevention of occupying protest participation and particularly its conflict within and without the household.
... Instead of working towards material improvements in the lives of working and oppressed people, humanistic psychologists have constructed programs where, for example, individuals with different opinions are asked to get together and talk about the feelings brought up in difficult topics such as racism and police violence (Schneider, 2013). In recent years-particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter movement-humanistic psychologists have been attempting to position themselves as leaders in the political and social justice arena(s) (e.g., Hoffman et al., 2016). Some are explicit about using humanistic psychological theory to force a reformist agenda on the world and are now even advocating for institutional power in the form of a "Psychologist General" who would have as one of their aims helping people to secure their "happiness" (Schneider, 2019, para. ...
Humanistic psychology developed in large part as a reaction to psychoanalysis as practiced in the United States during the early-to-mid twentieth century, which was critiqued by humanistic psychologists as being reductive, and dehu-manizing. The holding environment in which the client can be "authentic" without judgment forms the basis of the hu-manistic stance. Humanistic psychology's roots are found in existential psychotherapy, however, it has deviated from those roots and developed into something uniquely Amer-ican and amenable to capitalist exploitation. Writers within the humanistic tradition regularly cite psychoanalysis' shortcomings as the impetus for their work but do not demonstrate an adequate understanding of psychoanalytic practice. With this misunderstand a loss is produced, a loss of the transmission of analytic practice as begun by Freud. We hope to move beyond the misunderstandings and difficulties encountered by humanistic psychologists through critique , first using Buddhist psychology and then by a return to the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. We conclude that our critiques are especially relevant as humanistic psychologists seek to use their theories to position themselves as leaders in struggles for social justice.
Keywords: psychoanalysis, psychology, humanistic psychology, existential psychology, Freud, Lacan, Buddhism, capitalism
... Social justice issues often arise when groups, on a collective level, need to confront oppressed social structures. These can include threats to one's existence or limitations imposed on one's political freedom, which necessarily has implications for one's existential freedom (Hoffman et al., 2016). Out of these social issues grew Black Social Movements (BSM), created as a mass movement during the mid-20th century to achieve civil equality, human dignity by overthrowing White racial and colonial dictatorship (Jalata, 2002). ...
ABSTRACT
This chapter’s primary focus is to address how media have contributed to Black America’s understanding and appreciation of various Black social movements (BSMs). It seeks to address how movements of the 20th and 21st centuries have been demonized and marginalized by media to serve the purpose of White supremacy, uniformity, and conformity among Black communities. This chapter will include a critical and comparative view of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Movement, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. The social progress generated by these movements and their leaders’ high visibility will also be explored. This chapter also seeks to address the manner in which the media highlights “safe” and “responsible” aspects of Black social movements to the Black public to create and maintain groupthink and White supremacy.
... They exposed the objectification and dehumanizing practices of psychiatry and clinical psychology as well as critiquing their positivist research methods (Cooper, 1967;Foucault, 1961;Laing, 1965;Maslow, 1954;Szasz, 1961). They promoted instead a focus on subjectivity, social change, and social criticism (e.g., Blustein & Guarino, 2020;Hoffman et al., 2016;House et al., 2018;Rice, 2015). ...
When applied to the Global South, mainstream positivist approaches to work and organisational psychology impose alien theories of personality (the self) and leadership. In the case of women, they fail to capture the richness of their experiences of life and leadership, which are influenced by the nexus between history, power and marginalisation – for many, even oppression. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the value of a critical social psychological approach, despite its grounding in the Global North discourse, to analyse women’s leadership from a cross‐cultural context. To illustrate, we provide an empirical example of a Vietnamese woman leader’s life‐story drawing on the theoretical resources from critical social psychology to interpret her experiences. When viewed from this perspective, women’s leadership is understood within a dialogical space, which is prior to and more fundamental than any instrumental reason and technical rationality. It is argued that this approach resists essentialising assumptions about gender and cultural practices of leadership, providing a more liberating means to understand the life and leadership of Vietnamese women. In the final analysis, we argue that this study contributes to the nascent field of critical work and organisational psychology.
... Viktor Frankl (1984), who endured the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, wrote extensively about the transformative power of meaning. Hoffman, Granger et al. (2016), drawing in part from Frankl, advocated that activism is one way to create meaning that can help to transform the suffering of racial oppression and injustice. It does not take away the suffering or the injustice, but it can begin to transform aspects of the suffering as one works to address the injustice. ...
This chapter is the introduction to the book, "Rising Voices: Poetry Toward a Social Justice Revolution," by Louis Hoffman, Nathaniel Granger, Jr., and Veronica Lac. The introduction provides a framework for understanding the role and potential of poetry in social justice contexts. It includes consideration of poetry and activism, narratives that can change the world, reclaiming history, social justice activism's role in social and personal healing, claiming meaning, social construction and social justice, intersectionality, critical race theories, the hard and soft edges of social justice, hope, and more.
