Browsing by Author "Quayle, Michael Frank."

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Barriers to the retention of Black African students in post graduate psychology.
(2009) Baig, Quraisha.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
No abstract available.
‘Being romantic’, agency and the (re)production and (re)negotiation of traditional gender roles.
(2018) Human, Nicola Glen.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
Romance is a ubiquitous, Western cultural context which is constructed as an important tool for relationship success. However, research by gender scholars on romance as a site for gender enactment has been limited. Therefore, this study investigated the way that romance and romantic gendered identities may be produced or resisted, and investigated how ‘being romantic’ may produce affordances for particular gendered identities and limit others. This study took an ethnographic discursive approach and five middleclass, heterosexual South African couples were recruited to take part. Each participant was asked to plan a ‘romantic event’ for their partner and was interviewed multiple times in different contexts. A total of 25 interviews were conducted over eight months in 2013. The transcribed interviews were analysed using a discursive approach to investigate how romance, masculinity and femininity were constructed and performed. The study’s theoretical model viewed the romantic context as providing a range of situated affordances and discursive scripts for identity production, and explored how romantic masculinity and femininity were co-constructed as different but complementary gender identities. The findings suggested that romance was differentiated according to time, effort, and flexibility in deviating from the discursive scripts that govern it. Three forms of romance emerged, and the more rigid the discursive boundaries, the more romantic it was produced as being and thus as offering the best access to emotional intimacy. This emotional intimacy was positioned as being central to relationship maintenance, especially within the context of marriage. It was found that romantic masculinity was characterised by chivalry and the active orchestration of romance. In contrast, participants struggled to operationalise romantic femininity, especially in ways that allowed for active romancing of the man. Some romantic feminine agency was presented in resistance to this gendered norm, but appeared to need more justificatory work and more effort in its execution in comparison to that of the men participants. 6 By studying the co-production of masculinity and femininity as a product of the romantic context, a key finding has emerged. It has been argued elsewhere that women are responsible for the emotional housekeeping of their relationships, and this was evident in the data as well. However, this analysis argues that the narrow, rigid scope of the situational discursive scripts of grand dates limit the ways that women can take the initiative to enact them in meaningful ways. Thus, our modern understanding of romance places women in a dilemmatical position: they are expected to do relationship-maintenance, but the greater comparative effort and the stigmatising effect on both the active romantic woman and her partner means that women must rely on men to produce it. While it is possible to re-imagine romance, until we can collectively reduce this normative pressure, we will be strong-armed into re-enacting romance in ways that support patriarchal, old-fashioned gender identities.
The disobedient naïve psychologist : deviating from predicted attributions in a social context.
(2009) Naidoo, Evasen.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
Classical attribution theorists developed models of causal attribution that reflected their belief that people were primarily interested in attribution accuracy. These models did not consider contextual factors such as relationships and societal norms which resulted in the emergence of several empirical puzzles many of which are related to the use of consensus information. This study investigates whether the puzzle of the differential treatment of consensus information can be solved if it is assumed that people are primarily concerned with social features of the attribution setting rather than strict attribution accuracy. This study experimentally tests the role of key aspects of the social context such as the impact of social strategies in Kelley’s model of attribution to explore whether some of its empirical anomalies could have their origins in the social aspects of attribution in research contexts. The study found that participants were 2.63 times more likely to provide ‘inaccurate’ responses when there was a risk that the accurate answer would be socially disruptive. Findings from this study suggest that participants prioritise the implications of the social context over attribution accuracy.
The effect of changes in group boundary permeability on the stereotype threat or lift effect.
