Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - A golden age of behavioural social psychology?
T2 - Towards a social psychology of power and intergroup relations in the digital age
AU - Levine, Mark
PY - 2025/7/31
Y1 - 2025/7/31
N2 - This paper explores the idea of a ‘golden age’ in social psychological research. I begin with ‘behavioural social psychology’—research that leverages the behavioural traces that are a product of the digital age. I argue that the ability to analyse digital visual data, natural language data, and smartphone and ambient sensor data, has made substantial contributions to the state of social psychological knowledge. However, social psychology needs to do more than just leverage digital data for psychological benefit. Digital technologies construct and reflect a world that is marked by profound structural inequality and unfairness. Yet social psychology never really considers technology as being ‘world‐making’ in its own right. More specifically, social psychology very rarely goes beyond considering what technology might do—to explore the question of who wins and who loses when technologies reshape our worlds. I point to a mosaic of work applying social identity approaches to new technologies as the starting point for a social psychology that engages with power and resistance in the digital age. Social psychology will not enter a truly golden age until we engage not only with the data, but also with the power structures of digital technology.
AB - This paper explores the idea of a ‘golden age’ in social psychological research. I begin with ‘behavioural social psychology’—research that leverages the behavioural traces that are a product of the digital age. I argue that the ability to analyse digital visual data, natural language data, and smartphone and ambient sensor data, has made substantial contributions to the state of social psychological knowledge. However, social psychology needs to do more than just leverage digital data for psychological benefit. Digital technologies construct and reflect a world that is marked by profound structural inequality and unfairness. Yet social psychology never really considers technology as being ‘world‐making’ in its own right. More specifically, social psychology very rarely goes beyond considering what technology might do—to explore the question of who wins and who loses when technologies reshape our worlds. I point to a mosaic of work applying social identity approaches to new technologies as the starting point for a social psychology that engages with power and resistance in the digital age. Social psychology will not enter a truly golden age until we engage not only with the data, but also with the power structures of digital technology.
KW - power
KW - resistance
KW - behavioural social psychology
KW - social identity
KW - digital technologies
U2 - 10.1111/bjso.12896
DO - 10.1111/bjso.12896
M3 - Journal article
VL - 64
JO - British Journal of Social Psychology
JF - British Journal of Social Psychology
SN - 0144-6665
IS - 3
M1 - e12896
ER -