... In 1965In -1969 protests occurred at the University of Pennsylvania due to the Vietnam war policy by the United States, which was very detrimental to the interests of humanity (Asregadoo, 2017). Still in the United States, protest movements also continue to occur due to repeated incidents of racism in the United States (Hoffman, Granger Jr, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016). In the Egyptian revolution, the similarity of the situation due to the government's inability to lead was able to fuse the identities of different communities to carry out a protest movement jointly (Baker, 2016). ...
This research focuses on the mobilization of the role carried out by the Indonesian Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI) in an effort to improve the welfare of tobacco farmers in Temanggung Regency by using social movement theory with qualitative descriptive methods where primary data is obtained in direct interviews with respondents and sources who have valid and relevant information to find out the actual problems experienced by tobacco farmers especially in Regency Temanggung. Then the authors use secondary data to strengthen the validity of the data obtained by the researcher. The results of this study illustrate that tobacco control regulations are not entirely for public health but are used as a pretext in the nicotine market share, so far APTI has carried out various ways and strategies so that national-scale regulations can be changed or removed and the implementation of PP 109 in 2012 will not be applied in Temanggung. In addition to tobacco control regulations there are also classes of tobacco farmers in Temanggung so as to give birth to local capitalization and make the tobacco trade chain longer.
... From the binary that the paranoid-schizoid position exemplifies there is no capability to hold to a perspective that overarches one's own interests (needs) and those of another (others). Hence, neither Pence nor Trump can hold in their consideration the otherness of Black lives, that which makes the context of the movement powerful and significant (see Hoffman et al., 2016, for an examination of the history of the movement). Instead, they fixate, respectively, on "every human life" and "White people" as if there is an impossible conjunction between Black lives mattering and other (their own) lives mattering. ...
The chaos of our current times raises both concern and interest in tribalism. We look at three types of tribalism. Reflecting the thoughts of George Orwell, we discuss nationalism and patriotism. We then introduce globalism. We offer ideas about how affiliation with one type or another of these types can reflect the existential–relational position that we occupy. To illustrate the complexities of these affiliations we consider the passionate support of and resistance to Black Lives Matter.
... They exposed the objectification and dehumanizing practices of psychiatry and clinical psychology as well as critiquing their positivist research methods (Cooper, 1967;Foucault, 1961;Laing, 1965;Maslow, 1954;Szasz, 1961). They promoted instead a focus on subjectivity, social change, and social criticism (e.g., Blustein & Guarino, 2020;Hoffman et al., 2016;House et al., 2018;Rice, 2015). ...
An ever-expanding literature now exists critiquing the theory and philosophy of positive psychology, however, research has yet to provide a critical analysis of its practical application. The current study extends on these critiques by exploring how positive psychology is applied to the workplace by investigating practitioner-based sources including interviews with workplace coaches who use positive psychological interventions and applied published texts. The study draws on Michel Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge and discourse as a theoretical and methodological framework. Three dominant discourses were identified which illustrate the ways in which positive psychology is applied to the workplace. These include the promotion of its scientific credentials, employing a strength-based approach and using goal-setting and behavioral reinforcement interventions. When applied to the workplace, these discourses psychologize workplace problems, resulting in potentially negative outcomes for employees. However, interviews with some of the workplace coaches indicate they practice a degree of reflexivity, providing a salutary lesson for the science of positive psychology.
... This is essential when pushing for a field of psychology in which clients of oppressed communities are empowered. Hoffman et al. (2016) remind us that "with regard to racism and other forms of prejudice, psychology too often has encouraged people to become comfortable in their role of being oppressed and marginalized instead of empowering people to stand up to injustice" (p. 607). ...
The social justice uprisings that have stemmed from several recent highly publicized murders of Black people by police have shed increasing light on the systems of oppression, inequity, and white supremacy that have been the backbone of the United States' policing and criminal justice systems since their inception. The American Psychological Association, along with many professional organizations across the subfields of psychology, has released its statement outlining how psychology must contribute to the eradication of systemic racism and white supremacy. In this article, we address the need for psychology and its subfields to acknowledge our complicity in certain systems of oppression, such as our ties to law enforcement and the police, our support of mental health reforms that merely increase the scope of a punitive criminal justice system, and our complicity in the harm done by our current immigration policies. We argue that the best way, in fact the only way, for the profession to move toward an antiracist psychological practice is to embrace an abolitionist framework so that we may reimagine our relationships with historically oppressive institutions and rebuild our clinical practices to promote life-affirming interventions and liberation for individuals and communities.
