And what this does is it helps your body adapt to stress using your sense of touch. So what we're going to do here is, sorry, how are you feeling right now? Kind of stressed out, yes. Want to stress out? Yeah. Okay, would you like to be a little bit more chilled out? That'd be great. Okay. We're going to put you on the meditation and meditation mode, it's one of my favorites. And right now it's set to 15 minutes, wave intensity up to 54%. You can increase the duration or the intensity. And ultimately what this is doing is sending vibrational wave patterns through your skin and it corresponds to your emotional cortex to basically signal a sense of safety.  Now in modern life, when you get that crappy slack message or that bad text message from your boss, your body is interpreting that as dangerous. What this is helping you do is actually interpret those signals not as dangerous and kicks in your parasympathetic nervous system using your sense of touch. And ultimately, heart rate variability is the biometric that this is going to impact. This is not a tracker though, it's actually changing your heart rate variability, increasing it. And we do have clinical studies out of University of Pittsburgh validating all of that. Gotcha. So the applications are pretty broad reaching. Yes. We're in clinical trials with treatment-resistant PTSD. We have trial psychiatrists using it for kids with autism. Joe Maroon of Pittsburgh Steelers, he's their neurologist, is one of our advisors and we're using it with professional sports teams for focused performance and also relaxation after games. Gotcha. At the end of the day, anyone with stress can benefit from this. Falling asleep is the thing that of our beta users, 95% of people would say, I'm falling asleep faster and that, I don't know if you have a stressed out mom, but I know, like that is the thing that pretty much anyone can identify with. Yeah, for sure. So is this available now? Right now we're in free-sale mode. We are 199 available on our website now, we'll be launching with our full sale and shipping at the end of this month and we'll be 349 after that. And then it's just charged with a micro USB or... The micro USB, it's attached to the app, the app is Android, iOS and you can turn the Bluetooth off while you're wearing it if that's a concern for you. So whatever program it was last on, you just use these two buttons, turn it back on and it'll go back to that program. Oh, so let's stand alone a lot, is it without the app? Yep, you don't need to have the app to use it. Very cool. So I'm trying to think of any other questions. See, it looks like the app has several different programs. Yep, so the app is right here. We've got energy and wake-up, social and open, clean and focused. Meditation and mindfulness, relax with wine, sleep and redo. And it's pretty personal, like for me some of the more like energy and wake-up and focused ones are not awesome because I'm just naturally wired to be a little more like... So the meditation one is incredible for me. Whereas some people love the rebuild and recover one. That's the one, like let's say you're in the gym and you're wearing sets. This is the one that will most intensely increase your heart rate very little. Awesome. Quickly. Yeah, you know, I mean I tracked my HRV with my ORA ring and the Biostrap. So something like this would be awesome so I can actually see that I'm running. And hopefully in like version two of this app, we will have integrations with all those trackers so that long-term we are going to learn from your body and start to adjust the vibration. That is cool. Because I know that Biostrap, they have an open API so you can use third party heart rate monitors and whatnot. So if you guys partnered with them or at least you integrated that, that would be an interesting... That is absolutely where our heads are. It's the kind of technology that can be... I mean as long as the device has the haptics to support the program, it's really more about the software than the device itself. So you could literally put this in a pair of shoes. I've actually tried on a prototype and it was amazing. That does sound really cool. Yeah, it's really cool. It's like music getting pumped right into the bottoms of your feet. It's cool. And it's comfortable too. Yeah, it's not bad. So the ankle is actually our favorite spot to recommend to wear it because when you put it against the bone, your bone density actually helps sort of channel those vibrations up through your body and it's a little bit more effective. And it's also a little bit less obtrusive but for the sake of being at the conference, the wrist tends to be the fake. So how long has the charge last on this? Three days. That's really pretty good. Yeah, it's not bad. So I can see wearing this as a cubicle on it. Yes, we're actually doing a lot of work with engineering teams and high stress environments or even just groups of people that tend to be a little bit more introverted. It can really help them kind of be a little bit more open. If you wore it on your ankle, then nobody would even know you're wearing it. Nobody knows you're wearing it. Exactly. Going into big presentation at work, strapped on 15 minutes before, get your mind right and nobody has any idea. Very cool. Let's go into a corner and meditate. I mean, this is not a substitute for all those great things like meditation but what it can do is deepen meditative states for experienced meditators and help you achieve meditative states for people who have never been able to really get there. That's right. I use a music headband every day for about 15 minutes. Yeah. And that's just not something you can sort of whip out in the office. No. I can, you know, meditate in the morning, slap this on my wrist or my ankle and go all day long and keep myself in the audience. I actually really like turning up the frequency sometimes when that's your goal because it gets you in your body in that way. Like when you're meditating, like put