Lectures Social Psychology in Lisbon in November

[Rui Costa Lopes]

Dear colleagues,

I’d like to bring your attention to three amazing talks that are all taking place in Lisbon during November.

On November, 10, 14h30 Jolanda Jetten from the University of Queensland will give a talk at ICS on “Economic Inequality: Consequences for societies’ social and political vitality”

This will be an hybrid session. Jolanda Jetten will be present at Sala Maria de Sousa at ICS, and the link for zoom is presented below.

 

On November, 16, 12h30 Klaus Fiedler from Heidelberg University will give a talk at Ispa  about “Metacognitive myopia - a major impediment for debriefing and debunking” in Sala de Atos (Ispa).

On November, 22, 12h30 Ruud Custers from Utrecht University wil give a talk at Ispa on “Thoughts about actions and outcomes” in Sala de Atos (Ispa).

For these two Ispa talks, you should email wj...@ispa.pt to indicate your interest in attending.

See more information about these three talks below

Hope a lot of you will enjoy these opportunities.

Best,

Rui

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Rui Costa Lopes

Senior Research Fellow @ICS - University of Lisbon
Guest Lecturer @FP - University of Lisbon
President @Associação Portuguesa de Psicologia

 

Link de Acesso: https://tinyurl.com/SepgPsicologia Abstract: Societal inequality has been found to have pernicious effects reducing mental and physical health and decreasing societal cohesion. However, this work lacks compelling, theory-driven explanations for why inequality has these effects and  when and for whom these effects are likely to emerge. These are important gaps because to respond effectively to inequality we need a holistic understanding of its effect on individuals as well as the collectives within which they are embedded and that structure their interactions with one another. A social psychological analysis can help to fill the gaps in this picture in at least three ways: (1) by pointing to the processes that explain why inequality has negative effects for individuals and societies, (2) by emphasizing the relevance of subjective perceptions of inequality, and (3) by identifying the group dynamics that underpin the negative effects of inequality. I will present a range of studies and contexts where we have examined the effect of objective measures of inequality as well as perceptions of inequality on outcomes such as well-being, the desire for more, the wish for a strong leader, prosocial behavior, and the endorsement of conspiracy theories. The findings underscore the notion that inequality may have even more far-reaching consequences than believed until now. Investigating the effects of inequality on citizens’ socio-political behaviour may be increasingly relevant in the light of today’s turbulent political and social landscape. Metacognitive myopia – a major impediment for debriefing and debunking Dear researchers,   The William James Center for Research (WJCR) is pleased to announce that on November 16th 2023, Professor Klaus Fiedler (Department of Psychology, Heidelberg University) will give the following lecture: “Metacognitive myopia – a major impediment for debriefing and debunking”. The lecture will be held in Sala de Atos at Ispa – Instituto Universitário, 12h30 to 13h30. Note: Please email wj...@ispa.pt to indicate your interest in attending this lecture.       Klaus Fiedler Department of Psychology Heidelberg University     Abstract of the presentation: In this talk, I provide a summary of research on “meta-cognitive myopia” (MM), which I consider to be a major impediment of rational behavior in general, and of debunking failures in particular. MM research shows that people are pretty accurate at processing given information samples, even under high load of complex settings. However, they are uncritical and naïve regarding the history and the validity of information, even when the problem context makes it crystal-clear that it shouldn’t be trusted. I illustrate MM with examples from various paradigms: inability to discard irrelevant information; utilization of selectively sampled information; unwarranted reverse inference; sample-size neglect; myopia for aggregation levels, and the notorious utilization of advice that is obviously invalid. MM not only offers alternative accounts of many prominent biases in judgment and decision making, but of the limited success of debunking in particular. The final discussion is concerned with the learning origins of MM and the question of why evolution did not equip homo sapiens with more effective tools for critical assessment.

 

Thoughts about actions and outcomes (and what they lead to)

Dear researchers,   The William James Center for Research (WJCR) is pleased to announce that on November 22nd 2023, Prof. Ruud Custers (Department of Psychology, Utrecht University) will give the following lecture: “Thoughts about actions and outcomes (and what they lead to)”. The lecture will be held in Sala de Atos at Ispa – Instituto Universitário, 12h30 to 13h30. Note: Please email wj...@ispa.pt to indicate your interest in attending this lecture.       Ruud Custers Department of Psychology Utrecht University     Abstract of the presentation: The idea that actions and their outcomes are mentally represented as associative knowledge structures has been influential in social psychology and motivation science. Amongst others, it suggests that thinking of, perceiving, or activating outcome representations in any other way can lead to the activation of associated action representations, triggering goal-directed action. In this talk I will critically examine the existing evidence for such ideomotor action. I will argue that the evidence for ideomotor action obtained by the dominant paradigms in the field is open to alternative interpretations and present evidence suggesting that ideomotor action may result from causal models about actions and outcomes rather than from mere associations between their representations. I will conclude that as a result, ideomotor action may be much more situated and flexible than previously thought, which has consequences for our thinking about goal-directed action.