... Without historical context or understanding of the current sociopolitical reality of racial disparities in the United States, counter movements such as #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter have risen in response to BLM (Anderson, 2016;Ince, Rojas, & Davis, 2017;Kim & Wilson, 2020). Much of the controversy is connected to misunderstanding, distorted portrayals, and attempts to discredit BLM, namely to undermine and foster confusion with regard to broader public perception of BLM goals and praxis (Garza, 2020;Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016). Consequently, it seems ever more important to not conflate knowledge (and in agreement with knowledge of) and attitudinal support of the BLM movement goals and praxis. ...
This paper developed and validated a new measure of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement among a racially–ethnically diverse sample of college students. The measure focuses on the movement’s principles of Black liberation, intersectionality, and alliance building. Participants included 1934 college students (75% female) from a large public Southwestern university. The factor structure was supported by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, resulting in an 18‐item measure, Support for Black Lives Matter, with two underlying factors. Black Liberation includes 12 items representing support for BLM because of awareness of and challenging structural inequality and racism experienced by Black individuals. Intersectional Values includes six items representing support for BLM because it embraces and affirms marginalized populations within the Black community, especially disabled Blacks, queer Blacks, Black women, and Black families with children. Evidence of criterion‐related validity was demonstrated with racial group differences in support of BLM factors. Evidence of convergent validity was supported by significant positive correlations between support for BLM factors and critical consciousness (including awareness of racism, classism, and heterosexism), and negative correlations between support for BLM factors and subtle racist attitudes toward Blacks. Measurement invariance was evident between White, Black, Asian American, Latinx, and Multiracial participants. Implications and suggestions for use of the new measure are discussed.
... He later was found not guilty. The protests surrounding Trayvon's death led to the start of the Black Lives Matter movement that quickly became misunderstood as it was viewed through polarized lenses (see Hoffman et al., 2016). ...
This is the Introduction to "Lullabies & Confessions: Poetic Explorations of Parenting Across the Lifespan." It includes reflection on parent and poetry as well as a discussion of an existential approach to parenting
... From the binary that the paranoid-schizoid position exemplifies there is no capability to hold to a perspective which overarches one's own interests (needs) and those of another (others). Hence, neither Pence nor Trump can hold in their consideration the otherness of black lives, that which makes the context of the movement powerful and Tribalism: Orwell and Existential Positions ! 26 significant (see Hoffman et al., 2016, for an examination of the history of the movement). Instead, they fixate, respectively, on "every human life" and "white people" as if there is an impossible conjunction between black lives mattering and other (their own) lives mattering. ...
The chaos of our current times raises both concern and interest in tribalism. We look at three types of tribalism. Reflecting the thoughts of George Orwell we discuss nationalism and patriotism. We then introduce globalism. We offer ideas about how affiliation with one type or another of these types can reflect the existential-relational position that we occupy. To illustrate the complexities of these affiliations we consider the passionate support of and resistance to Black Lives Matter.
... These incidents came after longer and wider repressions and inequalities, but the movements were mobilized when those injustices were objectified into one symbolic form, be it a person or a new law. Online media has also facilitated new ways of symbol creation and mobilization through, for example, viral images and hashtags such as #metoo [32] and #BlackLivesMatter [33,34,35]. These online hashtags were not only the initial triggers of these movements, but also became identity symbols for representing the group and building solidarity. ...
Recent research on social movements have shown the significant role protest symbols play in mobilizing action and constructing a shared identity for a group pressing for social change. The present article gives an overview of crowd and social movement theories that focus on how symbols form and maintain groups. Borrowing from cultural psychology and social representations theory it explores how symbols are created and the meaning making processes around them within larger groups. The article unpacks two key functions of symbols within protest: first as a motivating trigger for protest action, and second as a unifying symbol for group identity and solidarity. It concludes with a discussion of how focusing on protest symbols could inform future social psychological research.
Access: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1b4IG,rU%7ENnln9
... The Black Lives Matter as a contemporary protest movement came into existence on the back of a disturbing pattern of the repeated killing of unarmed black people by mainly white police officers which generally went unpunished, raising questions about social justice and equality regarding U.S. minorities. The success of the movement was bolstered by the use of the social media and internet technology to draw attention to various acts of unjustified violence against blacks, an injustice which dates to the era of black lynching (Hoffman et al, 2016). As Sue (2010) observed, racism in 21st Century America has changed in its form and character generally from in your face racism of old to a systemic and structural form of discrimination that is pervasive and expressed in the form of micro-aggression and subtle and sometimes even un-intentional but ingrained non-verbal communication to communicate coded messages that people of color are inferior to white people. ...
