Search

The foundations of collective action and agency in large groups remain a challenging theoretical problem. Why are individuals willing to contribute to a common goal, even though their contribution may have little impact? This paper aims to answer this question by explicating the motivational mechanisms that facilitate collective action and elucidating the underlying conditions and processes using social movement mobilization as an example. The mechanisms responsible for modifying motivation and action orientations in large-scale collective action are explicated at the level of individual structures of intentionality and specified as imagination and plural self-awareness. These mechanisms create the mental prerequisites for collective action by modifying two crucial determinants of action orientations: self-efficacy and intentional control. Recurring to the case of the German environmental movement, we demonstrate that collective agency arises when a shared imaginary takes shape, and plural self-awareness gives way to common action orientations through the catalyzing effect of an external synchronizing stimulus., Historical Social Research Vol. 48, No. 3 (2023)

This chapter explores abusive language’s role when employed by a group with a lower social status whose rights are threatened by political authorities. We focus on the language of protest that emerged during the 2020 All-Poland Women’s Strike, following a court ruling that almost totally banned legal abortions in Poland. Since some slogans used by these protesters could be interpreted as expressions of abusive language, we decided to analyze their meaning in a wider socio-political context. We show that women’s use of vulgarisms and offensive language can serve as a tool of social and political change and that it may lead to empowerment. Moreover, given the cultural underpinnings of Polish society’s gender-based social norms, we show that the use of abusive language may symbolize the process of redefining the traditional gender contract in Poland.

The question of the evolutionary stability of team reasoning has been answered in multiple, even opposing ways. We provide a general, conceptual categorization of these existing answers along four dimensions: (1) the unit of selection, (2) the notion of fitness for team reasoners, (3) the stage of decision-making, and (4) the ludic ecology. Beyond affording a better assessment of the different modeling choices underlying the existing results, the categorization highlights important conceptual questions for the evolutionary foundations of team reasoning. We illustrate this by looking in more detail into what should count as fitness for team reasoners., Historical Social Research Vol. 48, No. 3 (2023)

There are cases in which we intuitively want to say that individuals have a moral duty to act jointly with others in order to prevent a serious harm, even though they are individually unable to discharge this duty. I argue that existing attempts to understand these duties as duties of the group, as irreducible joint duties, or as duties to collectivise fail. I offer an alternative account according to which individuals in the relevant cases are jointly obligated to prevent the harm in question. However, there is no such thing as a joint obligation, only a state of being jointly obligated. This state is reducible to two types of individual duties. First, each agent has a duty with a conditional content of the form Ο (ψ→Ø). Due to its conditional content, the assignment of such a duty is compatible with “ought” implies “can.” Second, each individual has as an unconditional duty to show readiness for the joint action. By expressing an intention of the form “I will if you will,” an agent satisfies the antecedent of the other agents’ conditional duties. The respective agents do not only provide each other with a means to perform a joint action, they are also linked through their mutual power to change each other’s normative situation by turning each other’s conditional duties into unconditional duties. In this way, the interlocking tokens of individual duties create a state of being jointly obligated., Historical Social Research Vol. 48, No. 3 (2023)

This paper examines conceptual issues of the emergence and effects of collective agency. Collective agency seems to challenge the methodological individualist assumption that only individuals can act, but treating group actors, such as parliamentary committees or court chambers, as mere shortcuts for complex interactions among group members raises important theoretical, empirical, and normative issues. First, the paper discusses some fundamental issues of collective agency. We argue that analyses of collective agency must provide generative mechanisms that demonstrate how it arises from the interaction of group members. Second, the paper introduces major approaches to collective agency from analytical philosophy and sociology. They locate the source of collective agency in the formation of collective intentions through the adjustment of group members’ attitudes, in the organization of group decision processes, or in the transfer of resources to the group level, which empowers a collective actor to act in its own right. Against this backdrop, this paper offers an integrative concept of collective agency characterized in terms of the degree of autonomy and the level of resources controlled by a collective actor. Third, this paper introduces the contributions to this special issue, which tackle a broad variety of issues, including the formation and consequences of collective intentions in small and unorganized groups, collective agency issues of institutionalized groups and organizations, collective agency of large and unorganized groups without defined memberships, and normative issues of collective agency., Historical Social Research Vol. 48, No. 3 (2023)

Children’s motivation for the egalitarian allocation of resources is reflected in their allocation of positive and negative resources between themselves and others. In the present study, 6- (n = 29) and 8-year-olds (n = 25) could choose between different allocations of positive and negative resources to themselves and others in a series of games. The other player was either an ingroup member or an outgroup member. Results revealed that, overall and irrespective of resource valence, 8-year-olds were more likely to choose an egalitarian allocation of resources than 6-year-olds. 8-year-olds also shared more positive resources with the outgroup member than 6-year-olds. Children’s egalitarianism is discussed in light of theories of prosocial development., Die Motivation von Kindern, Ressourcen egalitär zu verteilen zeigt sich bei der Verteilung von positiven wie auch negativen Ressourcen zwischen sich selbst und anderen. In dieser Studie konnten 6- (n = 29) und 8-Jährige (n = 25) zwischen verschiedenen Verteilungen von positiven und negativen Ressourcen zwischen sich selbst und einem anderen Kind in einer Reihe von Spielen entscheiden. Das andere Kind war entweder ein Mitglied der Eigengruppe oder ein Mitglied einer Fremdgruppe. Als Ergebnis zeigte sich, dass 8-Jährige häufiger als 6-Jährige unabhängig von der Valenz der Ressource eine Gleichverteilung wählten. Des Weiteren teilten die 8-Jährigen häufiger als 6-Jährige positive Ressourcen egalitär zwischen sich und dem Kind der Fremdgruppe auf. Dieser Egalitarismus bei Kindern wird vor dem Hintergrund von Theorien zur Entwicklung prosozialen Verhaltens diskutiert., Z. Entwicklungspsychol. Paedagog. Psychol.;54(3)

