Six main empirical studies are reported. Study 1 employed the "thinkaloud" procedure in the minimal group paradigm (MGP) and concludes that social categorization is insufficient to cause social identity or intergroup discrimination, and that no theoretical explanation of minimal group behaviour is adequate to explain the variety of strategies employed within that paradigm. Study 2 employed both "Tajfel matrices" and new "allocation grids" in the MGP and concludes that two distinct forms of intergroup discrimination need to be distinguished: one which maximizes in-group profit consistent with positive in-group distinctiveness, and another which maximizes positive in-group distinctiveness by accompanying in-group profit with out-group derogation. In Study 3 subjects completed three sets of Tajfel matrices in the MGP: individually, in "sub-groups" , then again individually. Mean intergroup discriminatory behaviour polarized and mean intergroup equitable behaviour depolarized between the first and the latter two conditions. The best account of the results was concluded to be a normative one. Study 4 demonstrated that the self-esteem hypothesis within social identity theory (SIT) is best tested using a state measure of specific social identity contingent self-esteem and concludes that this hypothesis has to date been both inadequately formulated and inadequately tested. Study 5 compared predictions from SIT with those from Tesser's self-evaluation maintenance model concerning the consequences of social comparison outcomes and concludes that a modified version of the former theory is best able to account for the results obtained at both group and individual levels of comparison. Study 6 investigated a host of issues within SIT and concludes that the theory is too simplistic in respect of many of its key notions and propositions. A general discussion argues that a modified version of SIT can be developed which improves on Tajfel's "original" social identity theory by more adequately specifying the processes by which group phenomena are manifest.

This thesis seeks to examine the Europeanizing themes of the spread of charters, the adoption of common European names and the interaction of the chivalric ‘aristocratic diaspora’ with local landholding society through the methodology of prosopography. The role of aristocratic landholders as grantor, witnesses and recipients of charters was studied, based on an analysis of the texts of over 1500 aristocratic, royal and ecclesiastical documents relating to Scotland north of Forth, dating from circa 1100 to circa 1260. The Appendix is a list of all non-royal, non-ecclesiastical (or ‘private’) charters, agreements, brieves and similar documents, catalogued herein for the first time. The results of this study are two-fold. First, the thesis involves a degree of reappraisal, in which phenomena which were seen previously as pertaining to either ‘native’ or ‘Norman’ trends are instead examined as part of a single Scottish society. Second, this thesis offers several new findings based on the prosopographical analysis of the charter material, which help to hone our understanding for how Europeanization worked in Scotland. It is now clear that, while the adoption of charters should certainly be seen as a Europeanizing trend, their use by aristocratic landholders followed several stages, none of which adhered to any ethnic bias. This study reveals the prominence of networks in spreading charter use, including one focused around Countess Ada and other related countesses, in the early stages of aristocratic charter use. Furthermore, the important component of Europeanization, whereby ‘peripheral’ peoples took up common European personal names, can be qualified in the case of Scotland north of Forth, where the society was already characterised by a diverse intermixing of Gaelic, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon names, and where certain Gaelic names were not only maintained by ‘native’ families, but also adopted by immigrant knights. This thesis shows that the practice of using personal names as evidence for ethnicity does not hold up to close scrutiny. Moreover, the aristocratic diaspora for Scottish earls was a two-way street, and some earls and other Scottish nobles married into some of the most powerful families in western Europe. On the other hand, immigration of knights into Scotland north of Forth resulted in the creation of a new baronial class, one which also incorporated various types of ‘native’ Scottish landholder. Indeed, even in regions like the Mearns, where the king had a free hand, landholding was balanced between local and immigrant families. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, this study has verified that the notion that Scotland had ‘no institutionalised apartheid’ was not merely a legal technicality, but a fundamental characteristic of the society. Landholding patterns reveal no evidence of ethnic separation; neither does analysis of assemblies, courts, civil legal proceedings and processes of perambulation. Instead, power was exercised by a diverse aristocratic class. The nature of Europeanization in Scotland is distinct and special, and serves as a fascinating case study of an aristocratic society that was transformed, but in some ways on its own terms.