... Indeed, police have been the target of recent protests due to perceived increases in lethal force against members of the Black community (Rickford, 2016 Matter and the resultant public perception that black protesters have a greater predisposition to violence than protesters in other social movements (Isaac et al., 1980;Rickford, 2016). To the contrary, research suggests that many protesters associated with Black Lives Matter do not incite or condone violence during their events (Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016;Rickford, 2016). ...
Several policing strategies have been used to manage protest crowds over the past 50 years. Research suggests that escalated force and command and control strategies were utilized until the 1990’s (Bourne, 2011; Schweingruber, 2000), while negotiated management has as emerged as a prominent protest management strategy within recent decades (Gillham, 2011; Gillham & Noakes, 2006).While literature describes the general evolution of protest strategies over time, there has been no systematic documentation of police approaches to crowd management.
This study examines police policies governing protest management to identify current U.S. police practices. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) provides model policies to help police agencies become familiar with best practices and develop their own policies. The IACP’s model policy on crowd management and control was used to identify tactics that represent best practice standards for protest management in the United States. Through a content analysis of policies from a sample of U.S. police agencies, this study assesses agency compliance with the IACP model policy on crowd management and control, as well as alignment with existing protest management strategies.
Findings inform our understanding of current police protest management practices and offer policy implications. First, this study shows that there is a great deal of variation among protest management policies used within the sample agencies. Second, sample agency policies tend to adopt best practice escalated force tactics more often than command and control or negotiated management practices. Finally, three specific themes related to community-oriented policing, strict enforcement and use of force, and regional differences emerge from bivariate and multivariate analyses. These themes offer direction for future theory development and protest management research.
... Moreover, the media attention given to some youth shot by police should not diminish other recent shooting deaths (e.g., Kendra James, Christian Taylor, Laquan McDonald, and Ramarley Graham) that received less media attention. Loss of life should also be situated historically within both a pattern of police brutality against Black youth (Hoffman, Granger Jr., Vallejos, & Moats, 2016) and a history of violence against Black youth in leisure settings. ...
Using racial threat theory, the present commentary argues that Black youth have been historically and are presently treated as a threat in leisure settings. The acknowledgment that leisure settings have perpetuated injustice for Black youth creates space for dialog about opportunities to promote justice. The second half of this article thus argues that the margins—as a space relatively free of oppression—may be an effective site for Black youth to imagine alternatives to their status as a threat. Radical healing, a process of building the capacity of Black youth to resist oppression, is described as a strategy to facilitate that imagination. Research questions and designs are recommended for future radical healing scholarship. The commentary closes with a call for further examination of the ways that leisure simultaneously furthers oppression and offers opportunities for resistance.
... Recognizing how thoughtful, non-reactive activism can healing and connect with meaning (Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, & Moats, 2016) Redemptive potential of suffering and anger ...
Existential psychological perspectives have long recognized that individuals must be understood in one’s context in the world, including their social and cultural context. For existential psychology to reach its full potential in making a positive impact upon the world, it is necessary to take seriously issues of multiculturalism and social justice. This presentation explores an existential-humanistic foundation for psychotherapy and social justice activism.
It is common for therapists to focus on helping clients adjust to their situation and decrease individual suffering. Often, this serves to help people adjust to an unhealthy environment, instead of engaging in what Martin Luther King, Jr., calls “creative maladjustment.” Consistent with existential approaches, creative maladjustment helps individuals consider their engagement with their environment with awareness and intentionality. Clients may choose to adapt to their context despite the negative or harmful implications, or they may choose strategies to confront or change their environment. Often, clients find sustaining meaning that can transform their suffering through choosing strategies to confront unhealthy systems.
When existential therapists work with individuals while ignoring the systems impacting the individual, they limit their potential as change agents. As therapists, we have a unique vantage to understand the implications of nationalism, polarization, racism, homophobia/transphobia, and other harmful trends common in the world today. At times, we are called to engage the world beyond the therapy room to promote change. An existential-humanistic foundation can help inform how we engage in social justice advocacy and activism through promoting personal freedom and choice, meaning, and human dignity.
View at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgajWg-WEQY
... In this vein, humanistic psychologists have recently contributed to the development of community action research methods that are "inherently activistic" (Goss & McInerney, 2016, p. 287;McInerney, 2016), theory on the practice of influential activists and movements (Selig, 2016), a philosophical grounding for social ethics (Robbins, 2016), a vision for possible socially just futures and a "good" society (Cooper, 2016), phenomenological research on social justice identity development (Dollarhide, Clevenger, Dogan, & Edwards, 2016), and connections between humanism and critical and queer theory (Goodrich, Luke, & Smith, 2016). In an analysis of the Black Lives Matter protest movement, Hoffman, Granger, Vallejos, and Moats (2016) argue, When the existential nature of social justice issues and the protest movements are better understood, the understanding of these movements deepen while concurrently demonstrating that within existential-humanistic psychology, we should be committed to engaging these issues. (p. ...
