Social psychology and different aspects of psychosocial violence in the Brazilian context

Elza Maria Techio elza.mt@ufba.br

Federal University of Bahia , Brasil

Since its origin, social psychology has been conceived in a dichotomous way. Thus, for example, in 1908 the first two manuals of social psychology were launched. E. Ross, who was a sociologist, and W. McDougall, who was a psychologist. Underlying these two manuals was also the issue of explanatory emphasis on social phenomena: should the starting point be society or the individual? Or the relationship between the two? Should research be quantitative or qualitative? A closer look at the contemporary situation will show that these original debates continue and, perhaps, in a more fierce way, as they have a peculiar political dimension both in Brazil and throughout Latin America[1].

However, since 2003 a group of Brazilian psychologists, from different academic backgrounds, began to express concerns about the direction taken by the theoretical-methodological debate of social psychology, whose polarization weakens rather than strengthens the development of this discipline. Dissatisfied with this reductionist view of Social Psychology, they decided, based on the reflections of Willem Doise (1982) who questioned the need to adopt one of the poles, to create a Working Group (WG) whose objective is to articulate different approaches in the study of psychosocial phenomena. This way, it was created the WG, “Social psychology and its theoretical-methodological diversity”, linked to the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Psychology (ANPEPP), which brings together a group of researchers who adopt different approaches, but who share an interest in establishing relations between the different theoretical-methodological perspectives of social psychology. This WG has carried out several activities that aim precisely to bring to the debate different theoretical-methodological approaches that share the objective of unveiling the processes of social exclusion that are increasingly becoming more acute both in Brazil and throughout the world. One of these activities was the publication of the Third Edition, in 2023, of the book “Social Psychology: Themes and Theories”, organized by Ana Raquel R. Torres, Marcus Eugenio O. Lima, Elza Maria Techio and Leoncio Camino (Ed. Blucher, Open Access). Another activity, equally important is the organization of this Dossier of the Magazine of Investigation in Social Psychology (PSOCIAL), of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires (Research in Social Psychology). Faculty of Social Sciences | University of Buenos Aires (UBA), intituled “Dossier on social psychology and different aspects of psychosocial violence in the Brazilian context” that aims to publish articles that address different psychosocial processes of violence and its impact on social life dynamics in the Brazilian context”.

This Dossier, in addition to representing a space for the dissemination of knowledge developed by Brazilians, remains faithful to the objectives established by the WG of the ANPEPP, adding the principles of the Ibero-Latin-American Social Psychology NETWORK, which is to promote research in all areas of the psychology and its advances in the context of Ibero-American culture. In it, we present four articles that offer to readers different ways of approaching the psychosocial aspects of violence in the Brazilian context.

In the first article, entitled “The mediating role of orientation to social dominance in the relationship between political identity and sexism”, by Gabriela Barbeitos and João Gabriel Modesto, the mediating role of orientation to dominance in the relationship between political identity and ambivalent sexism is analyzed. The results obtained show that the tendency to support social hierarchies also leads to greater adherence to right-wing politics and the approval of sexist attitudes.

Fernanda Cristina de Oliveira Ramalho Diniz, Luiza Lins, Ana Raquel Rosas Torres, José Luis Álvaro Estramiana, authors of the second article entitled “There is no racism in Brazil”: characteristics and consequences of an invisible phenomenon, investigate the perceptions of the characteristics and consequences of racism in Brazil. To do so, they analyze 1000 comments on the public page on Facebook by Leandro Karnal, a renowned professor and writer in Brazil, who questioned: “Is Brazil a racist country? The comments address structural racism, subtly and flagrantly; and the social and political consequences of a government that does not recognize the existence of this phenomenon. Therefore, the recognition of racism as the first condition for transforming this social reality is discussed.

The third article, entitled “Psychosocial aspects, digital platforms and coping with cyberbullying: perspectives on a phenomenon of contemporary violence” by José Carlos Santos Ribeiro and Mariana Matos Nascimento Oliveira, proposes to identify and discuss issues related to cyberbullying, starting from the historical milestones and cultural, psychosocial, technical and contextual aspects associated with the Brazilian experience. The work also discusses the characteristics of digital environments, such as the ease of replicating, searching, or making certain content persistent, in addition to the difficulty of controlling access to it, which present themselves as favorable conditions for the exercise and maintenance of the practice of cyberbullying. Together, it is clear that the means to deal with this phenomenon are more assertive when they integrate individual, technological, contextual and psychosocial factors.

Finally, Larissa Oliveira Ferreira and Daniela Sacramento Zanini, in the work entitled “Victimization in childhood and impact on the cognitive process: an explanatory path for revictimization” assess whether the experience of violence, in addition to directly impacting the development of Executive Functions (EF) in children, has an indirect effect or is enhanced by its impact on verbal comprehension. The results obtained through structural equation modeling indicate that the experience of different types of violence in children causes more significant impairments in EF. However, verbal comprehension can be a protective factor for children who are victims of different types of victimization.

With this Dossier, we seek to maintain consistency in the proposal of reflections on theoretical-methodological diversity in Social Psychology in Brazil through texts produced by Brazilian authors.