(2010) Naidoo, Karmini.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
Stereotype Threat and Lift have been well established in demonstrating the effects that stereotypes have on task performance outcomes. However, these phenomena inadequately explain why not all in group members succumb to threat and lift effects alike. It also fails to account for additional social identities which may influence the stereotype-performance relationship. It is anticipated that Social Identity Theory's tenets of in group identification and group boundary permeability may have a great deal to offer in explaining stereotype effects. It is predicted that the stereotypes invoked would interact with perceptions of boundary permeability to bring about differential group identification patterns, which would influence stereotype threat and lift effects on task performance. Therefore, the research study at hand aims to apply Social Identity Theory to Stereotype Threat and Lift. The research question was operationalised by means of a factorial experimental design in which perceptions of group boundary permeability were manipulated and group stereotypes were invoked to manipulate group status. Thereafter, performance outcomes were noted. The findings indicate that group boundary permeability and group status influenced in group identification but not performance outcomes. Race played a large and unforeseen role in explaining many of the present findings. The results suggest strong reversals in expected performance outcomes, which could largely be explained by the effects of racial factors within the South African context, highlighting the importance of accounting for extra-experimental identities in stereotyped situations. Of key significance is that participants often responded strategically to stereotypes by engaging with extra-experimental identities and identity resources most likely to enhance performance outcomes.
An exploratory investigaton of stereotype categories and content amongst South African university students.
(2013) Oliphant, Rethabile.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
The overall purpose of this study was to uncover, from among a sample of university students, naturally occurring, salient and less potentially harmful group categories and stereotype content. The reason for this was to learn more about which group categories and associated stereotype content ordinary South Africans naturally consider to be salient or important, rather than those group categories and stereotype content that South Africa’s academic establishment may unduly focus on. This was done because of a suspicion, which itself was based on an extensive review of the history of South African stereotype research, that the group categories and associated stereotype content of race and gender may be the subject of an undue focus on the part of South African academia. The results generated by this study were to be used to supply future stereotype threat studies in South Africa with accurate, relevant and specifically less potentially harmful group categorisations and associated stereotype content. The research questions of this study were posed at two hierarchical levels, the ‘higher’, more abstract “groups of people in South Africa” and the ‘lower’, more local, “groups of people on campus”. The reason for this was to learn how the manipulation of hierarchical group salience conditions would affect the group categories generated by the participants and the stereotype contents about those groups. The results of the study suggest that while the category of race seems to be the most salient or important among the participants, the category of gender was not salient at all. This occurred at both the national and campus hierarchical levels. The broad categories of economic status and social class were the second most salient, but only at the national level. There was some evidence of the effects that manipulating hierarchical group salience conditions had on group category and stereotype content generation. Certain group categories and stereotype content were generated exclusively at either the national or campus levels, and when they were generated at both levels, there was evidence to suggest that they were generated in slightly different ways.
Exploring "internationalization" in political psychology : a bibliometric social network analysis exploring internationalization within the International Society for Political Psychology.
Pautz, Nikolas.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
This research set out to describe the level of internationalization that exists within the journal, Political Psychology. The primary way in which this was done was through exploring the patterns of coauthorship between authors from different countries who have published together. The terms ‘WEIRD’ (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) and ‘non-WEIRD’ were adopted from Heinrich et al., (2010) and used in this research to differentiate between ‘Western/core’ countries (WEIRD) and ‘non-Western/periphery’ (non-WEIRD). Bibliographic data was used to extract and produce social network maps of academic co-author collaborations that have occurred within Political Psychology since 1985 (when the journal was first uploaded and stored on the Thompson Reuters Web of Knowledge database) until the data was collected in 2013. These patterns of collaboration were analysed using social network analysis, and it was found that, on average, much of the scientific knowledge published by the journal originated from WEIRD countries, particularly the USA, Canada, and the UK. Additionally, WEIRD authors generally preferred to collaborate with other WEIRD authors. When authors were involved in an international collaboration, non-WEIRD authors also preferred to collaborate with WEIRD authors, but when collaboration between these two categories of authors took place, WEIRD authors were more likely to have first author status on the article as well as being more likely to publish multiple times. It is likely that these structures of collaboration restrict the ability of non-WEIRD authors to produce their own relevant knowledge within the field of political psychology, in that their collaborations are limited and usually mediated by international connections. However, the fact that there was no significant difference in degree centrality between WEIRD and non-WEIRD authors suggests there was equal activity and opportunities to collaborate with other authors in the network regardless of an authors’ categorization as WEIRD or non-WEIRD. This finding also suggests that non-WEIRD nations are not in the periphery of this network of authors, as well as lending evidence to a state of non-dependency on WEIRD nations. Despite these findings, the patterns of authorship of publications in the journal highlights the possible risk that some knowledge disseminated in Political Psychology favours WEIRD interests and may not be globally relevant and applicable.