Student activism is a highly underresearched topic in psychology despite the field’s commitment to studying person–environment interactions and advancing social justice aims. Furthermore, less is known about the ways in which student activists navigate the neoliberal or “corporatized” university in the United States. This research study utilizes a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative method in order to attempt to describe the experience of being a student activist within a “corporatized” or neoliberal university. The results demonstrate that the apolitical rhetoric and the consumerization of student life, characteristic of neoliberalism in higher education, influence the process through which students become activists and become explicit targets of discipline as well. Students understand their activism in terms of repoliticizing the university and reconfiguring their approach toward education away from consumer metaphors. The results also have significant implications for understanding how the experience of student activism interacts with the other social and economic stressors, simultaneously increasing demands on students while creating possibilities for connectedness and purpose.
The social, economic, political, and civil unrest surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 United States election, and the increased activity of the racial justice movement has seemingly divided not just the nation but the world. Thoughts and behaviors are guided by ideological beliefs—collections of ideas or philosophies associated with power structures. I examined the overlap between positions on controversial topics and identified how ideological alignment, values, and identity characteristics influenced the holders’ views. I found significant relationships among the variables categorized as social, political, health and medical, and safety, security, and legal ideologies. The results indicated that participants’ views in one ideological category were similar to those in the other ideological categories. Finally, the current study presents models of integrating worldviews in which ideological viewpoints in the various categories align, supported by the Moral Foundations Theory, Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis, and the Rigidity-of-the-Right Hypothesis.
This collaborative autoethnographic article traces psychology's complicity in systems of oppression while highlighting pathways toward liberation. An expression and embodiment of radical solidarity, this article is the product of a research collaboration between an incarcerated justice advocate and a critical psychologist. Critical autoethnographic methods are leaned on to lift experiences of prison as an oppressive institution and illuminate forms of resistance. We strategically and deliberately co-created this methodological approach to joyfully render prison walls metaphorically porous, to seep through surveillance mechanisms (both within the prison and academia), and to build liberatory worlds through our words. Situating mass incarceration as an extension of colonial displacement and enslavement, we dialogically examine how psychology has upheld white supremacy through the illusion of objectivity and neutrality. Psychological concepts like critical consciousness and resilience are re-theorized to center embodied, collective struggles. Calling for psychology to move beyond apologies toward deep structural change and distributive justice, we advocate for centering the experience of those historically excluded in knowledge construction, resource allocation, and leadership. Imagining a psychology of love and solidarity, we urge dismantling oppressive institutions through pedagogies of radical solidarity. Our collaboration—across prison walls—models methodologies of mutual aid, conscientization, and power sharing to build a liberatory psychology.
After a peaceful protest in Dallas, Texas became the site of an ambush of police officers, The Dallas Morning News (DMN) asked readers to tell the world about their city, through a meme generator and #MyDallasIs hashtag. Citizen framing was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods to discover how the city was framed on Twitter (n=277 tweets), publicly available Instagram posts (n=91), and through comments left on a The DMN webpage (n=209). Participants opted for frames that re(named) and re(claimed) their city, with themes of home, unity, diversity, city pride, beauty, love and resilience. On the newspaper’s page, one additional dominant theme surfaced: otherness, aggression, and privilege. This research expands the literature with the notion that platforms exhibit differences in frames projected by the citizen journalists. Authors offer implications of social media citizen framing and recovery efforts for cities after urban trauma.
In this study, we drew on the m(ai)cro framework, which centers racism as a macrosystem, to examine how college-going emerging adults made meaning about society and themselves during the 2020 U.S. presidential election and 2021 inauguration. This period was marked by racial justice protests, a global pandemic, anti-Asian violence, and the storming of the U.S. Capitol by predominantly white Trump supporters. Using the constructs of critical consciousness and racial identity meaning making, we analyzed participants’ reports of recent race related conversations. Our sample included 47 students ( M age = 19.71, SD = 1.72; 81% female, 17% male, 2% other; 45% Asian/Asian American, 30% white, 13% Latinx/Hispanic, 4% Black/African American, 4% Multiracial, 2% Middle Eastern/Arab) at a private, predominantly white university in the U.S. Midwest. Hybrid inductive-deductive analysis showed that a majority reported conversations with peers, focused primarily on racial inequity and justice. For many participants of color, conversations about topics including protests and anti-Asian violence were woven into their racial identities. In contrast, although many white participants discussed events such as the Capitol insurrection, none made links to their racial identities. Our findings highlight connections between critical consciousness and racial identity, and the importance of context and participant positionality in developmental research.
