The unifying theme of the chapters presented in this thesis is that intra-group interaction impacts on in-group identity content, and this content provides a foundation for social action and social behaviour. The primary goals of this thesis are first, to demonstrate that social realities can be established and transformed through interaction; and second, to investigate why the process of intra-group interaction can spark and exacerbate social conflict. In Chapter 1, I review and attempt to theoretically integrate the disparate literatures on group discussion, identity and action. In Chapter 2, I investigate the effect of interaction on the positive-negative asymmetry effect (PNAE). In Study 2.1, participants were more likely to discriminate on rewards than fines, and find allocating rewards to be a more legitimate and pleasant act than allocating fines. Conversely, participants thought allocating fines would have a more negative effect on recipients and felt more negative about allocating fines than rewards. In Study 2.2, when in-group advancement was obstructed, no PNAE was found: obstruction was sufficient justification for out-group punishment in its own right. When in-group advancement was not obstructed, the PNAE reversed after group discussion, such that more hostility occurred when participants administered fines than when they awarded rewards. This reversal was mediated by processes of norm formation. In Chapter 3, I describe three studies which show that consensual intra-group discussions about a negatively regarded out-group increased inter-group hostility. Study 3.1 compared group discussion about immigrants with individual reflection. Results showed that group discussion informed the content of stereotypes, which led to support for anti-immigrant policies. In Study 3.2, participants discussed either an irrelevant topic, the out-group stereotype, or the out-group stereotype plus what concrete actions should be taken towards that group. Only discussion of the stereotype significantly increased hostility, suggesting that the psychological products of discussion per se (cohesion, identification, etc.) are not solely responsible for hostility. Rather, social validation of the stereotype explained why its discussion increased hostility. Study 3.3 replicated these results with a behavioural measure. In Chapter 4, I present two studies which controlled for the content of interaction by showing participants short films of similar others having a group discussion. Study 4.1 investigated the paradoxical finding that when groups discuss potential courses of action against an out-group, they are less likely to act than when they discuss simply the out-group stereotype (Chapter 3). Results suggested that when group discussions imply that there is social consensus about a course of action, even the advocacy of extreme actions can increase support for (more moderate) social action. Study 4.2 manipulated whether or not the discussants consensualised on the out-group stereotype, whilst controlling for discussion content. Only when the discussion ended in consensus did participants identify with the discussants and perceive norms for social action. In Chapter 5, I address how social identities and their associated (self-) stereotypes can disadvantage members of low status groups, but how they can also promote social change. The data demonstrates that consensualisation in small groups can transform (or reconfirm) such stereotypes, thereby eliminating (or bolstering) stereotype threat effects. In Study 5.1, female participants were asked why men are (or are not) better at maths. They generated their answers individually or through group discussion. Stereotype threat was undermined only when they collectively challenged the stereotype. Content analyses suggest that discussions redefined in-group and out-group stereotypes, providing the basis for stigma reversal or confirmation. In Study 5.2, male and female participants confirmed or challenged the stereotype in same-gender discussion groups or no discussion, baseline conditions. After a discussion that confirmed the stereotype, women displayed signs of stereotype threat and men’s performance was “lifted”. When they challenged the stereotype, the difference between men and women on the maths test was eliminated. Overall, the results reported in this thesis suggest that intra-group interaction enables group members to develop an understanding of their common ideology, which may establish the consensual basis of their identity content. If such consensualisation occurs, this provides them with a sense that their perceptions of reality are socially valid, and gives rise to (implicit or explicit) in-group norms. This provides individuals with a solid foundation upon which they may act. The implications of these conclusions are discussed in Chapter 6.