Exploring movement of embodied, enacted, and inscribed knowledge through policy consultation: a case study of a mental health policy consultation process in South Africa.
(2018) Marais, Debra Leigh.; Petersen, Inge.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
This study is concerned with the intersection of knowledge and policy in the context of mental health system challenges in a developing country. Its focus is specifically on the way in which different forms of knowledge, from multiple sources, move through a policy consultation process to inform mental health policy. Policymakers tasked with developing mental health policies must balance a number of competing demands, including the need to develop policies that are applicable on a national level, while simultaneously addressing the idiosyncratic and contextual particularities associated with mental ill health at individual and local levels. Marrying the principles of evidence-based policymaking, with its focus on what works, with the principles of consultative policymaking, with its focus on what works for whom, means finding ways to integrate multiple knowledge inputs to incorporate these into policy decisions. In this sense, policymaking represents something of a knowledge problem for policymakers. In the South African legislative context, public participation in policymaking is taken as a given, with little guidance specifying how such processes should be conducted, nor whether or how the inputs from such processes are used in policy decisions. The consultation process around first mental health policy was the focus of this case study. The aim was to trace the movement of knowledge inputs through the consultation summits into policy outputs. Research suggests that certain forms of experiential knowledge may not be amenable to being captured in policy consultation processes. This study thus used a) conceptual schema of knowledge functions in policy as its analytical framework. This schema distinguishes between three phases of knowledge embodied, enacted, and inscribed that can be transformed between phases through various kinds of action. It provided a lens through which to trace the enactment and movement of embodied (experiential and evidence-based) knowledge through the consultation process, to determine the extent to which this form of knowledge was transferred into the inscribed knowledge of consultation recommendations and policy outputs. Data included mental health policy documents, reports and audio recordings from the provincial and national consultation summits, and key informant interviews. Thematic framework and thematic content analyses were conducted using the embodied-enacted-inscribed analytical framework. Findings revealed that no substantive changes were made to the mental health policy following the consultation summits, and suggest that the consultation summits had minimal impact on policy. In particular, there do not seem to have been systematic processes for facilitating and capturing knowledge inputs, or for transferring these inputs through increasing levels of summarisation during the consultation process. knowledge was not followed through to be incorporated into consultation and policy outputs. The implications of the findings for mental health policy consultation in South Africa are discussed. This is the first study to document, in depth, a significant part of the consultation process around mental health policy in South Africa, using the embodied-enacted-inscribed framework to explore how knowledge inputs informed policy. In doing so, it draws attention to the unique challenges in reconciling the contextual detail of embodied knowledge with the abstract generalisability of inscribed (policy) knowledge an undertaking that has particular relevance for mental health policy consultation. The study highlights the importance of designing participatory processes that enable optimal use of knowledge inputs in these enacted spaces, in order to align assumptions about the value of policy consultation with consultation practice, as well as to strengthen the policy development-consultation implementation link.
Gender and parenting : the (re)production and (re)negotiation of gender identity in the context of first time parenting.
(2016) Forder-Eagles, Poppy Jacqueline.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
This study set out to investigate the ways in which first‐time parents construct their gender identity as they grapple with a new addition to the family soon after the birth of their first child. Two white middle‐class heterosexual couples participated in the semi‐structured interviews. The study took a social constructionist perspective and the data analysis followed a critical discourse analysis approach. The broad findings are fivefold: competing ideologies persist within these comparatively modern couples’ discourses; equality is a disruption to gender identity; the construction of motherhood compared to fatherhood is asymmetrically evaluative; for these mothers, the transition from non‐parent to parent is a more embodied experience; and the transitional period of becoming a parent provides both opportunity and resistance towards new versions of gender identity.
The impact of inter-group conflict on stereotype threat or lift.