your feet on the floor, take deep breaths. Feel in your body. Sometimes just having a little bit of awareness of touch can help you get there and this can keep you in that space. But if you're like trying to fall asleep, probably want to dial that vibration down because you don't want to be quite so present in your body like that. It's interesting. It kind of pulses on and off. Yep. Yep. Sure. That's because you're on the social and open line, which is what we call conference mode around here. It's like what we wear all day. And this one is a little bit more rollicking. Like, I can only describe it akin to music in the sense that it kind of gets you in that like... It's a much higher frequency. Yeah. And then you can dial it up. The intensity a little much for some people. That's pretty cool. But yeah, we usually like to keep it around 24, 25% to start and if you need it higher, sometimes you just have that environment where that's important and other times don't. Very cool. Very cool. I like it. Great. Yeah.  Yeah. Can you feel any different? You take about three to five minutes for the effects to like pick in, but it's really subtle. I feel happier. Good. Yeah. Usually when you take it off, that's when you kind of notice and you're like, oh, I kind of miss it. Yeah. But it is subtle. Yeah. I'm sure. This is awesome. I'm looking forward to trying this out. Yeah. I mean, we're really excited. It has so many applications in spaces where people are really struggling. I mean, the people that it makes the biggest differences is people who are really struggling. Our founder, Dave, is a neuroscientist, PhD, also clinical psychiatrist. And part of the genesis of this idea was you can give people all these cognitive and behavioral therapies, but if they're constantly stressed out, they just can't even get there. And this can really help people get there so they can even begin to do that work. And like mindfulness meditation is something that not everybody can just do on the top. Right.  When your pulse is racing, when you're elevated in that stress level, it's impossible to get there. And bring that down by triggering your parasympathetic nervous system without you having to be mindful of that. Yeah. So that's the Apollo. Wow. Very cool stuff.


people have kind of written a script for us in the way that they think we're going to interact with the world and it's really difficult for us to escape their script and to kind of take charge of that to kind of chart our own kind of narrative if you like. There's a whole ton of research on this you know a lot of it from education, looking at teachers' expectations of students and you know teachers should be quite good judges and often they are of like who are the more able students but they're still biased like everyone else they come with these assumptions and then you know they transmit those beliefs about someone's ability to that person where it becomes internalised and it can be you know it doesn't have to be someone being actively verbally nasty to a kid or a student or an employee it can just be like non-verbal cues like whether you you know whether they kind of look distracted and bored when you're speaking or whether they kind of nodding along if they give you enough time to finish a thought or whether they're just like dismissing you instantly and you know moving on to another point before you've really had a chance to develop what you were talking about you know all of those kind of cues are really important and what happens is that you know when you're treated in that way you begin to feel that you are not an effective agent yourself so increases your anxiety makes you feel you know less capable more demotivated and then that translates into your performance and that's you know that's incredibly sad actually that when you look at the data sometimes these teacher effects you know it can begin like quite early on and then it kind of escalates throughout the school because each you know once a kid starts underperforming then they're kind of it's going to create the expectation that they're going to always be you know kind of lower in the class so it's a real problem but there are ways to deal with that and one of my favourite exercises that people have shown can help you to overcome this is called self affirmation and that is again it sounds a bit kind of you know new agey kind of flaky pseudoscience but it's not like just repeating a mantra like I'm going to become rich I'm going to become rich it's like it's much more about trying to look at the things about yourself that you really know you value and it doesn't have to be related to the task at hand at all so if it's you know someone worried about their academic performance or public speaking or you know work performance just forget about that and try to focus on the other things you like about yourself so your sense of humour how good a you know son or daughter you are how caring you are how creative you are you know your music taste all of these things and then you kind of list maybe 10 pick one write a short essay about that in particular like why that value or that ability is so important for you and then that's it you can forget about it but what that's done is there is created this sense that you have a well a realisation in fact that you have all of these other resources it helps to increase that self-efficacy that might have been taken away by the other people around you and so what we see is that in education for example that can help these disadvantaged groups who are facing that um stereotype threat and that anxiety all of that that comes from this from others beliefs it can help them to kind of let go of that anxiety and so they actually start to perform consistently better when they perform this exercise regularly and I think for a lot of our clients who are into self-development they might not have friends or family members who are so into this or feel like this is an area that they want to strengthen and