Trust and legitimacy are vital components of disseminating research beyond academia, which is increasingly being encouraged and indeed expected of Early Career Researchers (ECRs). This advice section was written by two ECRs who have focussed on different ways of engaging with audiences outside of academia. One of us (Zoe) has engaged with government and non-government organisations to improve health and wellbeing of people experiencing social disadvantage, such as homelessness. The other (Hema) has worked closely with community groups on collective action in Malaysia and disseminated research ..read more

Policy (Image from The Blue Diamond Gallery: Nick Youngson, CC BY-SA 3.0) This blog post aims to summarise the 12 tips provided for early career scholars on having policy impact on our .  That page distils the genius of three impactful social psychologists and includes links to lengthy interviews with them on a range of topics.  The featured researchers are: community and clinical psychologist Eleanor Wertheim (LaTrobe university), environmental psychologist Kelly Fielding (University of Queensland), and cross-cultural psychologist James Liu (Massey University).  The short versi ..read more

How do legislators use science? It’s not an easy question for scientists to answer. Many are hard pressed to identify even one concrete example of an evidence-based legislative action. So, we sat down with policymakers to ask them the same question. What we heard will surprise those who are pessimistic that science is used at all in policymaking. We now can identify several ways that research flows, much like a river, through the policy landscape. First, we reached out to 123 state legislators in Indiana and Wisconsin. These legislators then nominated an additional 32 colleagues who they felt ..read more

Towards your dream job (Image from Pixabay: By geralt, Free to use or share) We all know that in this modern time there are more PhD graduates than academic job positions. Additionally, being an academic may not be an ideal job for everyone. With a PhD degree, there are in fact plenty of professional job opportunities in the market available. Having said that, you have to keep in mind that in the industry market, you are competing with many more applicants. To make yourself and your CV outstanding, you not only need to communicate to potential employers who are not necessarily familiar with th ..read more

A cross-national study shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts. Contrary to conventional wisdom, people intervene and assist during conflicts that take place in public settings. Many bystanders are willing to intervene in and de-escalate hostile situations. The odds that a victim will receive help increases by 10 percent with each additional bystander nearby. A Paramedic Helps Someone on the Street (Image from Pexels: RODNAE Productions, Free to Use) The recent spate of attacks on Asian Americans in cities around the United States has reinforced the popular belief that bystande ..read more

1. Gemma Jiang (biography) 2. Jin Wen (biography) 3. Simi Hoque (biography) What are the key ingredients for successfully developing large-scale cross-disciplinary research proposals? What’s required for a team to successfully work together at the proposal development stage? Here we provide seven lessons based on our experience, divided into: structuring the grant proposal writing process. Lesson 1: Invite a mix of new blood and established experience. It is useful to have team members at various stages of their careers, as well as researchers who have worked together previously and those who ..read more

Between 2012 and 2016, at least 50 individuals from the Belgian neighborhood of Molenbeek abandoned their home to join the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria. This rate of defection to a radical cause from one small Western European community was unprecedented. The problems the residents of Molenbeek were facing—lack of employment, education, and general incivility—are not uncommon in other neighborhoods. So, what makes this neighborhood so different? Addressing this question, our team decided to understand the impact of these neighborhoods in light of three psychological forces called the 3N ..read more

Stop Adani Human Sign 2019 (Image from flickr: By Stop Adani Melbourne, CC by 2.0) Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future burst onto the world stage in 2018 to demand urgent action on the climate crisis. These movements organized strikes, blockades and demonstrations, building on the work of activists before them. But how frequently do climate activists use civil resistance? How do they sustain their campaign and organizing despite various challenges and repressive responses by the opponents and their allies? And what has civil resistance against climate change been able to achieve? , we ..read more

I want to start, as usual, by acknowledging our group’s successes In 2021, the lab saw awarded their PhDs, whoohoo!  Following submission, Zahra continued into a post-doctoral research role working with Jolanda Jetten in Iran; Susilo worked with me on our Voluntary Assisted Dying grant and secured funding for a project on religious and secular environmental collective action in Indonesia (with me and Robyn Gulliver); and Kiara worked on the Voluntary Assisted Dying grant before transitioning in 2022 to a post-doc on Sexual Violence and the Limits of Consent, led by Lisa Featherstone.  ..read more

This post is a departure from our usual blog format of short pieces about research and practice in our group: it's a personal reflection (from Winnifred Louis) on Donald Taylor as a person, and his scholarship and influence. I was a masters student with Don starting in 1994, when I wrote a thesis on reactions to gender discrimination at McGill University.  I then went on to complete my PhD with him from 1996, looking at reactions to English-French conflict in Quebec.  He generously involved me in projects and papers on attitudes to immigrants in South Africa and heritage language ret ..read more