Political activism has become one of the most effective vehicles often used by the marginalised and disenfranchised people to advocate for legislative change towards equality and justice. In the United States of America (USA), Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a social movement fighting against institutionalised racist violence. The movement was born as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a man who ruthlessly killed Trayvon Martin, in 2012, in Florida, USA. The Zimmerman verdict evidenced the claim that black bodies and lives do not matter and are easily disposable. The hashtag Black Lives Matter, after the murder of Floyd George, spread like wildfires on social media thereby sparking mass demonstrations across the globe. This study explores the rise of BLM movement in the USA and how the murder of Floyd George on 25 May 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota intensified its spread across national and international borders. It examines how the movement is a continuation of the 1960s civil rights movements, arguing that BLM movement represents an active engagement with the past, present and the future. The study concludes that systemic racism in USA is a continuation of institutionalised racism from the slavery era and the African Americans are still struggling to remove the racial knee on their neck.
We report on our work with the street community of Pittsburgh, specifically, a community-based action initiative we call the Mobile Thriving Respite (Institutional Review Board approval was obtained from our university). For 5 years, student advocate ethnographers from Point Park University have gathered data (e.g., long- and short-term interviews, participant-observations generating fieldnotes). The data revealed and supported the need for thriving beyond surviving homelessness. The data endorsed the creation of the mobile thriving respite. In the first part of this work, we will discuss some critical concepts regarding homelessness as a phenomenon and then argue that while surviving as enduring is necessary, there are some for whom survival is a perpetual, lethal state of being. We will discuss the theoretical foundations to the respite and offer researchers’ ethnographic accounts of the respite’s process and progress (We had to temporarily end the respite during the Covid-19 pandemic. To date, the respite has returned with “pop up” events outside at various locations). We will outline how the mobile thriving respite is a praxis as site of resistance as well as an emergent strategy, and an instantiation of communitas. We will then revisit surviving as collectively bearing witness and testifying to the lived experiences of those living outside.
LGBTQ contributors to civil rights movements have had to remain silent and refrain from living openly in order to be included in the fight for equality. While their artistic contributions have been noted, they have been largely excluded from past civil rights movements. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement offers new‐found hope for inclusion. BLM was founded on the principles of full inclusion of LGBTQ individuals. While this is noteworthy, it has not been without controversy because in order to embrace full inclusion, it was necessary for BLM to locate itself outside of the traditional Black church. Nevertheless, this has not negated the progress of BLM and its quest for equality. BLM's call for full inclusion challenges the field of adult education to examine its current practices and to create safe spaces for learning.
This study examined how Nigerian immigrants communicated about, and got involved in, #BlackLivesMatter protests and/or advocacy due to racialized violence against Blacks in the United States during the summer of 2020. Using a qualitative open-ended questionnaire, a purposive sample of Nigerians (N = 70) was assembled. Constant comparative analysis revealed that communication about and participation in the BLM movement consisted of affective (feelings associated with protests), cognitive (psychological processes triggered by thinking about protests), and behavioral (actions and engagement in protests) responses. This process is labeled protest structures, a term that captures the socio-psychological processes that shape the communication of and involvement in protests and/or advocacy. We discuss further how social positioning impacts active participation in the fight for racial equality and social change.
With the recent rise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement limited empirical research has been conducted examining knowledge of and attitudes toward this group, especially of that held by college students. College students have been a major force in overt activism related to the movement, and university communities tend to reflect many of the qualities of society as a whole. The purpose of this current study was to examine college students' understanding and attitudes toward the BLM movement. Two hundred seventy college students completed a survey measuring knowledge and awareness of BLM. The responses highlighted the growing awareness (especially as intergroup empathy grows, and ethnic groups experience more racism and microaggression) of the wide variety of goals that the movement espouses. Findings illuminated the current knowledge, attitudes, and opinions of the college students regarding the BLM movement, and detailed how ethnic identity increased prosocial involvement. College students are engaging in more prosocial involvement. It is evident that intergroup empathy is growing. Racial discrimination and oppressive elements within the U.S. society are being reacted to by college students, demanding equality and positive changes.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate COVID-19 as a super crisis in the design and management of places.
Design/methodology/approach
This theory-driven work outlines why and how, by treating COVID-19 as a super crisis, the immunological view rises in priority and swiftly ushers in short- and long-term implications for space design and place management.
Findings
First, this paper looks at the short-term impact of COVID-19 upon space and place management in addressing how porous bubbling, stippling and flexible curtaining respond to immediate retrofitting needs during the pandemic. Using the concept of COVID-19-induced collective trauma, this paper draws attention to health-care facilities, schools, workplaces, commercial buildings and public outdoor spaces. These sites require short-term improvisation in place and space design and will, where the collective trauma of COVID-19 leaves strong traces, require long-term redesign and rethinking.