oftentimes they'll feel that the expectations of others will hinder them from sharing or wanting to take action or wanting to stretch their comfort zone and then the flip will happen they'll join a group like our x-factor accelerator be surrounded by people who have removed the expectations of what it would be like to land a sidewalk or remove the expectations about what it would be like to use the conversation formula with a stranger and come back the next week feeling like anything's possible in that environment when you're surrounded by people who are only talking about positive expectations removing the negative pessimism self-talk and expectation setting that are often found in in social groups or in our community or in our family who could be holding us back yeah that's it we really want to surround ourselves with those people who are not kind of pre-judging what you're capable of you know I hope and in my experience some people do kind of update their expectations of you other people don't and some people you know this is even shown in that research some people actually react very negatively when you kind of break away from the script and I don't know I don't have a good answer for how we kind of deal with those people but I think if you know they're coming from a bad place and then they're trying to you know subconsciously maybe but holding you back like we need to be really conscious of that effect they're having on us and make a kind of sensible decision about how to manage that relationship I think an important part is determining what side of you you feel comfortable sharing with them right and maybe this self-development side is not what you share with them you share your musical interests or you share your sports that you enjoy with them but you remove that pessimism or that negative effect that they have on this area of your life where you're really stretching yourself and look for other people coaches mentors or even other participants in coaching programs who are going through those same challenges with positive expectations of growth and you'll be able to see it's like fertilizer for your growth and your ability to perform in these moments I think there's a another aspect to it as well and there's there's a safety mechanism but the traps that come with setting up expectations and focused on the wrong things for a lot of people I think their peer group is an opportunity to measure themselves about what their expectations should be and or if they're chasing say happiness that we certainly there's a there's a book by our Russ Harris called the happiness trap and all about that which is if you're looking at if I'm looking at AJ and I'm like well AJ's happy so I need to be more like well like AJ and then all of a sudden I hear that AJ's on the self-development kick and he's growing and he's putting himself in these situations to grow now I have to follow that and maybe I'm too scared to do that so I don't want AJ to be doing those things because I want AJs to be next to me and happy so I could be happy right yeah I mean social comparison is like you know one of the number one things that kills joy and life satisfaction yes and so I think it's you know it's also important for us to recognize that we have this tendency ourselves like you say and so I think with our own self-development it can be useful to focus on your own trajectory more than focusing on how you compare to these other people because you're always going to be able to find someone else who's a bit more successful than you seems to be happier than you as richer than you know all of those things and that's not good for your satisfaction and I think it can be demotivating with your growth and we actually see that even with studies of exercise you know the kind of fit-spiration posts on Instagram like I'm sure they are useful for some people but for lots of people actually they're really demotivating at the gym and because by comparing yourself to someone who maybe has a slightly more toned than you know better abs like bigger muscles on their legs or whatever that negative comparison you're making between yourself and them that then reduces your perceptions of your own physical ability it actually makes the work out then that you do significantly harder and it reduces like it kind of damages your mood afterwards you don't have that run as high so yeah we have to be careful of our own self-comparison to others and I think like you say we should also be conscious of how other people might be perceiving our personal growth and whether we might be having the same effect on them


Welcome to The Commentaries, a podcast series from Tan in which you'll learn how to read and understand history's greatest Catholic works from today's greatest Catholic scholars. In every series of The Commentaries, your expert host will be your personal guide to not just read the book, but to live the book, shining the light of its eternal truths into our modern darkness. Visit tancommentaries.com to get your copy of the book and to subscribe for access to all the great reading plans, new episodes, bonus content and exclusive deals for listeners of The Commentaries. Hello and welcome once again. I'm Father Robert Nixon, a monk of the Order of St. Benedict and director of the Institute for Benedictine Studies at the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity in New Norsey Western Australia. This is the commentary series on The Imitation of Christ, the great masterpiece written by Thomas the Campus. Today is day five of our series of podcasts, and this day we'll be entering into book two, covering book two chapters one through six. As I mentioned before, the entire imitation of Christ is divided into what are called four books. Each of these books are really main sections of the single book. So in the second book, or the second main section, which is entitled Admonitions Concerning Interior Things, we hear Thomas the Campus giving us very wise advice concerning the