Sammyh S. Khan

This article aims to introduce geopolitical psychology as an emerging interdisciplinary perspective in psychological science. Broadly defined, this perspective (a) synergizes insights from geography, political economy, and psychology, and (b) broadens and deepens the understanding of the society–psychology nexus and its transformations vis‐à‐vis the transactions of the person and the historical, current, and imagined geopolitical contexts. We propose eight propositions to organize currently disparate research on geopolitical psychology and guide future investigations in this field. We also elaborate on the methodology of geopolitical psychology. We believe that geopolitical psychology can deepen the understanding of key social and psychological phenomena, offer new theoretical insights, lead to critical interrogations of received social representations, and inspire collective actions to change the status quo. We also expect geopolitical psychology to be able to address past critiques of intrapersonal psychology as a socially indifferent science, and conceptually and methodologically connect psychological science with its cognate disciplines in humanities and social sciences.

Participation in elections is essential for the health of democracies. Regardless of gender, individuals may hold traditional beliefs about women's roles in society that hinder their engagements in areas that challenge gender stereotypes, such as political participation. In this study, we examined how gender and beliefs about gender roles influence voting participation, while accounting for various ideological and demographic factors. We also explored how structural gender inequality, as measured by the country-level Gender Inequality Index, is reflected in voting at the individual level. Data were collected in a cross-country study ( N = 19,297 participants, 51.2% women, mean age = 41.3, SD = 14.76) from 18 countries. We employed an innovative method, Multi-Group Factor Analysis Alignment, to address cross-country measurement invariance of the Traditional Gender Roles scale—a key construct in this study. Results from multi-level modeling revealed significant main effects of gender and beliefs about traditional gender roles, but no significant interaction between them. Citizens who endorse traditional gender roles were less likely to vote, regardless of their gender. This effect was more pronounced in societies with low to moderate levels of structural gender inequality. In contrast, in countries with pervasive gender inequality, voting was not associated with individual beliefs about gender roles. These findings highlight the importance for policymakers to address the detrimental effects of structural gender inequality and traditional gender roles in society, that can hinder citizens participation in voting.

The study of collective memory (CM) forms a platform for dialogue between top‐down (CM as publicly available symbols) and bottom‐up approaches (CM as aggregated across individuals), and between the idiographic (case specific) and nomothetic (universal) approaches across the social sciences and humanities. The availability of symbolic resources from history to serve as foundations for systems of belief is critical for defining human science as an open system involving synchronic and diachronic analyses that theorize about the making and breaking of political culture: including concepts, processes, and organizations coming into being, or disappearing, and as they do so, changing what phenomena can be observed and why. This Special Issue contains ten articles, one cluster of which centering around Europe, and the collective remembering of World War II. This contributed to the making of the European Union, but national structures also limit popular identification with this supranational structure. Despite the best efforts of states, the bottom‐up surveys reported here demonstrate the heterogeneity of CM, as mediated by mass communications, and age cohorts. In contexts ranging from memory of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, to protest movements in Hong Kong, Japanese occupation of Korea, and social representations of the histories of Singapore, Morocco, and Egypt, the papers collected here show consistently that CM is heterogeneous, and different CMs are associated with different political attitudes and behavior. History as a symbolic resource is best conceptualized as something that can be mobilized by an identity entrepreneur, not as something fixed.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to calls for contributions from the social and behavioural sciences in responding to the social and behavioural dimensions of the pandemic. The current two‐round Delphi study—involving a panel of 52 professors of social psychology from 25 countries—explored expert opinions and consensus about the contributions that can be made by social psychology and social psychologists, and research priorities and strategies to this end. Responses to open‐ended questions presented to the panel in Round 1 were condensed and reformulated into 100 closed‐ended statements that the panel rated their agreement with in Round 2. Consensus was reached for 55 topics to which social psychology can contribute, 26 topics that should be prioritised, and 19 strategies that should be implemented. The findings contribute to further focusing research efforts in psychology in its response to the social and behavioural dimensions of the COVID‐19 and future pandemics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to calls for contributions from the social and behavioural sciences in responding to the social and behavioural dimensions of the pandemic. The current Delphi study explored expert opinions and consensus about the contributions that can be made by social psychology and social psychologists, and research priorities and strategies to this end. A two-round Delphi process was employed involving a panel of 52 professors of social psychology from 25 countries. Responses to open-ended questions presented to the panel in Round 1 were condensed and reformulated into 100 closed-ended statements that the panel rated their agreement with in Round 2. Consensus was reached for 55 topics to which social psychology can contribute, 26 topics that should be prioritised, and 19 strategies that should be implemented. The findings contribute to further focusing research efforts in psychology in its response to the social and behavioural dimensions of the COVID-19 and future pandemics.

Groups are regularly used to deliver healthcare services, including the management of obesity, and there is growing evidence that patients' experiences of such groups fundamentally shape treatment effects. This study investigated factors related to patients' shared social identity formed within the context of a treatment group for the management of severe obesity. A cross‐sectional survey was administered to patients registered with a UK medical obesity service and enrolled on a group‐based education and support programme. Patients (N = 78; M_BMI = 48 on entry to the service) completed measures of group demographics (e.g., group membership continuity) and psychosocial variables (e.g., past experiences of weight discrimination) and reported their social identification with the treatment group. The results showed that patients identified with the treatment group to the extent that there was continuity in membership across the programme and they perceived themselves more centrally in terms of their weight status. Weight centrality was negatively associated with external social support and positively associated with experiences of weight discrimination. Group continuity was positively correlated with session attendance frequency. Patients presenting to clinical treatment services with severe obesity often do so after sustained weight loss failure and exposure to negative societal experiences. This study highlights that providing a treatment environment wherein these experiences can be shared with other patients may provide common ground for development of a new, positive social identity that can structure programme engagement and progression.

Previous research concerning mass gathering‐associated health risks has focused on physical factors while largely neglecting the role of psychological factors. The present research examined the effect of experiencing shared social identification on perceptions of susceptibility to health risks in mass gatherings. Participants in Study 1 were asked to either recall a crowd in which they shared a social identity with other crowd members or a crowd in which they did not. Participants subsequently completed measures assessing shared social identity, disgust, and health risk perceptions. Study 2 involved administering the same measures as part of a survey to participants who had recently attended a music festival. The results from both studies indicated that sharing a social identity lowered health risk perceptions; this effect was indirect and mediated via disgust. This highlights the importance of considering social identity processes in the design of health communication aimed at reducing mass gathering‐associated health risks.