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Cognitive Dissonance Theory seeks to understand inconsistency by situating it within individual cognition. By doing so, it overlooks the role of the social context in the experience and management of inconsistency and dissonance and fails to capture the processes through which it is negotiated when it appears. On the other side, the cognitive polyphasia hypothesis together with a dialogical approach on Social Representations provide a socioculturally situated, process-oriented understanding of inconsistency. In this paper, meat-paradox, the phenomenon of simultaneously declaring love and respect towards animals and also consuming animals, mainly studied through Cognitive Dissonance Theory, is used in order to highlight the merits of a sociocultural approach to inconsistency. Four relevant empirical examples from interviews and focus groups with meat-eaters and vegetarians in Cyprus are used to illustrate the approach. The examples illustrate how meat-eaters manage dissonance in ways that exhibit coexistence of contradictory representations and ways of thinking. Three different modalities of knowledge coexistence are identified, as proposed by cognitive polyphasia researchers: displacement, selective prevalence and hybridisation. We discuss the importance of a sociocultural approach to studying paradoxes, the epistemological and methodological implications of such a theorisation and we suggest other life contexts in which such an approach can be applied. 49 2 235 253

Continuous and increasing worldwide migration has sparked an intense social debate in multiple forums. Media play a key role in constructing, monitoring, and framing this debate. This study focuses on a qualitative analysis of the media debate around migration in Cyprus via (a) studying how migrants are represented in the Greek Cypriot Press and (b) assessing, the extent and the way in which favorable and unfavorable representations around migration are in dialogue. Toward this end, thematic and dialogical analyses were conducted on articles published in 4 daily Greek Cypriot newspapers between 2011 and 2015. Findings showed that migrants were constructed in economic (e.g., as assets to economy) and humanitarian (e.g.. as victims) terms in the favorable representations, whereas in the unfavorable ones, migrants were constructed primarily as a threat to the local economy, to security, and to the nation's culture and existence. In terms of the relation between the 2. favorable representations engaged more clearly and in more detail with alternative representations of migrants than unfavorable ones. Favorable representations focused more on countering negative representations of migrants while unfavorable representations focused more on countering negative representations of the authors (e.g., being racist), through disclaimers. Nevertheless, authors of favorable representations managed alternatives by stigmatizing those who held opposing views and did not elaborate on their arguments. These findings speak to the superficial and polarizing character of the debate and point to implications for further research on the relation between the different stances on migration in other forums such as social media and TV.

In this introduction to the special issue on psychology and human mobility, we begin by outlining the particularities of the European sociopolitical context to which the studies included in this special issue refer. We discuss internal European mobility, overseas migration to the European Union, the refugee ‘crisis’, and its sociopolitical implications for the European Union. Subsequently, we discuss the ways that the different studies relate to and extend existing literature to new directions, focusing on three different facets of immigration addressed by the studies: (a) the ideological resources used in discourse to achieve certain political ends in relation to immigration, (b) the ways that a dialogical engagement with the social other is established or blocked, and (c) the perspectives of mobile people themselves in experiencing different forms of immigration. As a conclusion, we argue that the studies contribute to the field of human mobility by offering a methodologically plural, processual, and critical analysis of immigration and by showing four different directions as ways to advance the field further. These are: (a) the importance of understanding processes rather than states in the study of immigration, (b) the value of studying discursive practices but also moving beyond discourse to achieve methodological pluralism, (c) the need to engage with multiple perspectives involved in immigration and to understand how they relate to each other, and (d) the need to problematize the taken-for-granted categories that researchers use in studying immigration (e.g., locals/migrants, us/them).

The paper outlines a cultural–psychological interpretation of the current European societies’ socio-institutional crisis. To this end, preliminarily, the cultural psychological view of social behaviour is outlined, focusing on the idea that socio-political choices depend on how people make sense of their world. Second, the paper provides an interpretation of the current socio-political European scenario of crisis, based on the main results of a recent study that has mapped the cultural dynamics underpinning some European countries. The interpretation focuses on two complementary facets: on the one hand, the lack of symbolic resources (defined: semiotic capital) enabling people to perceive the collective dimension of life as a lived, subjectively relevant fact of experience; on the other hand, the relevance of a cultural form (defined: paranoid belongingness) that channels a trajectory of sensemaking consisting of the affective connotation of otherness in terms of threat and enemy. Third, the paper deepens the interplay between these cultural dynamics and the social, political and economic conditions that may have been triggered by them. In that perspective, the function of semiotic regulation played by the enemization of the other is highlighted. The conclusive part of the work is devoted to discuss implications the analysis suggests for policy makers.