(2011) Seunanden, Tamlyn Carmin.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
Stereotype threat and lift occur when a negative or positive group stereotype results in a shift in task performance for group members. Social identity theory (SIT) explains that the socio-structural variables influence the group members’ strategy to maintain a positive group identity and predicts that perceived intergroup conflict would interact with status to affect their experience of the stereotype and potentially impact on stereotype threat and lift on test performance. The experimental design manipulated the task-related group status of science students (assigning 122 students to high status, low status or control conditions) and their perceived intergroup conflict (high and low) with an out-group of humanities students whom they believed to be real but were actually simulated. The high and low status were manipulated using test instructions that activated the stereotype that the science group compared a humanities group either possessed an analytic cognitive ability that was required for test performance and post degree success (high status) or possessed an alternate flexible cognitive ability that was not required for post degree success (low status); whilst the status control condition excluded a diagnostic comparison of cognitive ability. The inter-group conflict and cooperation were experimentally manipulated by presenting hostile or cooperative feedback using intergroup matrices adapted from Tajfel (1981) in a computer simulated interaction with a virtual humanities out-group. The change in status (stereotype threat and lift) and conflict were measured using the Ravens Advanced Progressive matrices (APM) which was presented as the test of performance which measured post degree success. The APM was used as a dependent measure of the group level stereotype-related differences in performance for high conflict-threat, high conflict lift, high conflict control, low conflict threat, low conflict lift and low conflict control conditions. The results showed that status and conflict interact to impact on test performance outcomes of the science students. Specifically, the change in stereotype threat is reversed when science students receive cooperative feedback from the humanities out-group.
Mapping internationalization in research collaboration in the international society of political psychology.
(2017) Mhlongo, Brian.; Quayle, Michael Frank.; Nwoye, Augustine.
This research explored internationalization in research collaboration in the international society of political psychology (ISPP) by mapping patterns collaboration in conference presentations at the ISPP annual meetings 2006-2014. The pattern of international collaboration was assessed by exploring co-authorship between authors from different countries who have published together. The terms ‘WEIRD’ (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) and ‘non-WEIRD’ were adopted from Heinrich et al., (2010) and used differentiate between ‘developed or core’ countries (WEIRD) and ‘developing or periphery’ (non-WEIRD) countries. These patterns of international collaboration were analysed using social network analysis and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). It was found that most ISPP conferences were attended by authors from WEIRD countries, mainly dominated by USA and UK; and fewer authors from non-WEIRD countries like Nigeria, Costa-Rica and Indonesia. As far as international research collaboration is concerned, findings showed that authors from WEIRD countries collaborate with each other, with a limited collaboration between authors from WEIRD and non-WEIRD countries; and no collaboration between authors from different non-WEIRD countries was found. The trend in this research is that the structures of collaboration allow for WEIRD authors to produce their own relevant knowledge within the field of political psychology, whilst restricting the non-WEIRD authors to do likewise. Furthermore, Non-WEIRD authors’ collaboration is limited and mediated by WEIRD author’s connection in the network. The degree of centrality showed a significant difference between WEIRD and non-WEIRD authors, suggesting that WEIRD authors had more opportunities for collaboration than non-WEIRD authors. However, the non-WEIRD authors are not entirely excluded or left outside in the periphery of this network, but they do interact with the WEIRD authors as indicated by the betweenness and closeness of centrality. In addition, this means that non-WEIRD countries are not completely dependent on WEIRD authors for the production of knowledge in political psychology, instead, they are also contributing to knowledge production by means of collaboration with WEIRD authors. Overall, this study proves that internationalization in research collaboration is not yet fully accomplished within the ISPP due to stringent limitations in the collaborative patterns between WEIRD and non-WEIRD authors.
Older men’s experiences of masculine identities across the lifespan.