Social implications
As a super crisis, COVID-19 generates contradictions in the existing trend in space and place studies from the notion of space and place as a container to one focusing on “flow.” A focus on flow highlights a focus on space and place as adaptable to changes in flow, especially as augmented and mediated by technology.
Originality/value
This treatment of COVID-19 as a super crisis is intended to stimulate the design and management of spaces and places in the post-COVID-19 period.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) has profoundly shifted public and political discourse about race in the United States and thus the broader sociopolitical landscape in which children learn about race and their own racial identities. A sample of Black, White, and Multiracial children (N = 100; Mage = 10.18 years old) were interviewed about their racial identities in 2014 and again in 2016. During these 2 years, BLM surged with the National March on Washington, widespread news coverage of multiple cases of police brutality, and a highly racialized presidential election. The current analysis examines longitudinal change in children’s racial identity narratives across these two time points with attention to the role of BLM. Qualitative interview analyses show that (a) the importance of racial identity increased among Black and Multiracial (but not White) children, and (b) the content of children’s race narratives shifted to include BLM-related themes and more discussions of race as interpersonal and structural (not just individual). We discuss age-related changes and how to conceptualize maturation during significant sociopolitical moments, like the current one, in relation to racial identity development.
Enhanced well-being for students, staff, and faculty has become a focal point on many campuses across North America. Well-being promotion tends to focus on the “wellness” half of well-being, practices related to individual health, stress-management, enhanced coping, and environmental conditions. These efforts, while significant, address the symptoms, not the root causes of what has led to the degree of experienced un-wellness or ill-being. What has not yet been adequately articulated in well-being theory, as applied to the higher education setting, is a focus on the “being” half of the well-being phrase, how higher education is connected to a student’s subjectivity and the meanings they give to the objective world. This article proposes a conception of well-being in higher education that stems from existential philosophy and humanistic psychology, as well as key concepts from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. Higher education is seen as a place where students’ self-discovery informs their approach to knowledge and learning, as well as their development of an ethical sense of justice and the rights of others in the educational community. Well-being is in this way rendered more fully.
Cultural myths, rituals, and festivals reflect important aspects of cultural identity and meaning. Analysis of these cultural expressions can help individuals outside and within the culture better understand the cultural groups from which these emerge. Historically, rituals and festivals frequently served explicit functions; however, over time, they often have been removed from their historical meanings. Yet, they still serve an important function in the individual and communal well-being of cultural groups. Cleare-Hoffman, Hoffman, and Paige maintain that through revitalizing the connection with the deeper meaning and legacy of these rituals and festivals, the benefits may be increased and extended. Therapists may benefit by studying, observing, and, when appropriate, participating in different cultural rituals and festivals to increase their cultural competencies. The authors use the Bahamian festival of Junkanoo as an example of a cultural festival that offers powerful benefits to Bahamians living in the Bahamas and abroad.
This paper considers the history, current status, and future of humanistic psychology and multiculturalism in the United States, particularly focusing on the Society for Humanistic Psychology as a leading humanistic psychology organization. Humanistic psychology in the United States has struggled in actualizing its valuing of cultural diversity; however, some progress has been made. Through an exploration of history, current challenges can also be illuminated as well as possible ways to respond to these challenges. An embracement of deep diversity in humanistic psychology is called for, which includes an epistemological and ontological diversity. Furthermore, the implications of Granger’s (2012) call to invite cultural diversity into the home of humanistic psychology are explored. A deep diversity in humanistic psychology includes a broad, inclusive understanding of science as well as an embracement of ways of knowing that are embedded in culture, stories, and poetry. The paper concludes with recommendations for future directions.
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War means threat to people’s lives. Research derived from terror management theory (TMT) illustrates that the awareness of death leads people to defend cultural ingroups and their worldviews to attain a sense of symbolic immortality and thereby buffer existential anxiety. This can result in hostile effects of mortality salience (MS), such as derogation of outgroup members, prejudice, stereotyping, aggression, and racism, which, in turn, can lead to the escalation of violent intergroup conflict and, thus, the escalation of war. Yet, escalation of destructive conflict following MS is not automatic. Instead, research on TMT suggests that MS does not necessarily result in conflict and intolerance but can also foster positive tendencies, such as intergroup fairness or approval of pacifism, depending on how existential threat is perceived, whether the need for symbolic self-transcendence is satisfied, which social norms are salient, and how social situations are interpreted. In the present article, we review current TMT research with the aim of reconciling the seemingly contradictory findings of hostile and peaceful reactions to reminders of death. We present a terror management model of escalation and de-escalation of violent intergroup conflicts, which takes into account the interaction between threat salience and features of the social situation. We also discuss possible intervention strategies to override detrimental consequences of existential threat and argue that war is not the inevitable consequence of threat.