A correction update is attached., This paper reports the framework, method and main findings of an analysis of cultural milieus in 4 European countries (Estonia, Greece, Italy, and UK). The analysis is based on a questionnaire applied to a sample built through a two-step procedure of post-hoc random selection from a broader dataset based on an online survey. Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis±a combination of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. We identified 5 symbolic universes, that correspond to basic, embodied, affect-laden, generalized worldviews. People in this study see the world as either a) an ordered universe; b) a matter of interpersonal bond; c) a caring society; d) consisting of a niche of belongingness; e) a hostile place (others' world). These symbolic universes were also interpreted as semiotic capital: they reflect the capacity of a place to foster social and civic development. Moreover, the distribution of the symbolic universes, and therefore social and civic engagement, is demonstrated to be variable across the 4 countries in the analysis. Finally, we develop a retrospective reconstruction of the distribution of symbolic universes as well as the interplay between their current state and past, present and future socio-institutional scenarios., The study is part of the Re.Cri.Re Project (www.recrire.eu), that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 649436, peer-reviewed

This paper presents a thematic analysis of a media criticism against the European Union (EU) during the so-called 2015 refugee crisis in one member-state, the Republic of Cyprus. Three inter-related negative representations of Europe were identified in the Greek-Cypriot newspapers studied at the time: inhuman Europe, fragmented Europe and Europe as perpetrator. All three represented Europe as unable or unwilling to deal with a crisis that Europe itself partly caused or reproduced. This media criticism focused on questioning Europe across pessimistic lines without offering or considering alternatives, thus served to reproduce the EU status quo. The paper discusses the implications of these findings in understanding the role of the media in the con-current skepticism towards EU in other member-states. 26 1 105 119

peer-reviewed The relationship between lay theories of gender and attitudes to abortion policy has received minimal empirical attention. An ongoing theoretical debate in the psychological essentialism literature queries whether biological attributions causally influence social attitudes or primarily function to justify existing attitudinal commitments. The current research used the context of a national referendum on abortion in Ireland to investigate whether endorsement of certain gender theories is contingent on their rhetorical construction as supporting particular attitudes to abortion. Two experimental studies were conducted online in the three weeks preceding the Irish abortion referendum. The studies tested whether participants would adapt their causal gender beliefs after reading that biological (Study 1; N = 348) or social (Study 2; N = 241) accounts of gender supported or conflicted with their intended vote in the referendum. Both studies showed the opposite effect: causal gender theories presented as conflicting with participants’ voting intentions subsequently showed elevated support, relative to theories that purportedly aligned with participants’ voting intentions. While results confirm that lay theories of gender are mutable, the direction of effects does not support the proposition that gender theories are selectively endorsed to support existing socio-political attitudes to abortion. Potential mechanisms for the results observed are discussed

Media offer people ways of understanding mental health and illness, shaping their attitudes and behaviour towards it. Yet, the literature on media representations of depression is limited and fails to illuminate sufficiently the content of representations. In times of financial crisis, the prevalence of depression is increased and the particular meanings associated with depression are widely diffused. To unpack these meanings, we focused on the Greek-Cypriot press during the financial crisis of 2013. Two-hundred and three articles from seven widely circulating newspapers were thematically analysed. Two antithetical themes of representations of depression were identified: Biomedical Depression, which constructed depression as a biologically grounded illness treated through medical/pharmaceutical means, and Everyday Depression, which portrayed depression as something normal, encountered in anyone, attributed to psychosocial factors (e.g. the financial crisis), and treated through self-management. Biomedical Depression reflects a widespread medical and deterministic understanding of depression. Nevertheless, this understanding has not overridden, as the literature suggests, references to individual agency, which are present in the Everyday Depression and the more normalising understanding of depression it expresses. We argue, however, that both themes promote an individualistic understanding of depression, placing individuals in a tense position of being responsible for a condition perceived to be outside their control.

