(Lab) What Just Happened? Understanding Reactions to Everyday Life

Background

Past research has shown that certain types of social interactions can influence people's wellbeing, behaviour, beliefs, and identity. Many such outcomes from social interactions have been attributed to changes in fundamental psychological needs. Importantly, how people relate to their beliefs and identity has implications for endorsement of harmful ideologies, and the degree of dismissal, distrust and dislike of those who hold dissimilar beliefs.

Research Questions / Hypotheses

This study aims to test whether a certain type of social interaction (in the form of a virtual ball game) affects what participants perceive as is identity-relevant. It also explores whether a change in fulfillment of psychological needs mediates this change.

Participants

A total of 20 REP participants completed the study in the Semester 1 round of data-collection.

Methods

Participants took part in a 30 to 45 minute in-person study. First, they responded to a series of questions regarding demographics and individual differences. Following this, participants played a 2 to 3 minute anonymous, virtual ball-tossing game. They then completed a series of questionnaires relating to feelings during the game, their beliefs, identity, and were asked to make judgements about various social situations. The study concluded with a full debriefing and opportunity to ask questions.

Results

Data collection is ongoing. Final results will be analysed once sufficient data has been obtained in Semester 2.

Implications

We hope that this work will:

1. deepen our understanding of how momentary social experiences can shape identity-relevant perceptions and belief systems;
2. contribute to the validation of a newly formed scale; and
3. offer insights into psychological antecedents of how we come to view certain beliefs as identity-relevant, with broader implications for polarisation, ideological extremism, and social cohesion more generally.