The underlying theme that draws together all the chapters presented in this thesis is that surveillance, like any feature of our social world, is not imposed in a vacuum; and that information pertaining to the origin and purpose of surveillance is vital in determining how it will be perceived and evaluated (and how it will then impact on behaviour). The key aims of this thesis are, first, to demonstrate how a social identity approach can account for varying reactions to surveillance originating from different sources; second, to investigate how various contextual features exert their impact, resulting in the disparate perceptions of surveillance that exist in our society; and finally, to demonstrate how the imposition of surveillance can itself impact on the broader social context, including the relationship that is understood to exist between those watching and those being watched. These aims are broken down into ten research questions that are addressed in seven chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the literature on perceptions of surveillance and that on social identity, and attempts to illustrate how they may be theoretically combined, resulting in the advancement of both fields. In Chapter 2, we present two studies which demonstrate a negative relationship between shared identity and the perception of surveillance as an invasion of privacy. This relationship was mediated by perceptions that the purpose of surveillance was to ensure safety. In Chapter 3, two studies demonstrate how level of surveillance moderates followers’ responses to leaders with whom they either share identity, or not. Imposing high surveillance where identity was shared with a leader undermined perceptions of the leader as a team member and affected willingness to work for the group, reducing levels to that of leaders without a shared identity. Chapter 4 presents a study that aimed to investigate the role of social identity and surveillance in affecting both discretionary behaviour and task performance. High surveillance led to higher productivity on a task, but this was associated with lower quality of work. Additionally, when identity was shared with the person in charge, helping this person was detrimentally affected by high, as opposed to low, surveillance; whereas no such differences were found where identity was not shared. Chapter 5 presents two studies which showed that framing surveillance as targeting the in-group led to outcomes such as increased privacy invasion, lower acceptability of surveillance, and reduced levels of trust in the implementers of surveillance, as compared to when surveillance was framed as targeting an out-group. However, a third study failed to replicate these results. In Chapter 6, we address how level of threat in the environment can affect evaluations of surveillance. Two studies showed that high levels of threat led to surveillance being seen as less privacy-invading, more necessary, and as having a safety purpose. Finally, in Chapter 7, we review and integrate our findings, discuss the limitations of the research, and consider the implications it has, both theoretically and practically. We conclude that, overall, the findings presented in this thesis support the notion that the source of surveillance and the perceived purpose for it are integral to the perception and interpretation of the surveillance.

While insult has been a frequent topic for rhetorical study in the past, little if any work has gone toward the formation of a systematic theory of insult. Karina Korostelina has proposed a theory of intergroup identity insults, which appears promising from a socio-cultural perspective. However, her theory does not address the particularly rhetorical characteristics of insults, preferring instead to analyze them with reference to their socio-historic context. While her theory proves sound under scrutiny, it does little to shed light on pejorative rhetoric as rhetoric. In what follows, I would like to propose certain characteristics of pejorative rhetoric that may prove useful in developing a rhetorical understanding of insult. I will be using Korostelina’s theory as a starting place to ground my discussion of insult, but I will go beyond the socio-historic contexts to suggest a purely rhetorical aspect of insults that creates new meanings and associations independent of larger cultural contexts. While independent of cultural contexts, these new associations are still informed by cultural contexts. As such, I will be using coffee, a cultural artifact with a variety of social and culture meanings, as a lens from which to examine pejorative rhetoric. Ultimately, I propose that insult functions by drawing from the associations inherent in cultural artifacts in order to transform those associations into purely rhetorical associations, that is, associations that could not exist without the influence of pejorative rhetoric, thereby creating a rhetorical context independent of large cultural contexts.

Journalism plays a central role in the liberal democratic society and it enables the citizens to make informed decisions. In a local community it also holds many social functions such as creating a common local identity and a geographical belonging. This study investigates different aspects of local journalistic output such as news outlets, news topics, democratic value dimensions, framing, original reporting and sourcing. The output includes all types of published material from legacy media organizations. The method has been to make a quantitative content analysis of all the journalistic output produced in seven randomly picked days between July 1 of 2014 and June 30 of 2015 in three different municipalities - Malå, Tranemo and Sandviken. They are all manufacturing municipalities and represents one small, one medium sized and one large community within this type. The result of the analysis shows that a majority of the news items is produced by the local newspapers. They are the key stone media in these municipalities and without the newspapers there is a low number of local news produced by public service media. Sports is the biggest news topic in total but it is especially Sandviken who has the highest ratio of sports news. The democratic values of reporting on societal actors who disagree, decision-making authorities, policy plans and actors concerned are not commonly used. The framing of the news is mostly individual and episodical but that can be explained through the high ratio of sports news. In the more democratically relevant news about politics, economy and social issues, the framing is mostly public and thematic. A large proportion of the news is produced by original reporting with a byline. Letters to the editor is also a common type of content. When it comes to sourcing one third of the news content is not mentioning any sources at all. Sourcing is mostly common in the sports news. The study finally discusses how the local journalistic output seems to relate to democratic functions and social identity. Future studies of more municipalities or qualitative studies of citizen views or journalistic working methods would be ways of creating a deeper understanding of the state of local journalism.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate Pakistan's national history curriculum in the post 18th constitutional amendment scenario. The amendment bequeathed the responsibility of education, including curriculum development, to the provinces. This study sought input from educators on ways the national curriculum currently addresses local needs and requirements as well as considerations for any potential changes or improvements. Traditionally, history curriculum has been used mainly for social identity formation and ideological indoctrination; current scholarship on history education has now also included national identity formation. Additionally, scholarship has begun to analyze possible purposes behind social identity formation, whether used negatively or positively. This study, which took place in Balochistan, Pakistan, used a qualitative case study approach. A provincial level conference was convened as a context and data source that involved 28 educators including teachers, teacher educators, curriculum experts, and policy actors as participants in the study. The texts of five representative educators engaged in the conference dialogue was selected for analysis. Discourse analysis was the methodology used to arrive at findings of the study. The study yielded several interesting findings that give insight about the national history curriculum of Pakistan and future curriculum practices of the Balochistan province. According to the selected educators, the national history curriculum of Pakistan has been unidimensional, based on Islamic ideology that embraces a religious national identity. The selected educators argued that the curriculum is unwelcoming to diversity, does not promote peace and equity, conceals truth, and hinders critical thinking. They found the national history curriculum non-representative of the local context of Balochistan province. In light of these findings, the selected educators proposed a history curriculum for Balochistan province that promotes peace, tolerance, equity, and respect for diversity, truth, and critical thinking. The participating educators saw a provincial/local focus as addressing many limitations of the national curriculum that are also addressed by curriculum literature, although not necessarily from this perspective. The study contributes to curriculum theory in general and curriculum evaluation in particular. The study finds its place in the larger debates on how history education influences individual and group identities.