(2023) Zank, Andrea.; Lindegger, Graham Charles.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
The primary focus of this research was to investigate how men have experienced their masculinity across their life journeys as men, as revealed in retrospective accounts of life transitions. The research especially sought to understand how masculine identities were narrated and negotiated across the lifespan in retrospective accounts as, to date, most research on masculinity has adopted a cross-sectional perspective that does not consider the challenges of ageing in producing and maintaining a masculine identity across the lifespan. With a theoretical framework combining thematic analysis (TA) and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), and honouring the idiographic commitment of IPA to small samples of very detailed interviews, multiple in-depth narrative interviews were undertaken with 10 men who were 60 years or older. These volunteers were sampled with purposive and convenience snowballing. Although the research took place in a specific context of South Africa in which the population is highly diverse and complex, the sample was relatively homogenous due to the research (1) an intentional focus on exploring ageing for men who previously had access to access to resources and the (2) the location of the study in retirement villages that are still racially homogenous a quarter of a century after apartheid. In-depth, repeated, partly unstructured interviews were used to access retrospective accounts of masculine identities across the lifespan. Five areas were focused on in the analysis: productivity along the lifespan, family / relationships, health in the present and over the lifespan, ageing and living in Africa. The men defined themselves by traditional masculine identities and did not freely volunteer non-traditional masculine experiences. Their accounts of masculinity were oriented to the lifespan social clock, in other words, to accounting for achieving various milestones (or not) of masculinity on schedule (or not). Although these older men did not fulfil the hegemonic or dominant ideals, such as being young and virile, they did not present themselves as being invisible or genderless. Various strategies were used to protect, maintain and reframe their masculine identities, for example, stoic acceptance, denial and relying on their wives to bridge the gap, such as accessing medical intervention, while the men were able to continue Mostly the men presented their masculine identities as being consistent with dominant norms and unchallenged (denying age-related decline by omission). Where the men spoke of being in subjugated positions they often followed this account in various ways in which the subjugated position was discounted and their hegemonic status re-established by emphasising hegemonic qualities that they possessed or subscribed to. In the present study, men avoided discussing the inevitability of old age when recounting their life journey as men retrospectively. However, the perspective of time is still an important concept in understanding how they produced their masculinity. The present study shows that social expectations for masculine identities are dynamic, evolve over the lifespan and are sensitive to the “social clock”, in other words, to normative expectations about what men should do and achieve at different life stages. Men are pressured to achieve masculine developmental social expectations on time, despite it becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the accepted standards of hegemonic and dominant masculinities. The implications for understanding masculinity in relation to ageing are discussed.
Re-imagining possibilities for minimal groups : extending the two-group paradigm.
(2014) Titlestad, Kim.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
By stripping the social setting of many of its key features – including social interaction – the minimal group studies aimed to discover the basic conditions under which ingroup bias would occur. The studies found that group categorisation was sufficient for the development of ingroup favouritism and outgroup discrimination. This key finding led to the development of the social identity perspective – a theory of intergroup behaviour which is highly influential in social psychology. However, the minimal group studies were only conducted in a two-group setting, reflecting a general emphasis on dichotomous intergroup settings in social psychology. Furthermore, the removal of interaction from the social setting, in the pursuit of experimental control, reflects a view of human beings as passive conformers rather than active agents in the development of social norms. The aim of this research was to extend the minimal group paradigm in order to study a multigroup setting that reaches beyond the two-group group paradigm that has dominated traditional research. In particular, the inclusion of a third group illuminated the role of a middle status group which has been largely ignored. Second, by allowing social interaction, which is usually excluded due to lack of experimental control, the role of human agency and creativity in the formation of norms could be studied. It was found that it was within the middle status group that the strength of ingroup bias begins to weaken as group members strategically attempt to manage their position in the middle. Furthermore, particular behavioural trends accelerated or decelerated over time as they gained or lost momentum. While ingroup bias slowed over time for the middle status group, outward giving to the high status group increased. This finding exemplifies the two-way interaction between the social environment and the social actors within this environment. Finally, an unexpected outcome of this research was the divergence between the psychological experience and social reality in such a way that an intergroup alliance between the low and high status group (when a middle status group was included) was reported when in fact the exact opposite was true.
The reliability and validity of a social identity inventory in the South African tertiary education context.
