Alain Quiamzade’s research while affiliated with University of Geneva and other places

The phenomenon of animalistic dehumanisation has been extensively studied in social psychology, but mostly as an intergroup relations tool used to justify the mistreatment of an outgroup. Surprisingly, however, dehumanisation has not been approached as an influence strategy to convince the ingroup to mistreat an outgroup. In the present article, we investigate these possible influence effects. We propose that a message depicting an outgroup in negative animalised terms would lead to lasting unfavourable outgroup attitudes because the animal essence conveyed through the message would immunise ingroup members against subsequent counterinfluence attempts. In one experimental study we compared the effect of three influence messages depicting a despised outgroup (Roma beggars) in negative animalised vs. negative humanised vs. positive humanised terms, followed by a counterpropaganda message advocating for Roma beggars’ rights. Results show that the animalisation message leads to a lasting animalised perception of the outgroup (eliciting disgust and repugnancy) that resists exposure to the counterpropaganda positive message. In contrast, the negative humanisation message provokes a brief negative perception of the group (pre-counterpropaganda) that disappears after exposure to the counterpropaganda. The animalisation message also leads to more negative attitudes and discriminatory behavioural intentions towards Roma beggars expressed after the counterpropaganda message (i.e., discrimination in the workplace, hiring intentions, and social proximity), whilst the negative humanisation message does not, showing no difference with the positive humanisation message. These results suggest that animalistic dehumanisation indeed acts as an influence strategy, immunising targets against subsequent counterpropaganda attempts. We discuss implications in the light of essentialisation, forms of dehumanisation and group status, and current non-discriminatory norms.

Pourquoi l’être humain, sous les ordres d’une autorité hiérarchique, est-il capable d’actes d’une déconcertante cruauté ?

Qui suis-je ? Où vais-je ? Dans quelle « étagère » ? demandait Coluche. Au-delà de l'humour, la formule renvoie à des questions existentielles qui consument régulièrement l'esprit de chacun d'entre nous et qui ont trouvé au travers du temps autant de réponses que de penseurs. Le présent ouvrage répond aux deux premières questions dans les deux parties qui le structurent. «Dans quelle étagère» cet ouvrage sur le soi devrait-il se percher ? Bien qu'il ne réponde pas à cette dernière question, il mérite toute sa place bien en vue dans la bibliothèque de tout lecteur qui veut savoir comment, en l'état des connaissances actuelles, la psychologie répond aux deux premières questions. Il aborde donc le thème du soi du point de vue de la psychologie scientifique, avec un accent marqué en psychologie sociale et psychologie de la motivation.

The study of moral judgements often centres on moral dilemmas in which options consistent with deontological perspectives (that is, emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with options consistent with utilitarian judgements (that is, following the greater good based on consequences). Greene et al. (2009) showed that psychological and situational factors (for example, the intent of the agent or the presence of physical contact between the agent and the victim) can play an important role in moral dilemma judgements (for example, the trolley problem). Our knowledge is limited concerning both the universality of these effects outside the United States and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors affecting moral judgements. Thus, we empirically tested the universality of the effects of intent and personal force on moral dilemma judgements by replicating the experiments of Greene et al. in 45 countries from all inhabited continents. We found that personal force and its interaction with intention exert influence on moral judgements in the US and Western cultural clusters, replicating and expanding the original findings. Moreover, the personal force effect was present in all cultural clusters, suggesting it is culturally universal. The evidence for the cultural universality of the interaction effect was inconclusive in the Eastern and Southern cultural clusters (depending on exclusion criteria). We found no strong association between collectivism/individualism and moral dilemma judgements.

Past research has found that regulatory closure, that is, successful goal striving regulated either under a promotion or prevention focus, has important consequences in terms of motivational activation and mobilisation of cognitive resources in subsequent tasks, but it mostly investigated motivation in the same or similar tasks to the one for which closure was achieved. Drawing from an energisation-deactivation hypothesis, we investigated the effect of closure on performance and persistence in unrelated subsequent cognitive tasks. Across four studies, we found that promotion closure had an energising effect leading to: quicker decision times in lexical tasks (Studies 1-2), increased persistence and greater originality (Study 3), and greater visuospatial memory performance (Study 4). In contrast, prevention closure had a deactivating effect leading to reduced performance and persistence. No systematic differences arose in situations of non-closure. We discuss results and implications with respect to both regulatory closure and regulatory fit theoretical approaches.

Depuis l’avènement de la pandémie du coronavirus début 2020, nous avons collectivement vu émerger de nouvelles normes sociales – comme le port du masque – et avons dû nous soumettre à de nombreuses règles. Du point de vue de la psychologie sociale, la pandémie s’est ainsi révélée une période extrêmement riche pour réfléchir aux théories du comportement humain en termes d’influence sociale. Leur survol éclaire les dynamiques de la crise et ouvre des pistes d’analyses en termes prospectifs.

People generally tend to stay consistent in their attitudes and behaviour, including proenvironmental actions. However, they can feel entitled to act less-than-virtuously when an initial “virtuous” (or proenvironmental) action provides an excuse to do so –– a self-licensing effect. Drawing from goal setting and regulatory closure literature, we propose that regulatory focus influences whether people will show behavioural consistency or self-licensing. Four experimental studies (N = 1184) including one highly powered preregistered conceptual replication supported the hypothesis that regulatory focus moderates the impact of past proenvironmental behaviour (sanctioned by bogus feedback) on behavioural intentions. In a prevention focus, past positive behaviour weakened proenvironmental intentions in comparison with past negative behaviour and control condition (i.e., self-licensing) – an effect that did not appear in a promotion focus. Results contribute to the growing literature on factors moderating self-licensing dynamics. We discuss theoretical implications for regulatory fit and regulatory closure research, and specifically for the study of individuals' reaction to negative information in promotion focus. We also offer suggestions for designing effective individualised green consumption feedback and recommend that regulatory focus is used as a frame to effectively communicate personal ‘green scores’ and avoid potential rebound effects of positive feedback.

The implementation of cooperative learning methods remains disparate in primary schools despite their widely recognised benefits. To explain this paradox, we first examined whether teachers’ inclination towards cooperative methods is motivated by their values. Second, we tested whether motivational connections between personal values and cooperative methods are undermined when conflictual values are activated in context. Study 1 demonstrated that pre-service teachers strongly endorsed self-transcendence (ST) values (expressing compatible motivations with cooperation) relative to self-enhancement (SE) values (expressing conflictual motivations with cooperation). Adherence to ST values was also positively associated with their beliefs and attitudes regarding cooperative methods. In Studies 2, 3 and 4, educational sciences students were experimentally exposed to different contexts, wherein ST, SE or neutral values were promoted. Our findings indicate that when SE values were emphasised in the context, the positive association between ST values and beliefs/attitudes regarding cooperative methods disappeared. Although the results of Study 4 regarding the intention to use cooperative methods were not statistically significant, the pattern was similar. Finally, Study 5 showed that primary school teachers’ ST values positively predicted the self-reported use of cooperative methods when they perceived their school to weakly endorse SE values, but not when they perceived it to strongly endorse them.