cultivation of this inner life, this inward looking life. This was an important theme in spirituality in the late Middle Ages and has continued to be important, I think, until the present time. Chapter one of this second book of The Imitation of Christ is entitled of Interior Conversion. And it begins with a quote from the Gospel according to Luke. The kingdom of God is within, saith the Lord, convert yourself with your whole heart to the Lord, and quit this miserable world, and thy soul shall find rest, learned to despise exterior things, and give thyself to the interior, and you shall see the kingdom of God will come into them. So this is absolutely wonderful reflections on this line. The kingdom of God is within you. It's something which we've all heard, and perhaps reflected upon. And he's taking it to be the basis of his meditation here, that we need to cultivate a life which is more focused upon inward realities, spiritual realities, than external realities, than the outer world. And if we think about it philosophically for a moment, it is the inner life, our inner happiness or peace or sorrow or anxiety, which really contributes most to the condition in which a person lives, to how we feel, to how we actually are. The exterior world can only affect us insofar as we let it. And we typically imagine in our modern age that it's the exterior world, which is the real world, and the interior world, which is the unreal world. Thomas the campus is promising us or proposing to us a slightly different way of thinking that it's the inner world, which is the reality, which matters the most. And the exterior world almost is just something which we're passing through, just a visible display. And he says this when he says, learn to despise exterior things, and give thyself to the interior. These is perhaps a slightly old fashioned word which we wouldn't use today, but certainly it's important in the sense of being detached a little from the things of the exterior world, of recognizing them for what they are, merely contingent and merely appearances. He continues then to talk about how we can cultivate this interior life. He says, why do you stand there looking about you, since this is not your resting place? Your dwelling must be in heaven, and all things of the earth are only to be looked upon as passing by. All things will pass away, and you along with them. See that you cleave not to them, lest you be ensnared and be lost. Let thy thoughts be with the Most High, and thy prayer directed towards Christ without intermission. I think this is wonderful advice to cling to the things of heaven, because that's where our true home, our true destiny is. He then goes on, if you know not how to meditate on high and heavenly things, rest on the Passion of Christ, and willingly dwell in his sacred wounds. Very wise advice here, because there are times when it's difficult to contemplate these glorious heavenly realities. And he says, if you can't do that, think instead just about the sufferings of Christ, which will lead us there. The next chapter, chapter two, is upon humble submission. And humility is a recurring theme in the writings of Thomas the Kempers. And this submission in this case means a willingness to give way to the will of God, to submit to the will of God, as it is manifested, particularly in the things of this world, in the circumstances and peoples, which surround us, which are often largely beyond our control. He advises us, make no great account of who is for thee, or who is against thee. But let it be thy business, and thy care, that God may be with thee in everything that thou does. So he's suggesting here, we shouldn't worry so much about human approval or disapproval, as that what we're doing is on the side of God.  So if we surrender ourselves to God, if we ensure that we've got a clean conscience in relation to God, then we can stand up to anything in this world. Nothing in this world can really hurt us. He continues, when a man humbles himself for his defects, he then easily appeases others, and quickly satisfies those that are angry with him. This is a very prudent piece of advice. If we're quick to recognize our own defects, if someone points out to us a fault that we've made a mistake or a shortcoming, honestly admit it if it's true. And this is the quickest way to achieve peace and reconciliation. Sometimes we've got this instinctive tendency to want to defend ourselves when it really would be much better, both for ourselves and for the sake of peace generally, to step back a little. In the third chapter, he talks about the characteristics of a good, peaceable man. Now I should say, when he uses the term man in this context, it applies equally to women, of course. And he advises us, keep yourself first in peace, and then you will be able to bring others to peace. A peaceable man does more good than one that is very learned. A good peaceable man turns all things to good. And this, I think, is very true, if we can keep ourselves in a state of peacefulness, if we can cultivate this precious inner peace, then it becomes contagious. It transfers itself to the people and circumstances that surround us, and we probably all know and people like that, who seem to be oceans of peace, and not only a piece which is self-contained but which spreads to those who surround them. He considers what others are obliged to do, and often neglects that to which he himself is obliged. This is talking about people who take the other approach, who view others more critically than they view themselves, who turn their attentions to others, to the outward world, and turn it away from themselves. And this, of course, is contrary to true peace. For the true peace, the only peace which is sustainable has to have an inner source. It can't be dependent upon anything in this outward world. And he concludes, with, He who knows how to suffer will enjoy much peace. Such a one is a conqueror of himself and the Lord of the world, a friend of Christ and an heir to heaven. This is very important. He who knows how to suffer. In other words, having the ability to accept suffering, adversity, and trouble, with a certain calmness, with a peace of mind. And this can only come through the presence of this interior peace. In chapter 4, he continues with a discussion of a pure mind and a simple intention. This quality of simplicity and purity is so very important. We can often find our lives and our minds and souls made complicated by the multitude of things we need to deal with, by the complex web of relationships in which we find ourselves. But he is telling us to try to keep ourselves simple and to keep life simple. And I think most people recognize that this is very, very useful advice. He says, with two wings, a man is lifted up above earthly things. That is, with simplicity and purity. Simplicity must be in the intention, purity in the affection. Simplicity aims at God. Purity takes hold of him and tastes him. If you intend and seek nothing but the will of God and the prophet of thy neighbour, you shall enjoy eternal liberty. If your heart was right, then every creature would be to thee a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so little and contemptible as not to manifest the glory of God. These are wonderful words about the effects of purity and simplicity. In purity and simplicity, we in fact are imitating the theological qualities of God himself who is absolutely pure and simple. By cultivating these, we become able to see the will of God in all things, to seek for nothing other than the fulfilment of God's will and the benefit of our neighbour. It makes life very simple. And from this, he says, proceeds eternal liberty. And if we think about the things which constrain us, they're not really earthly things, but rather it's our attachment to earthly things, our relationship with them, our entanglement in them, which restrains our liberty. And liberty, like this simplicity and purity, is also one of the theological qualities of God. And of course, Jesus himself was God. So in imitating this simplicity, purity and liberty, we're imitating not only God in an abstract sense, but also imitating Christ himself, which of course is the whole theme of the book. And we're told that purity of heart consists in detachment from everything that can defile it. And that's a lot of things. In chapter 5, we're talking about on the consideration of oneself. In other words, what view do we take of ourselves? What opinion do we have of ourselves? It's very difficult for a person not to take a certain view of themselves, because we're all, to one degree or other, social animals, so that our external appearance is something we're conscious that it's kind of an important part of our daily life. And we take this view of ourselves in the same way. Who are we? And we're told that we cannot trust much to ourselves because we often want grace and understanding. Now, want in this context is a slightly archaic word, but it means that we often lack grace and understanding. There is but little light in us, and this we quickly lose through negligence. Many times also, we perceive not that we are so blind interiorly. We often do ill and do worse in excusing it. We are sometimes moved with passion, and we mistake it for zeal. We blame little things in others and pass over great things in ourselves. How true all of this is, because when we look at ourselves, each one of us is a kind of biased judge, so to speak. We can hardly avoid that. And for this reason, we spot the faults in others, but overlook our own faults. And as he's saying, we might mistake something like a kind of passion for zeal. We mistake anger maybe for a desire for justice. We mistake maybe a desire for revenge for a desire for justice. So urging us to be self-critical, to be honest, to know ourselves. And this is the key, I think, to true amendment of life. And in chapter six, he deals with the joy of a good conscience. And a good conscience is a wonderful thing to have, as I'm sure all our listeners can attest. He begins with the glory of a good man is the testimony of a good conscience. Keep a good conscience and thou shalt always have joy. A good conscience can bear very much and is very joyful in the midst of adversity. But a bad conscience is always fearful and uneasy. There's such great truth in these words. If we're in a condition in which we have our own conscience in order, which we know that despite our many faults and fragilities, we're basically at rights before God, this places us in a position to face absolutely anything in this life, anything in this world, to face death itself and God himself with full confidence. And if we come from that position, then we suddenly find ourselves imbued with joy and strength in peace. On the other hand, as he says, an uneasy conscience gives rise to all kinds of difficulties. So I think this is a very good place to finish today. And hopefully we all have good consciences rather than uneasy consciences. And if not, of course, we can always pray for the infinite mercy of God and take whatever steps we need to take to amend our own lives. So this brings us to the end of day five in our study of the imitation of Christ. Thank you so much for listening and for joining with me on this very exciting journey into the spiritual life guided by the great Master Thomas E. Kempers. Next time we'll be discussing book two, chapters seven to twelve. Until then, I hope you all enjoy every blessing and I will speak to you again very soon. Goodbye for now. This has been an episode of The Commentaries, a podcast brought to you by Tan. To follow the show, study more of the greatest Catholic classics and to support The Commentaries and other great free content from Tan. Visit tancommentaries.com to subscribe and use coupon code C-O-M-25 to get 25% off your next order, including the imitation of Christ and countless more spiritual works to deepen your interior life and guide you to heaven.