Contact between members of different groups can help to reduce prejudice between groups, discrimination and violence. For this purpose, members of different groups have to meet on the basis of equal status pursuing cooperatively a common goal. In addition to direct physical contact, factors such as imagined contact, the knowledge about vicarious contact of another ingroup member, and contact by using electronic media have shown to be effective. Contact works because it reduces mutual anxieties, increases empathy for the other group, delivers information about the outgroup and reduces ethnocentric views on the ingroup and its norms as well as its behaviour routines. In order to ensure that contact experiences with single members of an outgroup generalize to prejudice about the whole outgroup, group memberships of the interaction partners have to be salient - if needed after a first phase of person-focused interaction. People, especially those with high prejudice, sometimes try to avoid contact. Negative contact increases prejudice, however, it happens less frequently compared to positive contact. Contact reduces prejudice in low-status groups to a lesser extent than in dominant groups. In addition, contact with members of a dominant group can undermine readiness for political mobilization against injustice in the low-status group. Contact can be promising if used as intervention strategy to reduce prejudice and escalation in conflict between groups: The paper presents examples of applications of contact interventions in schools and in housing policy, as a means to improve mutual understandings of the police and of minority groups, as well as after violent conflicts, such as war and civil war. Contact can help; however, it cannot be seen as a substitute for policies focussing on the reduction of injustice., Kontakt zwischen Mitgliedern unterschiedlicher Gruppen kann helfen, Vorurteile zwischen den Gruppen, Diskriminierung und Gewalt zu reduzieren. Dazu muss der Kontakt auf Augenhöhe stattfinden und die Mitglieder aus den unterschiedlichen Gruppen müssen kooperativ ein gemeinsames Ziel verfolgen. Neben direkten, physischen Begegnungen haben sich vorgestellte Kontakte, das Wissen um die Wahrnehmung von Kontakten durch andere Mitglieder der eigenen Gruppe und Kontakte unter Verwendung elektronischer Medien als effektiv erwiesen. Kontakt wirkt, weil er gegenseitige Ängste reduziert, die Empathie für die andere Gruppe steigert, Informationen über die andere Gruppe vermittelt und ethnozentrische Perspektiven auf die eigene Gruppe und ihre Normen und Verhaltensgewohnheiten relativiert. Damit Kontakte mit einzelnen Mitgliedern der fremden Gruppe auf die Vorurteile über die gesamte Gruppe generalisieren, muss die Gruppenzugehörigkeit der konkreten Interaktionspartner*innen bewusst sein - wenn nötig, nach einer ersten Phase personenbezogener Interaktionen. Menschen versuchen manchmal, Kontakte mit Fremden zu vermeiden. Das gilt vor allem für Menschen mit starken Vorurteilen. Kontakt ist nicht immer positiv. Negative Kontakte verstärken Vorurteile, sie sind allerdings eher seltener als positive Kontakte. Kontakt wirkt auf Mitglieder unterlegener Gruppen weniger stark vorurteilsreduzierend als auf Mitglieder dominanter Gruppen. Auch kann positiver Kontakt mit Mitgliedern dominanter Gruppen bei Mitgliedern unterlegener Gruppen dazu beitragen, deren politische Mobilisierung gegen Ungerechtigkeit zu unterminieren. Kontakt kann erfolgversprechend als Interventionsmechanismus eingesetzt werden, um Vorurteile und die negative Eskalation von Konflikten zwischen Gruppen abzumildern: Geschildert werden Beispiele für Einsatzmöglichkeiten von Kontaktprogrammen in der Schule und in der Ansiedlungspolitik, im Zuge der Förderung gegenseitigen Verständnisses von Polizei und Minderheiten und nach heftigen gewalttätigen Auseinandersetzungen, wie nach Kriegen oder Bürgerkriegen. Kontakt kann helfen, ersetzt aber nicht eine Politik des Ausgleichs von Ungerechtigkeiten.

Uncovering how inequality emerges from human interaction is imperative for just societies. Here we show that the way social groups interact in face-to-face situations can enable the emergence of disparities in the visibility of social groups. These disparities translate into members of specific social groups having fewer social ties than the average (i.e., degree inequality). We characterize group degree inequality in sensor-based data sets and present a mechanism that explains these disparities as the result of group mixing and group-size imbalance. We investigate how group sizes affect this inequality, thereby uncovering the critical size and mixing conditions in that a critical minority group emerges. If a minority group is larger than this critical size, it can be a well-connected, cohesive group; if it is smaller, minority cohesion widens degree inequality. Finally, we expose the under-representation of individuals in degree rankings due to mixing dynamics and propose a way to reduce such biases., 27 pages; 5 figures