A controlled evaluation of the effect of social prescribing programs on loneliness for adults in Queensland, Australia (protocol).

BACKGROUND: In social prescribing, link workers support individuals whose persistent health problems are exacerbated by loneliness by connecting them to community-based social activities. This approach is well established in the UK and is gaining attention in Australia. However, a major limitation of research to date has been a lack of theoretically informed and rigorous evaluations of social prescribing. We will address these points in this study, applying a social identity framework to examine the effects of group-based social prescribing (SP) activity compared to primary care treatment as usual (TAU). METHODS: Ninety participants experiencing loneliness recruited from primary care services and community centres across five sites in Southeast Queensland will be assigned to one of two conditions (SP, TAU) and assessed at two timepoints (baseline, + 8 weeks). Individuals will be aged 18 years and over, have sufficient English language skills to provide consent, and at the time of recruitment they will not be experiencing acute symptoms or social issues that require urgent intervention. Primary outcomes are loneliness, mental well-being, and health service use (total number of GP, hospital, and allied health visits in the past 3 months). Secondary outcomes will assess social group processes, including number of important social groups, new group identification, multiple identity compatibility, and group-based support and emotion regulation. DISCUSSION: This study will provide comprehensive data about the extent to which, and how, social prescribing to community-based group activities may help people to feel less lonely, more socially integrated, and healthy over the first 8 weeks. If effective, this social identity-informed model of social prescribing can be disseminated in communities across Australia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ANZCTR, Registered 8 June 2022 - Retrospectively registered, https://www.anzctr.org.au/ACTRN12622000801718.aspx.

Leaders promote attendance in sport and exercise sessions by fostering social identity.

Sport and exercise participation exert a positive effect on numerous aspects of individuals' health. Although sport and exercise leaders have generally been observed to play a key role in shaping group members' behavior, our understanding of their impact on group members' attendance in sport and exercise sessions is limited. To address this, and building on promising findings in other domains, we examined the associations between perceptions of sport and exercise leaders' engagement in social identity leadership, group identification, and attendance. A sample of 583 participants from sports teams (n = 307) and exercise groups (n = 276) completed questionnaires measuring identity leadership, group identification, and attendance. Analyses demonstrated that perceptions of leader engagement in social identity leadership were positively associated with members' group identification, and that this in turn was positively associated with their attendance in either a sports group or an exercise group. Moreover, there was a significant indirect effect for perceptions of leader engagement in identity leadership on group members' attendance through their greater identification with these groups. Findings highlight the importance of considering the impact sport and exercise leaders have on group members' attendance and suggest that leaders who represent, advance, create, and embed a shared sense of identity (ie, a shared sense of "us") among attendees can promote participation in sport and exercise.

We will be champions: Leaders' confidence in 'us' inspires team members' team confidence and performance.

The present research examines the impact of leaders' confidence in their team on the team confidence and performance of their teammates. In an experiment involving newly assembled soccer teams, we manipulated the team confidence expressed by the team leader (high vs neutral vs low) and assessed team members' responses and performance as they unfolded during a competition (i.e., in a first baseline session and a second test session). Our findings pointed to team confidence contagion such that when the leader had expressed high (rather than neutral or low) team confidence, team members perceived their team to be more efficacious and were more confident in the team's ability to win. Moreover, leaders' team confidence affected individual and team performance such that teams led by a highly confident leader performed better than those led by a less confident leader. Finally, the results supported a hypothesized mediational model in showing that the effect of leaders' confidence on team members' team confidence and performance was mediated by the leader's perceived identity leadership and members' team identification. In conclusion, the findings of this experiment suggest that leaders' team confidence can enhance members' team confidence and performance by fostering members' identification with the team.

When are we better than them and they worse than us? A closer look at social discrimination in positive and negative domains.

This article argues that in-group favoritism occurs on positive and negative dimensions only when the dimensions of comparison provide an appropriate and meaningful basis for self-other definition, that is, when traits comparatively and normatively fit in-group-out-group categorizations. Three studies are reported in which groups were evaluated on positive or negative traits that varied in their degree of normative fit to in-group and out-group identity. In line with predictions, fit rather than stimulus valence was the crucial determinant of (a) in-group favoritism and (b) absolute level of differentiation between groups. Implications of the findings for explanations of positive-negative asymmetry and broader understandings of intergroup discrimination are discussed.

Willingness to participate in industrial protest: exploring social identification in context.

This study examines the impact of group identification and social context on willingness to participate in industrial protest. Trade union members (N = 313) completed a survey indicating their willingness to participate in union activities, their perceptions of the union and its role, and their attitudes toward present and former governments. Three independent conditions defined the union and its activities in different ways: either (a) referring to conflict with the present government, (b) referring to this conflict together with the government's threat to the union, or (c) presenting no additional information (a control condition). Results indicated that participants who identified highly with the union were more willing to participate in collective action to the extent that issues were defined in conflictual terms. Low identifiers resiled from participation in union activities when reference was made to conflict alone, but this effect was attenuated when reference was also made to threat. Results suggest that collective action is not simply a product of identification, but is also shaped by the distinct meaning which such action assumes for high and low identifiers within a given context.

A 100 years of certitude? Social psychology, the experimental method and the management of scientific uncertainty.