(2011) Rambally, Letitia.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
Social Identity Theory’s (SIT) explanations of psychological and group phenomena have been endorsed repeatedly through numerous laboratory experiments (to cite a few Tajfel, 1978; Tajfel, 1982; Turner, & Oakes, 1997; Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994; Ellmers, Spears & Doosje, 2002; Hogg & Cooper, 2007). However many studies applying the framework include only a small subset of the key SIT constructs that form an integral part of the overall model (Abrams & Brown, 1978; Turner & Brown, 1978). Consequently, there are only a few measures of these socio-structural variables that are widely available internationally and this problem is more pronounced in the local South African context. This research study thus aimed to construct a reliable and valid measure of fundamental SIT constructs and pilot them on naturally occurring groups within the tertiary education context. The SIT constructs included in the scale were: in-group/ out-group closeness; in-group/out-group identification; group permeability; stability; legitimacy; conflict; intergroup differentiation; and in-group/out-group homogeneity. A sample of n = 510 university students were recruited for participation in one of two study conditions. In condition one participants’ sex (male or female) was the salient social identity for intergroup comparison. In condition two participants’ student identity (undergraduates or postgraduates) was made salient. These study conditions were chosen because the groups that were used were naturally occurring groups, to elaborate, the two groups that were compared in condition one had impermeable boundaries and the status hierarchy was illegitimate; whilst in condition two the two groups had permeable boundaries and legitimate categories for comparison. A reliability analysis was then conducted in order to examine the reliability of the scale as well as to improve the scales by weeding out poor items. A confirmatory factor analysis was then performed in order to confirm the independence and statistical coherence / logic of the constructs included in the inventory. Finally four hypotheses based on SIT literature were tested to partially test the construct validity for a subset of the subscales. These procedures resulted in subscales that loaded independently and predictably on coherent factors and had an acceptable to good reliability as research instruments, but not for psychometric or testing purposes. Finally the hypothesis tests confirmed that, in accordance with theoretical predictions from SIT there were significant relationships between: (1) in-group identification and group status; (2) permeability, status and in-group identification; (3) in-group identification and in-group homogeneity. However, a fourth and more complex hypothesis, namely that low status group members in groups with low legitimacy would express more conflict than members of low status groups with high legitimacy, was not confirmed. The successful hypothesis tests indicate that the in-group/out-group identification, status, permeability, and in-group/out-group homogeneity sub-scales were able to correctly replicate the theoretical predictions that were drawn from Social Identity Theory. These findings are useful indicators of the construct and criterion validity of these subscales. Based on these results, one can conclude that the Social Identity Inventory has a reasonable reliability and there are some indications of validity. However additional research is needed to further explore the reliability and validity of the scale using a more representative sample of the general population and with the recommended final versions of the scales.
Situated identity performance : understanding stereotype threat as a social identity phenomenon.
(2011) Quayle, Michael Frank.; Reicher, Steven.; Durrheim, Kevin Locksley.
Stereotype threat or boost (STB) is a situational modifier of task performance that occurs when a group stereotype becomes relevant to the performance of a stereotype-relevant task. This dissertation aimed to re-imagine STB in light of social identity theory. Ten studies were undertaken that each manipulated status and either identifiability, conflict or permeability and explored the effects on the performance of the Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices. Additional identity and socio-structural constructs were also measured and explored, including stability, legitimacy and ingroup identification. The results showed that STB is not simply “activated” or “deactivated” when stereotypes become relevant to task performance. On the contrary, the specific features of identity, the contextual features of the social environment in which the identity performance takes place, and the performer’s strategic engagement with their identity resources and liabilities are important features of how STB impacts on performance, and how it is sometimes resisted and overturned by experimental subjects. Indeed, performance was generally not predictable on the basis of stereotype activation until resistance to the negative or positive status manipulations were also accounted for. Although the STB literature is tightly focused on the case of negative stereotypes undermining performance, incongruent effects in which negative stereotypes enhance performance and positive stereotypes undermine it have also been reported. In the present studies incongruent STB effects were frequently observed. Underperformance in boost conditions was most consistently predicted by perceived intergroup conflict, while enhanced performance under threat was consistently predicted by perceived group boundary permeability. Additionally, underperformance in boost conditions was often a result of ‘slipstreaming’ rather than ‘choking under pressure,’ since participants were evidently counting on their generally secure identity in the experimental context to buffer poor performance on the experimental task. Improved performance in threat conditions was most likely when participants perceived themselves to be representatives of their group and when they believed that their improved performance would make a difference for their own reputation or the reputation of their group. These findings challenge the common image of the passive subject in the STB literature and, instead, suggest that STB effects are an outcome of situated identity performance. This model of STB effects understands task-performance in a specific performance context as an active and strategic expression of situated identity oriented not only to the social features of the performance context (as argued by most SIT theorists), but also to the their own reading of that context, their total identity liabilities and resources (including individual ability and alternative identities) and their strategic motivations in the context.