You just need to point your life in the general direction of where you think you need to be going next. You don't need coordinates yet.  I'm going to tell you it ain't coming. You just got to keep going in the general direction of where you think your life should be pointed. And I promise you at the right time you won't be able to shut GPS up. At the right time you're going to pick up a book. You're going to listen to some of the radio. You're going to see something on TV. You're going to see something on your phone in your social media feed that will grab your attention. At the right time all the information you need to navigate the terms will start flooding in.


There's lots of ways to make money as an artist. You can go traditional, you can go novel reproductions, do what you gotta do to get that cheddar. Sell your art through platforms such as Amazon Handmade or Etsy. These are popular platforms that draw a lot of traffic, so you might get some eyeballs on your work if you post on there that you might not get otherwise. People who are there on those websites are there with the intent to buy, so the conversion rate tends to be pretty good and they'll charge you about 15% commission for that service. But again, the traffic might just be well worth the cost. If the goal here is to make art and make money off of our art, then reproducing our art is one way that we can solve that inventory problem. Our reproduction obviously is not going to fetch as much as an original piece, but you never know. If you sell multiple reproductions, then maybe that could be your most successful piece overall, you never know. And you'll still retain that original piece that you can sell at some later date.


Felly, yn y rhesymau fydd y cerdd yma rwy'n meddwl yng Nghymru cyrraed yn ei wasiliadau social yw gwiriannol. Mae'r idea o atiwys cyrraedd negativ, o'r gweinwys cyrraedd negativ, ond y gallw'r cyrraedd negativ bydd yma yw teimlo cyfrwng yma'r cerddau cyrraedd ymateb yma i'r szyfodiad yma. Mae'n nafn o'ch brancheshwyr mewn dd cellsyn yn ddweud y cynnig y ffordd ymlaen, o'r mwyaf o ell Caerdydd ar gyfer y psyllgol. Mae'r dd местu a'r ideaeth. Mae hyn ymlaen wedi bod hynw, maen nhw. Mwnaeth am yr shifftiannwyr, ddysgogi'r ddweud. Mae'r ddweud yn yr hyn nhw. Mae'r ddweud yn rywbeth. Mae'r ddweud yn rhywbeth a'r ddweud i fynd arall a'r waz. The first idea was the notion that we can explain out group hostility and antagonism more or less directly as a function of something called the prejudice personality and that was the notion, the assertion, the theme that I discussed in detail last week. The second kind of idea is the notion that there are general meaning individual, general individual psychological processes, motivational, cognitive, which are in some sense purely psychologically defined and once triggered automatically and inevitably tend to produce out group hostility. These are regarded as irrational precisely because the whole sequence is defined in purely individual psychological terms. The sequence is not supposed to be mediated by social factors, by the social meaning of any intergroup relationship and it's this kind of idea that I'm going to start to discuss today. The other theme I'm going to discuss it today and also next week as I'll explain in a second because it has various aspects. The other kind of theme which I hope I may get round to talking about a bit next week but I'm not going to do it this week is the idea that I refer to as mindless socialisation. The people acquire negative out group attitudes as a function of a process of learning and socialisation which is relatively uncritical and even unconscious on these attitudes. Hang on as residues of the past rather than because they play any contemporary rational social function. So let me start with a second idea and I'll say it again and then I'm going to illustrate it. It's this notion that there are general motivational or cognitive processes which one can conceptualise in relatively pure individual psychological terms. Which went triggered by some stimulus, some event, some state purely psychologically defined automatically and inevitably produces a hostile or negative out group attitude. Because the process is purely psychological and individual psychological and therefore unaffected by the social meaning of any intergroup relationship at any social understanding of the relationship between in group and out group. It's inherently an irrational process and indeed in many respects it can even be seen almost as socially meaningless or haphazard. That's quite abstract. Let me now give you the three important examples of this. I think both classic and contemporary work I think the notion is what I would see as the most important examples of this. The first which I mentioned again in the very first lecture, the absolute classic example, the frustration aggression theory or frustration aggression displacement theory. A more accurate way of thinking about it for my purposes is the displacement theory of scapegoating. This is the notion which goes back to Freudian psychodynamics that was developed particularly in the 30s by Dollard and his colleagues is the idea that for all kinds of reasons people develop frustrations. These frustrations tend to produce an automatic instigation to aggress and yet under conditions where the aggression cannot be directed against the real target, the real cause of the frustration. Because either it may be unknown or because the real cause of the frustration is too dangerous, too powerful or unavailable then nevertheless the instigation to aggress continues to build up. The drive to aggress continues to build up and at some point it has to spill over. It has to be displaced. It has to go somewhere and it goes almost in a haphazard way on some other target. Some group who are not the cause of