This study examined the relationships among African American clients' perceptions of their White counselors with respect to (a) perceived racial microaggressions in cross-racial counseling relationships, (b) the counseling working alliance, (c) their counselors' general and multicultural counseling competence, and (d) their counseling satisfaction. Findings revealed that greater perceived racial microaggressions by African American clients were predictive of a weaker therapeutic alliance with White therapists, which, in turn, predicted lower ratings of general and multicultural counseling competence. Greater perceived racial microaggressions also were predictive of lower counseling satisfaction ratings. In addition, African American clients' perceptions of racial microaggressions had a significant indirect effect on these clients' ratings of White counselors' general and multicultural counseling competence through the therapeutic working alliance.
Throughout the past few thousand years, historical accounts, philosophical treatises, and works of fiction and poetry have often depicted humans as having a need to perceive themselves as good, and their actions as moral and justified. Within the last hundred years, a number of important figures in the development of modern psychology have also embraced this notion that people need self-esteem (e.g., Adler, 1930; Allport, 1937; Homey, 1937; James, 1890; Maslow, 1970; Murphy, 1947; Rank, 1959; Rogers, 1959; Sullivan, 1953). Of these, Karen Homey most thoroughly discussed the ways people try to attain and maintain a favorable self-image. The clinical writings of Horney, and other psychotherapists as well, document the ways in which people attempt to defend and enhance self-esteem; they also suggest that difficulty maintaining self-esteem, and maladaptive efforts to do so, may be central to a variety of mental health problems. In this chapter, we will first review the research supporting the existence of a need for self-esteem. Then we will present a theory that accounts for this need and specifies the role it plays in a variety of phenomena including self-presentation.
Terror management theory posits that people tend to respond defensively to reminders of death, including worldview defense, self-esteem striving, and suppression of death thoughts. Seven experiments examined whether trait mindfulness-a disposition characterized by receptive attention to present experience-reduced defensive responses to mortality salience (MS). Under MS, less mindful individuals showed higher worldview defense (Studies 1-3) and self-esteem striving (Study 5), yet more mindful individuals did not defend a constellation of values theoretically associated with mindfulness (Study 4). To explain these findings through proximal defense processes, Study 6 showed that more mindful individuals wrote about their death for a longer period of time, which partially mediated the inverse association between trait mindfulness and worldview defense. Study 7 demonstrated that trait mindfulness predicted less suppression of death thoughts immediately following MS. The discussion highlights the relevance of mindfulness to theories that emphasize the nature of conscious processing in understanding responses to threat.
Adaptive behavior and psychological well-being of African Americans can be affected by prejudice and discrimination. Encountering repeated racial slights can create “psychological invisibility.” The invisibility syndrome is presented as a conceptual model for understanding the inner evaluative processes and adaptive behavior of African Americans in managing experiences of racism.
The present article presents a meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. With 713 independent samples from 515 studies, the meta-analysis finds that intergroup contact typically reduces intergroup prejudice. Multiple tests indicate that this finding appears not to result from either participant selection or publication biases, and the more rigorous studies yield larger mean effects. These contact effects typically generalize to the entire outgroup, and they emerge across a broad range of outgroup targets and contact settings. Similar patterns also emerge for samples with racial or ethnic targets and samples with other targets. This result suggests that contact theory, devised originally for racial and ethnic encounters, can be extended to other groups. A global indicator of Allport's optimal contact conditions demonstrates that contact under these conditions typically leads to even greater reduction in prejudice. Closer examination demonstrates that these conditions are best conceptualized as an interrelated bundle rather than as independent factors. Further, the meta-analytic findings indicate that these conditions are not essential for prejudice reduction. Hence, future work should focus on negative factors that prevent intergroup contact from diminishing prejudice as well as the development of a more comprehensive theory of intergroup contact.
Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with racial/ethnic minorities. A taxonomy of racial microaggressions in everyday life was created through a review of the social psychological literature on aversive racism, from formulations regarding the manifestation and impact of everyday racism, and from reading numerous personal narratives of counselors (both White and those of color) on their racial/cultural awakening. Microaggressions seem to appear in three forms: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation. Almost all interracial encounters are prone to microaggressions; this article uses the White counselor – client of color counseling dyad to illustrate how they impair the development of a therapeutic alliance. Suggestions regarding education and training and research in the helping professions are discussed.
Estudio sobre los orígenes de las emociones agresivas, que tienen un papel fundamental en la génesis del comportamiento violento y de la psicopatología en general. Es explorado el carácter negativo, maligno y/o patológico y la expresión destructiva de estas emociones, pero también su reconducción hacia una actividad constructiva y sus funciones trascendentes en el arte, la psicoterapia y la espiritualidad.
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