The drive that initiated this doctoral thesis was the absence of a resource that investigated social trauma’s effect on business ethics; therefore this thesis investigates the relationship between social trauma and business ethics practices aiming to make the first contribution on an academically untouched topic. As in the case of individual psychology, social psychology also examines matters on a case-tocase basis for a clear understanding of the underlying phenomena and complex processes. Hence, considering the past and the current characteristics of Cypriot Turks of North Cyprus, they were chosen as the case study society. In order to explore social trauma’s impact on business ethics, different disciplines were uniquely synthesized through particular lenses; large group psychology, business-government-society relationship and individual ethical decision-making. The absence of previous work in this area suggested exploratory, qualitative research to be the optimum approach. Rich primary and secondary data were collected through interviews, observations, photographs and documents. The resulting data analysis and findings contribute to the current body of research on business ethics, social trauma and business-government-society relationship at the empirical and conceptual levels. The key contribution of this research is to substantiate the link between social trauma and business ethics, and the way social trauma causes unethical behaviour through its effect on the institutions and individual-social interaction. Furthermore, a model of social trauma and business ethics relationship was developed which also provides a framework for potential future research in other social contexts. Even after decades, social trauma can impact on the conduct of business and can interfere with the individual ethical decision-making process in multiple ways; the causes and consequences of this are discussed in depth. The way this impact occurs and its particulars may differ from one large group to another, and this should be noted before the framework is applied to any other society.

All bona fide professions have affiliated professional organizations, ethical standards or a code of ethics, and an accrediting and sanctioning body that deals with preparation, credentialing, and licensure, and pride in one's profession (Gale & Austin, 2003; Remley & Herlihy, 2010). As school counseling continues to evolve, school counselors have struggled to define and maintain their role. This may be due, in part, to the social desirability an individual has to belong to dominant group in the school setting (Tajfel, 1986). School counselors may draw esteem from their professional membership. This concept, called collective self-esteem, denotes those aspects of identity that are related to membership in social groups and the respective value that one places on one's membership (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between collective self-esteem and professional identity. The findings of this study indicated that collective self-esteem was relatively stable and remained moderately high across several demographic variables related to professional identity. Collective self-esteem remained relatively consistent across level of practice, professional background, years of total experience and years of experience at the current school, and area of practice. Further, collective self-esteem remained moderately high for those who were affiliated with a counseling organization and those who were not. Results also suggested that collective self-esteem is constant regardless of variations in credentialing, chosen code of ethics, role definition (educator first or counselor first), and professional pride. Results indicated that collective self-esteem remained moderately high across several demographic areas and variables related to professional identity. Further, a significant positive correlation was found between pride in the profession and collective self-esteem was shown. Additionally, a small, significant negative correlation was garnered between those participants who viewed themselves as a counselor first and held an LPC or equivalent. Further, a significant relationship was found between those participants who defined their role as a counselor first and chose the NBCC Code of Ethics as their primary code of ethics and those participants who held the counselor first position and chose the ASCA Ethical Code as their primary code of ethics.

