Beyond contagion: Social identity processes in involuntary social influence

行为是如何以及为什么在人与人之间传播的？特别是，侵略和暴力行为是如何传播的？当骚乱像2011年那样在伦敦开始时，为什么它们随后又发生在伯明翰、曼彻斯特和利物浦？解决这些问题的最常见方法之一是通过“传染”的概念。其核心思想是，特别是在群体中，仅仅接触其他人的行为就会导致观察者以同样的方式行事。“传染”现在被用来解释一切，从“基本”反应，如微笑和打哈欠（仅仅看到某人打哈欠或微笑的行为就可以引起另一个人的同样反应）到复杂的现象，如金融市场的行为，当然还有骚乱。更重要的是，关于简单反应（如打哈欠）的“传染”实验室实验，有助于支持“传染”解释应用于复杂现象（如骚乱）的可解释性。尽管这种广泛接受，“传染”解释在解释行为传播方面存在重大问题。特别是，这种传播是有边界的。如果男人对一个性别歧视的笑话微笑，女权主义者也会对男人的微笑做出回应吗？如果人们在一个城镇发生骚乱，为什么他们在一些城镇也发生骚乱，而不是其他城镇？例如，2011年，骚乱从伦敦蔓延到伯明翰、曼彻斯特和利物浦，但没有蔓延到谢菲尔德、利兹或格拉斯哥。“传染”解释不能回答这些问题，因为它们假设传播是自动的。他们没有考虑到发送者和接收者之间的社会关系。我们提出了一个新的帐户的行为传输的基础上社会心理学的社会认同的方法。这表明，影响过程受到群体边界和群体内容的限制：我们更多地受到内群体成员的影响，而不是外群体成员的影响，我们更多地受到与群体规范一致而不是矛盾的影响。因此，社会认同方法非常适合解释影响力的社会限度，无论是对“基本”现象还是对骚乱。为了推进理论理解和实际干预，我们的研究将在多个层面上对传播过程进行社会认同分析。因此，本研究项目的目的和目标如下：首先，我们将对“基本”行为（打哈欠，发痒）进行一系列实验研究，以检查暴露于行为的影响是否取决于观察者和行为者是否是同一个群体成员。我们还将研究“复杂”行为（攻击和骚乱），看看（1）观察者更受影响时，演员是内群体成员;（2）观察者更受其他观察者的反应时，这些也是内群体成员的影响;（3）复制他人的意愿取决于他们的行为是否符合观察者群体规范。第二，我们将研究2011年英国骚乱期间城市混乱的蔓延。我们已经获得了《卫报》/伦敦经济学院阅读骚乱研究的全部数据集的特殊访问权（在事件发生后立即对参与者进行了270次采访）。这沿着其他次要来源（如详细的犯罪数字），将使我们能够研究这些骚乱的蔓延在多大程度上与先前骚乱者的共同认同感有关（也就是说，那些骚乱者在他们之前的骚乱者身上“看到了自己”，而那些缺乏这种认同感的人不太可能骚乱）。第三，我们将利用我们的研究结果，就心理传播的性质和解决这些问题的可行性展开更广泛的辩论。活动将包括举办研讨会，使研究人员、从业人员（例如，警方）以及地方和国家政府的决策者，以解决我们如何能够减轻骚乱和暴力的蔓延。

How and why do behaviours spread from person to person? In particular, how does aggression and violent behaviour spread? When, as in 2011, riots began in London, why did they then occur in Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool? One of the most common ways of addressing such issues is through the notion of 'contagion'. The core idea is that, particularly in crowds, mere exposure to the behaviour of others leads observers to behave in the same way. 'Contagion' is now used to explain everything from 'basic' responses such as smiling and yawning (where the mere act of witnessing someone yawn or smile can invoke the same response in another) to complex phenomena like the behaviour of financial markets and, of course, rioting. What is more, laboratory experiments on the 'contagion' of simple responses (such as yawning) serve to underpin the plausibility of 'contagion' accounts as applied to complex phenomena (such as rioting).Despite this widespread acceptance, the 'contagion' account has major problems in explaining the spread of behaviours. In particular, there are boundaries to such spread. If men smile at a sexist joke, will feminists also smile in response to the men's smiles? If people riot in one town, why is it that they also riot in some towns but not others? For example, in 2011, disturbances spread from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool but they did not spread to Sheffield, Leeds or Glasgow. 'Contagion' explanations cannot answer such questions because they assume that transmission is automatic. They do not take account of the social relations between the transmitter and receiver. We propose a new account of behavioural transmission based on the social identity approach in social psychology. This suggests that influence processes are limited by group boundaries and group content: we are more influenced by ingroup members than by outgroup members, and we are more influenced by that which is consonant with rather than contradictory to group norms. The social identity approach is therefore ideally suited to explaining the social limits to influence, both for 'basic' phenomena and rioting. In order to advance both theoretical understanding and practical interventions, our research will develop a social identity analysis of transmission processes at multiple levels. Accordingly, the aims and objectives of this research project are as follows: First, we will conduct a series of experimental studies on 'basic' behaviours (yawning, itching) to examine whether the effects of being exposed to a behaviour depend on observers and actors being fellow ingroup members. We will also examine 'complex' behaviours (aggression and rioting) to see if (1) observers are more influenced when the actors are ingroup members; (2) observers are more influenced by the responses of other observers when these are also ingroup members; (3) willingness to copy others depends upon whether their behaviour is consonant with observer group norms. Second, we will examine the spread of urban disorder during the 2011 English riots. We have been granted special access to the full data-set from the Guardian/LSE 'Reading the Riots' study (270 interviews with participants carried out immediately following the events). This, along with other secondary sources (such as detailed crime figures), will allow us to examine the extent to which the spread of these riots was linked to a sense of shared identity with those who had rioted previously (that is, those who rioted 'saw themselves' in those who rioted before them, and those who lacked such a sense were less likely to riot). Third, we will use our findings to generate a wider debate about the nature of psychological transmission and the practicalities of addressing them. Activities will include workshops which will bring together researchers, practitioners (e.g., the police) and policy-makers in local and national government to address how we can mitigate against the spread of riots and violence.