Relationships are a fundamental part of being human; they enable communication, a shared sense of belonging, and a means of building identity and social capital. However, the hallmarks of late modernity can be encapsulated by the themes of detraditionalisation, individualisation and globalisation, which have essentially challenged the mode and means of engaging in relationships. This thesis uses the theology of Martin Buber to demonstrate how his dialogical claims about relationships, namely the “I-It” and “I-Thou” model, can provide a new ethical dimension to communication in the technological era. This thesis argues that through co-creation in cyberspace there is a realisation of the need for a new theological understanding of interconnection. Theology can utilise the platform of technology to facilitate a re-connection in all spheres of relationality and, ultimately, to the Divine. This thesis will first outline the predicament for theology in late modernity. It will discuss how detraditionalisation has led to an emphasis on individual spirituality, as opposed to collective doctrinal beliefs. The global nature of cyberspace has facilitated the means to experiment with these alternative forms of spirituality, which has allowed theology to be commodified and has introduced a challenge to the dimension of relationships. Cyberspace presents a paradox for relationship: the medium transforms modes of relating because the self is re-configured through its contact with technology. This facilitates communication as the individual merges with the machine, resulting in models such as the cyborg. However, this can also be seen to erode the essence of humanity, as humans find themselves on the fringes of relationships. Their hybrid status means that they are no longer fully human or fully machine but become dominated by the latter. They exist on the boundary of both domains and cannot cultivate genuine relationships of the “Thou” variety. This leads to alienation from surroundings, community and the Divine. Second, the thesis will discuss how Buber’s theology can be used to re-position relationships by providing a means to reflect on different aspects of dialogue and communication. By applying Buber’s dialectic to cyberspace it will be demonstrated how interconnectivity causes individuals to re-think the notion of self-in-relation. The three spheres of relationship which Buber identified: “man with nature, man with man, man with forms of the spirit” will be re-contextualised in cyberspace to show how the medium manifests both aspects of the dialectic but allows for a greater awareness of interconnection. Buber’s insistence on the centrality of creative dialogue provides a solution to overcome this dilemma by bringing awareness of the interconnectivity of the self to all aspects of creation. It is through informed use of the medium of cyberspace that humans can re-envisage relationships characterised by a more genuine ethical dimension. These “Thou” moments begin the process of redemption; each one is part of the relationship with the “eternal Thou” and has the potential to draw the Divine down into the encounter, to re-connect with creation. This thesis is arguing for a new theology of interconnectivity that is able to redeem the potentiality of cyberspace as a medium for genuine “Thou” relationality.

This thesis addresses YouTube-based programming in Saudi Arabia. It focuses on the bottom-up, professionally generated content (PGC) produced by the Saudi youth exclusively for YouTube between 2010 and 2016. It explores the economic, political and cultural context of YouTube-based programming and is aimed at understanding how the programme makers operate within such a restrictive political and media environment, and the interaction between the content creators, the audiences and the Saudi government. The thesis examines the perspective of the content creators by utilizing ten semi-structured online interviews, and the view of the Saudi audience by employing seven semi-structured offline focus group interviews with twenty-nine participants in Glasgow, Scotland. The interviews were conducted and transcribed in Arabic, then translated into English. This analysis leads to the emergence of four primary themes: limited political and cultural empowerment for young Saudis offline; strong financial empowerment for the content creators; the government as the most powerful actor in the Saudi media scene; and the relevance of the content to the Saudi audience as the main driver for the popularity of YouTube-based programming. The analysis provides insights and implications for policy and practices, arguing that the concept and practices of cultural policy are humble in Saudi Arabia and that there is an urgent need for a political decision to establish a nationwide cultural policy to promote and govern the arts and culture. This policy needs to incorporate both online and offline creativity, including YouTube-based programming.

Due to the limitations of the household registration system, rural migrants in Chinese cities are unable to access the same range of rights and benefits as urban natives. This rural-urban segregation has consequences beyond access to political and economic rights and resources; it has deepened to shape cultural and ideological perceptions. This deepening has a profound influence on the children of migrant workers who are moving to study in the city. Though nowadays children of migrant workers can study in urban public schools alongside local students, the rural-urban structural divide still exists and impedes personal and social relations between the two groups. This research investigated the difficulties and opportunities encountered by children of migrant workers after they have entered urban public schools and as the face the realities of contact with urban people. The research also discussed whether educating rural and urban students together can help children of migrant workers’ social adaptation in the city, or whether this studying together model places pressures on rural students which impede their social integration into urban communities. A ‘field-habitus’ analysis framework was used to assess rural students’ social adaptation performances in the city. Research methods including questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews and focus groups were employed in the study. Besides rural students, urban people such as urban students and teachers whom rural students interact with in schools were investigated in the research. Moreover, to evaluate whether inclusive education in public schools has created an inclusive environment to help rural students’ social adaptation, rural students from private schools, who are receiving an exclusive education that is only for children of migrant workers, were also studied as the reference group. Based on the data analysis, the research found that rural students from public schools are generally well-adapted to their urban lives. Additionally, compared with rural students from private schools, rural students from public schools have more urbanized behaviours and lifestyles. Meanwhile, the research indicated that rural students being educated in public schools suffer from many misunderstandings and conflicts with urban students, which may bring them more pressures related to social adaptation compared with their counterparts in private schools. Rural students’ social adaptation performances were attributed to the dual functions of education, meaning that education in public schools may either improve or impede children of migrant workers’ adaptation to their lives in the city. The discussion on the role of education was mainly based on Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Reproduction and Inclusive Education Model. Moreover, students’ family background was also taken into consideration for a more comprehensive explanation.

