Assignment
People’s desire for achieving and maintaining group dominance is termed social dominance orientation (SDO; Pratto et al., 1994). SDO is linked to several current societal problems, like climate crisis, animal exploitation, prejudice towards groups of people (e.g., asylum seekers, LGBTQIA+, and other outgroups) which can lead to conflicts, issues regarding social safety and equity (Dhont et al., 2016; Jylhä & Akrami, 2015; Kteily et al., 2012). This internship assignment consists of a literature review and desk search on
- Existing successful and unsuccessful interventions to influence people’s desire for dominance and,
- Based on this research to provide advice on how to best address people’s need to dominate.
The internship student will start by getting acquainted with the topic. Then, a search string of keywords will be agreed upon for the literature review, after which found literature will be screened on relevance to answer the research questions. Then, an overview will be written regarding the obtained results.
The product of this internship will be
- A state-of-the-art overview of existing research on interventions influencing dominance and (if there is sufficient time),
- An advice how to best address dominance based on the literature.
Note that there is a possibility to do a master thesis on then testing the influence of this intervention on variables related to the societal problems.
KEYWORDS
Social dominance; Need to dominate; SDO; EDO; Nature dominance; Social hierarchies; Prejudice; Speciesism; Literature review
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ORGANIZATION
The section Psychology of Conflict, Risk and Safety at the University of Twente has a distinctive and unique profile in the areas of risk perception and risk communication, conflict and crisis management and the antecedents of risky, antisocial and criminal behaviour. It currently includes 15 research staff members and 6 PhD students. We work from both a psychology and an engineering perspective and cooperate with other scientific disciplines, based on the “high tech, human touch” profile of the University of Twente.
AVAILABILITY
Usually anytime. This internship is open for 1 student.
INTERESTED?
Please contact the PCRS internship coordinator Miriam Oostinga (m.s.d.oostinga@utwente.nl).
LITERATURE
- Dhont, K., Hodson, G., & Leite, A. C. (2016). Common ideological roots of speciesism and generalized ethnic prejudice: The social dominance human–animal relations model (SD-HARM). European Journal of Personality, 30, 507–522. Doi:10.1002/per.2069
- Kirsti M. Jylhä, K. M., & Akrami, N. (2015). Social dominance orientation and climate change denial: The role of dominance and system justification, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 86, 2015, Pages 108-111, ISSN 0191-8869, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.05.041
- Kteily, N. S., Ho, A., & Sidanius, J. (2012). Hierarchy in the mind: The predictive power of social dominance orientation across social contexts and domains. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 543-549
- Pratto, Felicia, James Sidanius, Lisa M. Stallworth, and Bertram F. Malle. 1994. Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, no. 4: 741-763.