For at least 100 years the experimental method has been used to add scientific rigour to the process of conducting social psychological research. More specifically, experiments have been used to reduce methodological uncertainty surrounding the causal relationships between variables. In this way the method has proved particularly useful in demonstrating the impact of social contextual variables over-and-above individual differences. However, problems with the method have arisen because over time experimentalists have tended (1) to define uncertainty too narrowly, (2) to emphasize uncertainty reduction, but (3) to neglect the equally important process of uncertainty creation. This has contributed to the normalization of social psychology as a science but also made the discipline more conservative and circumscribed. It is argued that experimentalists need to address broader metatheoretical and political uncertainties in order to rediscover the experiment's potency as a tool of revolutionary and progressive science.

In what sense are prejudicial beliefs personal? The importance of an in-group's shared stereotypes.

This experiment investigated the role that group membership and shared stereotypes play in the expression of intergroup prejudice. In three independent conditions schoolchildren (N = 96) used a checklist to describe Australian Aborigines with reference to the cultural stereotype and their personal beliefs. In two conditions Aborigines were also described with reference to the beliefs of a relevant in-group (with or without group interaction). In all conditions an independent prejudice measure was also completed. Following Devine and Elliot (1995), personal beliefs were always better predictors of prejudice than the cultural stereotype. However, shared group beliefs were better predictors of prejudice than personal beliefs elicited in the abstract, and personal beliefs were more predictive of prejudice in conditions where they were informed by a salient group membership. These patterns suggest that personal beliefs are more predictive of prejudice when they reflect stereotypic beliefs shared within an in-group rather than individuals' idiosyncratic views.

Gender solidarity in hierarchical organizations.

Previous research has suggested that promotion decisions in hierarchical organizations may vary as a function of the decision maker's sex. In particular, it has been argued that women may be more likely to support a same-sex other than men due to higher levels of identification with their gender in-group. This paper reports findings from two experiments which examine gender identification and candidate promotion strategies amongst university students (N = 116) and public servants (N = 136) in hypothetical organizations which manipulated the participants' personal status and that of their gender in-group. In the university sample women did identify more strongly with their sex than men. This was not generally the case in the public service sample, although here women with high personal status tended to show greater identification than men in a similar position. However, in both studies there was little evidence that gender identification was associated with preferential treatment of in-group candidates in promotion-related decisions. These decisions were generally influenced by norms of fairness qualified by the participants' personal status. Implications for the self-categorization process are discussed.

Determinants of perceived consistency: the relationship between group entitativity and the meaningfulness of categories.

The concept of entitativity was developed by Campbell (1958) to refer to the extent to which a group is perceived as a coherent whole or entity. This concept is relevant to research in both social perception (e.g. the categorization effects approach to the study of social stereotyping) and social influence (e.g. the consistency attributed to minority groups in theories of minority influence). On the basis of previous research, four variables were expected to play a role in group entitativity judgements. These were intra-group variability, group size, diversity (or variety) and extremity. In two empirical studies it was found that entitativity decreased as variability and diversity increased and that it increased with group size. These effects and interactions between group size and extremity, size and diversity, and variability and extremity are consistent with the idea that entitativity is a function of how meaningful a stimulus pattern is. This is in turn (in part) a function of how unlikely the pattern is.

Social categorization and group homogeneity: changes in the perceived applicability of stereotype content as a function of comparative context and trait favourableness.

Using the Katz-Braly checklist subjects (N = 65) assigned five traits to a national group and estimated the percentage of group members who had those traits. This was either an in-group (Australians) or an out-group (Americans), and subjects either judged that group alone (one-group conditions) or also estimated the percentage of people from the other nation (the United States or Australia, respectively) who had those same traits (two-group conditions). Across one-group conditions there was a significant out-group homogeneity effect with traits being seen to apply to more Americans than Australians, but there was no such effect across the two-group conditions. These findings were predicted on the basis of self-categorization theory's analysis of the role of comparative context in determining level of social categorization. Across two-group conditions non-stereotypic traits were also applied to fewer in-group than out-group members. This result suggests that trait favourableness is an important normative-motivational determinant of perceived homogeneity. A second experiment (N = 297) confirmed this point through an additional manipulation of the favourableness of checklist traits. This study also replicated the effect for comparative context. Implications for the analysis of social categorization, perceived group homogeneity and stereotyping are discussed.

Post-coma disturbance and post-traumatic amnesia as nonlinear predictors of cognitive outcome following severe closed head injury: findings from the Westmead Head Injury Project.

This study sought to identify combinations of early neurological variables which best predict cognitive outcome 12 months after severe head injury. At the time of admission patients were assessed on seven neurological indices. Twelve months later a battery of neuropsychological tests examining recent memory functioning and speed of information processing was administered. Recent memory functioning was best predicted by a combination of post-coma disturbance (PCD; i.e. the duration of post-traumatic amnesia, PTA, minus the duration of coma) and presence of subarachnoid haemorrhage (multiple r = 0.54, p < 0.001). Speed of information processing was best predicted by the duration of PTA (r = 0.35, p < 0.01). However, these conclusions were based on square root transformation of PCD and PTA variables. The success of this transformation in assisting prediction confirms suggestions that the relationship between PTA and cognitive outcome is nonlinear.