Classical crossover is a term regularly used but not yet adequately defined. This thesis attempts to redress this imbalance through a study of the relationships between high and low musical cultures. Starting from the separation of highbrow and lowbrow, the concepts of genre and musical taste are considered in relation to their connections to social hierarchies, leading to an analysis of what happens when they hybridise. Sociological scholarship, cultural criticism and contemporary musicology are combined to offer insights into ways in which we can control music, and ways in which music can control us, with particular emphasis on the field of classical crossover. Case studies reflecting issues of aesthetic preference, celebrity and image, promotion and marketing, and expanding demographic access feature as part of a broader examination of the benefits and drawbacks of cross-cultural collaborations. This thesis clearly shows that generic affinity no longer defines either audience identity or social status, and that musicology's ideas of public reception, informed by social theory, are no longer relevant. It proposes that crossover indicates music that crosses boundaries of public reception, and that these boundaries can be unconsciously or deliberately manipulated. It recognises a need to keep pace with social change, and a need to reevaluate the separation of classical, popular, and non-Western cultures, both in musicology and in other humanities disciplines.

We feel gratitude—a positive emotion upon receiving an undeserved benefit which is attributable to the givers’ benevolent intent (Watkins, 2007, 2014). Meanwhile, indebtedness symbolises an unpleasant mental state which is also triggered by benefit receipts (Greenberg, 1980). Theories and empirical evidence in the literature have highlighted how gratitude and indebtedness each relates to prosociality (or sanctioning), and importantly, how via different routes these two constructs will elicit cooperativeness. Nonetheless, there is still a gap in the literature on how gratitude and indebtedness will contribute to prosociality and sanctioning in economic exchanges (Leung, 2011). Thus via three economic games (i.e. Experiments 1 to 3, presented in Chapters 2 to 5) I endeavour to thoroughly examine how gratitude (and indebtedness) would relate to prosociality or sanctioning in a Behavioural Economics context. In so doing I intend to combine Psychometrics and Experimental Economics in the examination of the gratitude (and indebtedness)-prosociality association. Additionally, via meta-analysing (i.e. Chapter 2) over three decades of research on the gratitude-prosociality link I intend to offer i) a comprehensive quantitative synthesis of the findings and, ii) a systematic exploration of moderators, which are both absent in the literature. The present thesis also features a series of extensive follow-up analyses on an interesting economic observation from Experiment 1— i.e. the cheap-rider problem (Cornes & Sandler, 1984). While Experiment 2 entails a more focused scrutiny (via a one-shot game) over the occurrences and motives behind cheap-riding, Experiment 3 builds on that by testing how cheap-riding may be used to enforce normative fairness in an iterated exchange context. Results of the meta-analysis revealed a moderate positive link between gratitude and prosociality. The moderator analyses showed that this link is stronger when, a) state rather than trait gratitude was measured, b) direct instead of indirect or non-reciprocal outcomes was examined, and c) benefit-triggered instead of generalized gratitude (Lambert et al., 2009) was examined. Meanwhile, results of Experiment 1 built upon the above by showing how the gratitude-reciprocity link will be subject to helper intent attribution, and how the injunctive fairness norm (Elster, 2006) could influence this attribution and thereby shaped recipients’ feeling of gratitude (or indebtedness) throughout the episode, and ultimately his/her urge to directly reciprocate. Additionally, a noticeable degree of cheap-riding was observed when unfairly treated participants were granted an avenue to sanction their helpers. The data of Experiment 2 revealed a pattern of cheap-riding that corresponded not only to that of Experiment 1 but also to the reality. Crucially, the analyses of the motives behind repayment allowed the disentanglement of the psychology between that of the cheap-riders, cooperators, and free-riders. Lastly, analyses of Experiment 3 revealed three main findings. They included, a) people’s preference for an ‘optimal’ platform for cheap-riding to better serve its norm-enforcing function, although its actual efficacy in promoting mutual compliance to normative fairness is still questionable; b) how the Relative Rank Model of Gratitude (Wood, Brown, & Maltby, 2011) will supersede the injunctive fairness norm in guiding the recipients’ benefit appraisals, experienced gratitude, and eventual direct reciprocal acts toward the helpers; and c) how gratitude and indebtedness were both predictive of more trustworthiness and generosity in an iterated, variant of Trust Game.