the frustration. So inherent in this notion, this frustration aggression displacement, the frustration automatically inevitably produces aggression and where the aggression cannot be directed rationally against the cause. It must go somewhere becomes obviously an irrational psychological account or scapegoating. That idea is still widely current. I said a displacement theory of scapegoating. I'll come back to that because I'm not going to deny that scapegoating exists. Scapegoating in a political and historical sense almost certainly exists. The question is whether this irrational psychodynamic mechanism is an adequate account of it. That's the question I'm going to address. That's one example. A second example, which again is almost actually almost old out than the frustration aggression theory, the whole notion of stereotyping. The whole idea of stereotyping, of categorising people into groups, of seeing people as relatively similar within groups and different from others. The whole notion of stereotyping as an inherently, in principle, invalid process of perception, which again you'll find in every textbook. And it is all here in the contemporary media almost on a daily basis if you listen to the right programmes. Stereotyping as an inherently invalid process. Why then do we stereotype one idea going back to psychodynamics again? Is it an expression of irrational motivation? But the other idea just as old, still with us, even more powerfully, that in some sense we stereotype because we are inadequate perceivers and cognisers. Because we have a limited capacity to cognise, to understand, to perceive the world. The world, the argument goes, is inherently individual, inherently individual. People are unique individuals. But this is complex. It's too much for us because we are inadequate as information processors because we have problems in understanding and dealing with all the complexity of the world. We have to find shortcuts. We have to find heuristics. We have to find ways of oversimplifying, over-generalising. We categorise. We treat people as more similar to each other than they really are. And in the contemporary form particularly this idea goes back to 22 Walter Lippmann, cognitive simplicity. In a contemporary form we have that in a very strong and succinct notion that precisely because we are limited in our capacity process information that under conditions in which we are subjected to intense cognitive load, that our mental resources for understanding the world are being used up. We are really confronted with problems, with difficulties. We are put under strain under those kinds of conditions. Stereotyping is likely to be enhanced. Either one is more likely directly to apply a stereotype or to activate a stereotype. And indeed there are experiments which seem to show and present the process in that kind of an automatic way, in that kind of an individual psychological way. Take a perceiver, subject them to cognitive load for example, give them a memory task and under the same conditions apparently their stereotyping goes up. Inherently irrational of course, if the only reason that you are seeing people as members of groups is because your cognitive system is being put under strain there is nothing socially rational about that. That idea is a really very fundamental one. It goes back I think I said right at the beginning to one of Gordon Orport's fundamental arguments for a whole irrationality of prejudice. I'm not going to discuss that one today, I'm going to discuss that one next week but it's an example of the general individual psychological process. The third example which has also been around a long time but actually again has become a much more powerful idea in the last 30 years is the notion of group formation and ethnocentrism. That inherent in human group formation, inherent in human psychological group formation is some fundamental inevitable and automatic tendency to ethnocentrism, ethnocentric hostility. Tendencies to favour one's own group against other groups to discriminate against out groups and favour of in groups. That notion in its oldest form is sometimes referred to as the idea of the universal syndrome of ethnocentrism. The notion that every human group is in some sense ethnocentric sees itself as better than others. In the more recent forms there are two more recent forms both of which are closely related. One is the notion of in-group identification to the degree that any particular individual psychologically identifies with some in-group. One should be able to find a tendency for them to derogate a range of out groups to see the in-group as more superior to a range of out groups. As a fundamental expression of this tendency to identify the argument goes apparently in the service of some kind of need for self-esteem. For us to feel good about ourselves we must see our group as good and therefore we must tend to see all other groups as bad. The other examples slightly more experimental but they are actually related as we'll see as we go on. This is the notion of social categorisation again but now not so much social categorisation in terms of stereotyping, perceiving other people but social categorisation of oneself and others into in-group and out group. The research paradigm which is very, very widely cited, the research was first done by Henri Tachel and his colleagues in 1971 is often called the minimal group paradigm. The kind of example goes, it's not the only example but it goes something like this. You take a collection of individuals, the first experiments they were school boys, school boys from the same school from the same class. In fact they were teenage English school boys. You divide these children into two distinct groups on the basis of some completely trivial or flimsy criterion. Maybe whether they like this abstract