Migration has gradually become a regular topic covered in the national and local Greek-Cypriot media. National media had to accommodate significant changes related to Cyprus’ gradual transformation in the 1990s from a country of emigration to a host country. Notably, from 2012 to the drafting of this report, a period of financial turbulence for the Republic of Cyprus (hereinafter RoC), net migration turned negative, as the country exported more migrants compared to the number of migrants arriving in the country. Despite exceptions, Greek-Cypriot media have thus far been found to infuse with their coverage and reporting, anti-migration sentiments and ideologies. Anti-migrant reporting took place against the backdrop of restrictive migration policies (Trimikliniotis, 2013), inadequate integration policies and practices, including significant shortcomings of the asylum system. In this context, mainstream media and the Press specifically, continue to play a key role in constructing, monitoring, and framing the migration debate in the country, reflecting and/or reinforcing predominant ideologies and perceptions. For this reason, it is important to understand how the media report, frame and analyse migration issues in this specific social context and reflect on the implications of these representations and their diffusion in the society. This report sketches the ways that Greek-Cypriot newspapers addressed the issue of migration between the second half of 2011 to the end of 2015. It focuses on a period marked with financial turmoil for RoC, from July 2011–a year before the country applied for aid at the European Stability Mechanism (ESM)-to December 2015, when the so-called refugee crisis, which unfolded earlier on, was still at its peak4. The aim of this report is twofold. It firstly provides the reader with information about the visibility of the issue in the newspapers studied, for example it presents the number of articles published on issues related to migration and the specific topics that these articles covered along with information on whether their focus was on national matters, international and/or European. Within this section, the report provides information regarding the refugee crisis (2014-2015) and discusses differences with the earlier reporting period (2011-2013). Secondly, the report presents the pro-migrant/anti-migrant debate by exploring favourable and unfavourable arguments towards migration and migrants in the newspapers studied.Specific references are again made to the refugee crisis and how it affected the content of the pro-migration/anti-migration debate.

The paper outlines a cultural–psychological interpretation of the current European societies’ socio-institutional crisis. To this end, preliminarily, the cultural psychological view of social behaviour is outlined, focusing on the idea that socio-political choices depend on how people make sense of their world. Second, the paper provides an interpretation of the current socio-political European scenario of crisis, based on the main results of a recent study that has mapped the cultural dynamics underpinning some European countries. The interpretation focuses on two complementary facets: on the one hand, the lack of symbolic resources (defined: semiotic capital) enabling people to perceive the collective dimension of life as a lived, subjectively relevant fact of experience; on the other hand, the relevance of a cultural form (defined: paranoid belongingness) that channels a trajectory of sensemaking consisting of the affective connotation of otherness in terms of threat and enemy. Third, the paper deepens the interplay between these cultural dynamics and the social, political and economic conditions that may have been triggered by them. In that perspective, the function of semiotic regulation played by the enemization of the other is highlighted. The conclu- sive part of the work is devoted to discuss implications the analysis suggests for policy makers.

In this paper, we analyse discourses about Europe in Greek debates about immigration and citizenship and highlight the complexities of “Europeanness” as a symbolic resource for argumentation in these debates. Our data consist of lay discourses from 2 rounds of online public deliberation (2009–2010 and 2015) about a controversial new citizenship law in Greece. Our analysis shows that Europe is an ambivalent category. On the one hand, Europe symbolises progress, but, on the other hand, it is also constructed in terms of decline and “contamination” by multiculturalism. Further, our analysis shows that the category of Europe can be mobilised in contradictory ways, in order to support arguments for and against citizenship rights for migrants. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ways in which constructions of Europe are implicated in processes of othering and inclusion in the context of current immigration debates. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 27 2 158 168 Cited By :1; Export Date: 13 July 2017

While the issue of power within the research relationship has been evoking constructive discussions for over two decades in qualitative research, existing approaches fail to understand power both as macro-socially determined and interpersonally negotiated in the micro-space of research communication. In this article, I use ideas from Social Representations Theory (SRT) to conceptualize the macro-social conditions that give meaning to power asymmetries expressed through the identities in the micro-space of the research relationship and to examine how these identities and their power asymmetries mediate research communication. Three instances of research between a local researcher and immigrant participants are analyzed. Analysis shows that the identities of a Greek researcher and immigrant participants introduce power asymmetries in the research communication due to the meanings they carry in the Greek social context. These asymmetries mediate communication by evoking reflection, challenge, resistance and reversal of positions. It is suggested that this double micro and macro focus achieved through SRT contributes to qualitative methodology by inviting important questions regarding data construction (under which identities are data constructed, how are they constructed and why are they constructed in such a way) and by advancing an epistemologically reflective stance to research. Further, the present approach contributes to SRT by advancing a power-inclusive understanding of interpersonal dynamics, which is considered underdeveloped by SR theorists. © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav. 20 3 358 374 Cited By :1; Export Date: 13 July 2017