According to contemporary fashion, humankind has entered a new era marked by epochal change, be it a globalized, postmodern, post-industrialist, late modern, high modern, meta-modern, hyper-modern, super-modern, post-Fordist or post-emotional society. In contrast to such claims for epochal disjunction, this thesis identifies fundamental continuities in attitudes and policies toward disablement. Disabled Britons, since at least the 1970's, have sought to develop alternative explanations of disablement, exemplified by Mike Oliver's 'Social Model of Disability'. Despite the influence of a socio-political account amongst the activist disability movement, dominant ideology ensures that such pioneering ideas are subject to unrelenting disparagement and disinformation. Despite such ridicule, this thesis shows that claims of a coherent and liberative 'disability policy' in the UK remain grandiloquent, if not entirely inaccurate. Building on the work of Deborah Stone and Mike Oliver, in particular, I will show that, despite modest progress, British disability policy remains indelibly marked by seventeenthcentury assumptions and prejudice. This thesis contributes to the development of disability theory by providing a critical socio-economic analysis of contemporary policy and radical theorising, a task that has yet to be substantially addressed in the UK. Furthermore, by examining legal, historical, economic, political and social sources, I contend that the absence of contemporary disability policy will be shown to provide explicit benefits to the elite, to the detriment of efforts to promote and protect the emancipation of disabled Britons. The over-arching premise is that socio-political accounts of disablement continue to provide unparalleled analytical and theoretical insights into a process of disablement, not least as a particular brand of capitalism is in the ascendancy: the struggle for global hegemony aided by the advancement of a single market modelled on U.S. lines.

This thesis provides the first extensive sociological analysis of the genetics and life assurance debate in the UK. It uses data from original qualitative interviews, as well as various policy documents and reports, to investigate the likely implications of genetic information for life assurance provision, reveal the narrative strategies used by key stakeholders as they account for their concerns on the issue, and evaluate the efficacy of the policy and regulatory framework. It also attempts to evaluate the suitability of the citizens’ jury model as an alternative to existing decision-making procedures. The thesis begins by revealing the most likely social, commercial, legal, and ethical implications of allowing insurers to access new kinds of genetic information. A history of insurance, risk and probability is used as a starting point to challenge many of the pervasive fears and anxieties. This part of the thesis critically analyses the social and philosophical basis of such contested notions as ’discrimination’, 'social exclusion’, 'genetic information', and ‘social justice’, and begins to reveal some of the key strategies of stakeholders in the debate. The thesis then analyses stakeholder accounts of their concerns, and begins to reveal the ways in which they draw on a broad narrative repertoire to give their beliefs a degree of moral legitimacy/coherency. The impact this may have on the quality of debate is also investigated. Following from the analysis of stakeholder accounts, the thesis proceeds to investigate the nature of the policymaking and regulatory framework. Through a sociological analysis of the work of various advisory committees, which led to the implementation of a moratorium on insurers' use of genetic information, the thesis investigates how fair and equitable the overall political process has been, particularly in terms of the treatment of stakeholder evidence. It also assesses the role of the public and media in shaping the political response to this issue. The thesis concludes by assessing the citizens’ jury as suitable procedures for resolving the conflicts around genetic information and life assurance. Both the potential advantages and persistent problems with the model are critically evaluated.

This exploratory, psycho-social study examined young people’s reflections on their experiences of engaging with a youth offending service (YOS). There is a paucity of research that explores this. Five participants were recruited from a YOS in the UK. Free association techniques were used; five participants were interviewed using the Grid Elaboration Method, four were interviewed again using the Free-Association Narrative Interview. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis, a psycho-social lens was then applied and ‘scenic understandings’ composed for each participant. The thematic analysis illuminated four themes: transformative relationship with YOT worker: identity transformation: engaging: then’s presence in now. Themes and ‘scenic understandings’ were drawn upon in discussion of links to literature, navigated as: trust in relationships; past and present, developing an identity distanced from a past self, engagement in personalised intervention, the function and structure of YOS, YOS engagement; a window of opportunity, developing a psycho-social understanding of what participants talked about. Strengths of the study lie in the psycho-social approach and free association method of data collection, enabling rich descriptions and interpretations that considered the interrelatedness of psychological and social experiences. Potential implications for practice were highlighted; 1. consideration of what participants talked about by professionals working in YOS and with similar populations, 2. consideration of the development of the EP role, such as providing supervisory support to reflect on the psycho-social needs of young people engaging with YOS, 3. maintenance and development of the focus of YOS procedures such as emphasising the importance of building meaningful relationships and providing structure for young people engaging with YOS. Recommendations for future research are; 1. undertaking similar studies with young people having difficulty with engagement, 2. investigating both young people’s and their YOT worker’s experiences of working together to develop understanding of the intersubjective nature of the engagement process.