Prof. Dr. Ingo Zettler
Department of Psychology & Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS), University of Copenhagen

A Glimpse Into Person and Situation Factors Related to Anti- and Prosocial Behaviour

Humans engage in various kinds of anti- and prosocial behaviour, spanning cooperation, helping, and sharing, as well as aggression, corruption, and dishonesty. Given that antisocial behaviour typically entails important negative economic, psychological, and societal consequences, and that prosocial behaviour typically entails positive ones, research across various disciplines within and outside psychology has aimed to shed light on their antecedents, correlates, and consequences.

In this talk, I provide an overview of important person and situation factors related to anti- and prosocial behaviour. Among other factors, I present evidence concerning the role of basic personality dimensions, the D Factor of Personality, social norms, and the monitoring (or observability) of behaviour. At this juncture, I illustrate how combining different data, designs, and methods – such as experiments, meta-analyses, register data, surveys, thematic analyses, and cross-societal (cross-country) comparisons – contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of psychological relations in general and of anti- and prosocial behaviour in particular.

Ingo Zettler, Ph.D., is a Professor in Personality and Social Behavior at both the Department of Psychology and the Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS), University of Copenhagen. His research interests are across behavioral economics, educational psychology, personality psychology, and work and organizational psychology. He is particularly interested in research on aversive and prosocial behavior, linking personality characteristics to various criteria, and the interplay between personality and situation in shaping behavior. Zettler studied psychology at the University of Bonn, Germany, and received his diploma in psychology in 2006. He worked at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where he received his Ph.D. in 2009, as well as the University of Tübingen, Germany (until 2014).

https://research.ku.dk/search/result/?pure=en%2Fpersons%2F473161
ORCID

Prof. Dr. Anna Kende
ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Connecting Identity Fragility and Political Instability through a Psychological Lens

Political instability—characterized by low social cohesion and trust, a lack of solidarity among citizens, and an inability to resist destabilization—is a widespread experience for people living in many parts of the world, especially in these turbulent times. Nationalism, homophobia, prejudice against indigenous and immigrant communities, and the rise of populist, authoritarian, and illiberal politics that exploit these divisions are defining features of contemporary societies. Political instability can both result from and contribute to vulnerable collective identities. These identities arise from individual and collective historical experiences of conflict, structural inequalities, and the inability to reconcile with difficult collective memories. They are driven by a need for control in unpredictable social, political, and economic contexts. As such, fragile identities play a critical role in fueling societal tensions and intergroup conflicts.

This talk will explore the impact of social, political, and historical contexts, as well as fragile identities, on intergroup relations, including attitudes, conciliatory preferences, collective action, and solidarity. It will draw on studies investigating the structural oppression of Roma people in Europe, intergroup conflicts in post-colonial societies, and the conditionality of solidarity with refugees in contexts marked by political instability. These studies highlight the potential of social psychological research that considers the normative and contextual dimensions of intergroup relations, rather than focusing on individualistic solutions to collective problems.

Anna Kende is a professor of Social Psychology at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Her research focuses on the broad topic of intergroup relations, more specifically, she investigates the psychological underpinnings of social change both in the area of prejudice reduction and engagement in social movements, volunteerism and intergroup solidarity. She has conducted a number of research projects concerning anti-Gypsyism, anti-Semitism, gender relations, and attitudes toward refugees and immigrants, mainly focusing on the region of East-Central Europe. Her work covers both basic and applied research, which she has published in leading international journals. She has fulfilled leadership positions in international academic organizations and received the Nevitt Sanford award Nevitt Sanford Award for Outstanding Professional Contributions to Political Psychology in 2023 from the International Society of Political Psychology.

https://ppk.elte.hu/en/staff/anna-kende

Prof. Dr. Veljko Jovanović
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad

Lost in Translation: Problems, Implicit Assumptions, and Consequences of Cross-Cultural Research on Happiness

Over the past two decades, the ranking of countries according to the happiness levels of their citizens has attracted considerable attention from researchers, while the findings of cross-cultural happiness studies have become particularly appealing to the media, lay audiences, and popular science communicators. Such results are often presented as spectacular—for example, headlines proclaiming that “Young people in Serbia rank third among the happiest in the world”—and are frequently accepted uncritically, accompanied by enthusiasm and the claim that they reveal the best and worst places to live on our planet. However, this line of research entails a range of problems, including methodological issues (such as whether and to what extent concepts of happiness are cross-culturally comparable), as well as ideological concerns (for instance, which notions of the good life and desirable subjective states are implicitly promoted) and political implications (such as what these findings suggest about the ideal society). Because these problems are largely overlooked in popular science accounts and media reporting, and remain marginal within the academic literature, this lecture aims to address them explicitly.

The lecture will begin by examining the complex and sensitive issue of the equivalence of meaning of concepts used to describe the good life across different languages and cultures, followed by a critique of the Western-centric conception of happiness that dominates large international studies. It will then reassess the usefulness, scope, consequences, and implicit assumptions of cross-cultural research focused on ranking countries by levels of happiness. I will argue that such studies contribute less to the improvement of human well-being and the development of public policies aimed at enhancing quality of life, and more to the maintenance of the social status quo and the promotion of a problematic notion of the “happy society” as an ideal, by reinforcing a conception of the self rooted in neoliberal values.

Veljko Jovanović (born 1984) is a Full Professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad. His research primarily focuses on the assessment and determinants—both individual and societal—of subjective well-being, with a particular emphasis on a cross-cultural perspective. In his teaching, he encourages students to critically examine the foundational assumptions of mainstream psychology and strives to foster an understanding of psychology as a scientific discipline and professional practice that is inseparable from its historical, political, and cultural contexts.

https://www.ff.uns.ac.rs/sr/fakultet/odseci/psihologija/zaposleni/veljko-jovanovic