The structure of knowledge production : mapping patterns of co-authorship collaboration between African and international countries.
(2014) Greer, Megan.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
This research sought to explore the patterns of co-authorship collaboration between African and international authors who have published together in journals relating to the field of social psychology. Bibliographic data was used to extract and produce social network maps of academic co-author collaborations in which one of the authors was African or affiliated to an author from an African country. These patterns of collaboration were analysed using social network analysis and it was found that, on average, African authors are poorly interconnected with other international authors in the field of social psychology and are also poorly interconnected with other African authors across the continent. It is likely that these structures of collaboration constrain the ability of African authors to produce their own relevant knowledge within the field of social psychology, in that their collaborations are limited and usually mediated by international connections. This pattern of interconnection makes it more likely that African social psychologists will operate within paradigms generated by academics in international and well-resourced countries and militates against the development of African paradigms.
Studying the effects of status in an interactive minimal group environment.
(2016) Mahlawe, Samukelisiwe.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
Background: The Minimal Group paradigm proposed that social categorisation alone was necessary to produce group behaviour. Moreover, through Social Identity Theory the studies claimed that once people are categorised into groups they automatically take on group personas that cause them to favour their ingroups and discriminate against the outgroup. Other scholars contend that groups are not as simple as sharing a social category. They are instead more complex social systems of interacting individuals which consist of dynamics and networks as people engage in social activity and make meaning of their behaviours. Moreover, groups are typically defined by patterns and norms which emerge through interaction and evolve over time. Thus, by having removed interaction from their methodology, scholars believe that the minimal group studies became too minimal that they omitted an essential component involved in groups. There is a need therefore to re-visit these studies in an environment that captures the interactive nature of groups and illuminates the diachronic processes involved in group formation and behaviour. Aim and Rationale: This research replicated the MG studies in an interactive setting to study the influence of status on the token giving behaviours of minimal groups. Methodology: The research adopted a quantitative descriptive method. A convenience sampling strategy was used to select participants from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Campus. An experiment in the format of a computer game was conducted where participants after being categorised into one of two groups, were tasked with allocating tokens to other members of groups over a 40 game round period. The Virtual Interaction APPLication software provided a platform for studying how groups take shape as they interact, receive feedback, and make meaning of their behaviours over time. To measure ingroup favouritism the study measured instances of outgroup giving among the players. Outgroup giving mirrored ingroup giving without self-giving and was therefore deemed as a more reliable measure of ingroup favouritism. All data from the games was saved onto the programme and analysed using the Generalised Linear Mixed Model method. Results: Findings displayed that players in the group condition were less likely than those in the individual condition to engage in outgroup giving. This meant group categorisation produced group orientated behaviours among participants. Outgroup giving was found to be numerically higher among groups in the social equality condition than those in the social inequality condition, and increased over the rounds. An interaction between status and social equality determined that the difference in outgroup giving between low and high status groups conditions was highest in the social inequality condition. High status groups displayed significantly higher levels of outgroup giving than low status groups, with this norm increasing over the game rounds. Low status groups displayed the lowest levels of outgroup giving overall. Conclusion: This study investigated the effects of status on the token giving patterns of minimal groups in an interactive environment. The study determined that ingroup favouritism and outgroup antagonism was highest in conditions of social inequality. Unequal status groups were more likely to favour their own groups in their token allocations than equal status groups. Low status groups were least likely overall to share their tokens with the outgroup and as a result were more discriminatory than high status groups. The study also introduced a new framework for studying groups rather as dynamic and interacting phenomena as opposed to mere social categories. Using this approach, the study demonstrated that group behaviours are indeed marked by sequential patterns of interaction and change processes that increase and gain momentum over time and give rise to normative behaviours. Thus, interaction serves as the primary conduit of social influence between groups as individuals actively relate to one another and make meaning of their behaviours.