In this dissertation, I investigate predictors and consequences of transactive memory system (TMS) development. A transactive memory system is a shared system for encoding, storing, and recalling who knows what within a group. Groups with well-developed transactive memory systems typically perform better than groups lacking such memory systems. I study how communication enhances the development of TMS and how turnover disrupts both TMS and its relationship to group performance. More specifically, I examine how communication networks affect the amount of communication, how the structure of the communication network affects the extent to which the group members share a strong identity as a group, and how both of these factors affect a group’s TMS. I also analyze how turnover disrupts the relationship between transactive memory systems and group performance. In addition, I examine how the communication network and turnover interact to affect group performance. I analyze these effects in three laboratory studies. The controlled setting of the experimental laboratory permits me to make causal inferences about the relationship of turnover and the communication network to group outcomes. Results promise to advance theory about transactive memory systems and communication networks.

The study of contact and desegregation in post apartheid South Africa has not received adequate attention (Durrheim & Dixon, 2005b). Mondeor, a previously White populated suburb in the South of Johannesburg has been identified as being a racially diverse neighbourhood . By focusing on this suburb, the current study investigated whether or not residents interacted or mixed with members from other race groups and whether or not increased contact with members of different race groups in a residential neighbourhood would promote positive intergroup attitudes. Zones were identified for the purpose of this study whereby each Zone was predominantly comprised of a specific race group. Quantitative data was collected by means of distributing an intergroup attitude and contact questionnaire to the residents according to the zones in which they resided. A sample of N=197 respondents was obtained. The results indicated that there was generally no significant difference in contact for the Zones (racially exclusive zones and racially mixed zones), however, significant differences existed in levels of contact for the various race groups. In addition to this it was found that significant differences in contact existed for the various education levels of the respondents. As expected, a significant negative relationship (r = -0.16) was found to exist between contact and affective prejudice. In addition to these results, significant relationships were found to exist between affective prejudice and the following variables: Intergroup anxiety (r=0.37), and social distance (r=0.27). In conclusion, it was found that residents were not mixing as much as what was envisaged for a racially mixed neighbourhood. In addition to this, contact in and of itself was not found to be a predictive measure for affective prejudice. Thus, this finding lends support to Allport’s contact hypothesis making it clear that it is imperative to examine the nature of the contact as this may be pertinent in the promotion of the reduction of affective prejudice in intergroup contact situations.

Having high employee loyalty is something which most organisation strive to obtain. Not only because of the morals of it, but also because of the fact that high levels of employee loyalty have been proven in many studies to increase operational performance. However, the literature on the concept provides many different definitions on it, and also suggest many different factors that affect how loyal an employee feels towards their organisations. The studies conducted previously on the topic has mainly been quantitative studies researching the connection between levels of loyalty and performance, and at specific companies or industries. As soon to be newly graduated students, the authors of this study also found the lack of comparison between people with different working experience interesting. Due to these reasons, the purpose of this study was to dig deeper into the concept of employee loyalty, how it is defined and which factors that affect the level of loyalty an employee feels towards an organisation. The sub-purposes of this study involve comparing one group of people with 1-3 years of working experience to another group with more than 15 years of working experience. The research question that was developed to be answered in this thesis is as follows: How does the view upon employee loyalty and the factors affecting it differ between people whom have been working for more than 15 years versus 1-3 years?  In order to answer the research questions and fulfil the purpose, a comparative qualitative study was conducted through semi-structured interviews. In line with some previous studies, the Social Identity theory and the Social Exchange theory were used in order to explain the factors affecting employee loyalty. The first focuses upon the level of identification the respondents feel towards different components of the organisation, while the other focuses on factors of exchange between the organisation and its employees. These theories, and theories connected to what employee loyalty is, was used in order to develop a conceptual model which served as a foundation for the data collection, empirical findings, and the analysis.  The empirical findings of this thesis showed that while some definitions of employee loyalty and the factors which are affecting it are similar between the groups, there were also some differences. Employee loyalty was defined by most as someone whom has a behaviour and attitude which is positive, does what is expected from them and whom represents the company in a good manner. The difference between the groups regarding employee loyalty were that the group with more experience seem to have higher demand to classify someone as a loyal employee than the group with less experience has. Moreover, the most evident difference of what affects employee loyalty was that the factor competence development was by far most important for the groups with less experience, while a responsive organisation was what the group with more experience found important in order to keep employees loyal.  Conclusions drawn from this study is that “softer” factors like the relationship’s employees have between each other, the organisational culture, and sense of opportunity for personal growth seem to be far more important for employees than physical benefits. Furthermore, there seem to be some differences regarding employee loyalty between groups with different levels of working experience which is why this thesis recommends organisations to be responsive to its employees’ needs and adapt their management to all employees.