When the chips are down : attribution in the context of computer failure and repair.
(2004) Quayle, Michael Frank.; Durrheim, Kevin Locksley.
Cognitive attribution theories provide convincing and empirically robust models of attribution. However, critiques include the scarcity of empirical research in naturalistic settings and the failure of cognitive attribution theorists to account for why, when and how much people engage in attributional activity. The present study draws data from naturalistic recordings of the common experience of computer failure and repair. A simple content analysis explores the extent to which everyday attributional talk is modelled by the cognitive theories of attribution. It is found that everyday talk matches the cognitive theories of attribution reasonably well for socially safe operative information about the problem, but poorly for socially unsafe inspective information about the agents and their actions. The second part of the analysis makes sense of this empirical pattern by using conversation and discourse analysis to explore the social functions of observed attributional talk. Participants use attributional talk to achieve two broad social goals: to negotiate and manage the social engagement and to construct and defend positions of competence and expertise.
Women's stereotypes of masculinity across the different contexts of work, family, friendship and romantic partnerships.
(2013) Cole, Charlene Joan.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
The construction of hegemonic masculinity cannot be understood outside its relationship to emphasized femininity. Women’s negotiation of masculinity is dependent on their own feminine identity narratives (emphasized or liberated) in a corresponding context. Replicating and extending previous work, this study is aimed at exploring women’s construction of masculinity in the contexts of work, family, friendship and romantic relationships. However, where previous studies explored this in the South African context, the present study is aimed at determining if women’s construction of masculinity followed similar patterns for women from different countries across the world. The UNDP inequality index was used to estimate the developmental status (low, medium and high) of the country to explore whether participants from countries with different levels of development showed differing constructions of masculinity across the different contexts. The results supported Brittain (2010, 2011), in that this sample advocated for traditional hegemonic masculine traits in the context of family, romance and work, while constructing non-hegemonic ‘nice guy’ masculinities in the context of friendship. It was found that women from high and medium equality countries incorporated a few acceptable non-hegemonic and majority hegemonic masculine traits in their constructions of the ideal man across work, romance and family, while predominantly choosing non-hegemonic traits for friendship. In Low equality countries, women advocated predominantly for traditional hegemonic masculine traits across all four contexts. It seems that women’s negotiation of masculinity (traditionally hegemonic or non-hegemonic) is interdependent on their own identity narrative and their ability to construct and negotiate their own femininity (emphasized and liberated) in the same contexts. This study demonstrates that (1) despite the level of equality women have gained in society, they continue to advocate for and perpetuate hegemonic masculine ideals (2) that male/masculine and female/feminine identities are intrinsically bound together; and the production of female identities valued by women requires the simultaneous production of complementary masculinities.
You will do better if I watch : anonymity, indentifiability and audience effects in a stereotype threat situation.
(2009) Forbes, Jared Daryn.; Quayle, Michael Frank.
The current study examined stereotype threat or lift (STL) in terms of various elements of social identity theory. STL occurs when a negative stereotype (or positive stereotype) about a group leads to a decrease (or increase) in performance on a task that the group identifies with. The primary focus was the relationship between STL and identifiability, whereby identifiability refers to whether one views one‟s self as an individual or as an anonymous part of a social group. The study examined STL in relation to humanities and science students‟ ability to recognise patterns using two short forms of the Raven‟s Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) which was developed. The students completed matrices under two conditions; anonymity and visibility to an audience (in-group, out-group and experimenter). When visible, participants performed significantly better than when anonymous, regardless of the STL condition. When examining in-group identification, participants with high in-group identification experienced traditional STL effects while participants with low in-group identification experienced a reversal in effects.