painter or that abstract painter or maybe you divide them on a completely explicitly random basis by the toss of a coin. You divide them into one group as opposed to another group. You then give them another task to do with how they make decisions or how they rate people in this group as opposed to that group. And you tell them even that this group, they've been assigned to this group membership simply for reasons of convenience, for reasons of administration. The groups themselves have no meaning as defined by the experimenter. There's no interaction, there are no goals. Which group you're in is completely anonymous. All a person knows is among this group, group X, not in that group, group Y. There's no other similarity, no fate, no objective, no history, nothing which normally makes a group membership meaningful, nothing which relates to anything we conventionally think of as has to do with intergroup discrimination. But nevertheless you see what happens and what you find consistently is that people will tend in their decisions and in their ratings to favour their own group over the other group. As I said, even though self-interest isn't involved and they don't know who they're favouring, all you might get is person number 53, a member of group X, person number 85, a member of group Y. And yet you get this consistent tendency to favour in-group over out-group. And I said not just in decisions but also in ratings. Who's more pleasant? You say the group members who are in your group are more pleasant. That finding, by the way, has been replicated absolutely endlessly. There's no question about the finding. The question is what it means. And one of the things it's been used to argue for is this notion that fundamentally inherent in-group formation is this kind of ethnocentric tendency automatically as a function of the fact that you form a psychological group. That's the third example that's used to argue for this general kind of idea of individual psychological processes, cognitive load, frustration, identifying with a group which automatically and inevitably produce out-group prejudice in some fashion. As if in a social vacuum. That's the point here. All these things are processes which apparently produce out-group hostility as if they functioned in a social vacuum. And therefore it's socially, by definition, meaningless and irrational. Okay. Is any of this valid? Is there an alternative way of making sense of what is going on when we look at these ideas or the data associated with these ideas? I'm going to suggest that indeed this interpretation of what's going on is not valid and that there is an alternative point of a way of understanding what's going on. And indeed there is actually a very powerful alternative and coherent way of understanding what's going on. And before I come to outline that, which is my argument, let me illustrate that by pointing to another group of theories on the point of three theories. It's kind of like a little family of theories. I think it was like a family of theories because these are kind of like a, this is more, this is, how do I put it? The less orthodox trend within the subject, but I happen to think it's the right trend. The less orthodox trend. I think of these as intergroup theories. Why? Because they're all theories which now focus on the idea that intergroup attitudes arise not just from group formation, not just from individual psychological processes functioning as if in a vacuum, but as a function of intergroup relationships and how people make sense of intergroup relationships. They're intergroup theories. There are about three, actually one or two of them are kind of like families, but for our purposes I'm going to focus on the relevance. There's three I'm going to mention. One is called realistic conflict theory. The second is relative deprivation theory. And the third is social identity theory. I'll spend a lot more time on social identity theory. For reasons again, which I hope will become apparent. Let's start with the first one. In social psychology this is associated with the work of Muzaffar Sharif. His argument was very straightforward. He said intergroup attitudes follow intergroup relations. And if you want to make sense of how or why people have positive or negative intergroup attitudes, you have to look at group goals, group interests, and you have to look at how people understand the interrelationship of group goals and group interests. And in particular his idea, very simple, very powerful. To the degree that people perceive their interests as in conflict, they will tend to develop competition which will tend to lead to hostility. Insofar as they perceive their interests as in a cooperative or complementary or a superordinate relationship, a collaborative relationship in which one group's interests is compatible with and indeed may even aid the other group achieving its interests under those conditions a co-operation is likely to result, which is likely to lead to the development of positive intergroup attitudes. Perceived conflicts of interest leading to competition and hostility. Perceived collaborative or superordinate interest leads to co-operation and positive intergroup attitudes. He tested this so for him intergroup relations defined by the goal relationships, the relationships of interests between groups are what determine the attitudes and they shift as a function of different relationships and different perceptions of those relationships. It's not a question of any political observer from the outside saying your interests are objectively in conflict or objectively complementary what matters is whether the people in the groups themselves define and perceive their interests as in conflict or in a complementary cooperative relationship. In three studies which have been going classic in social psychology in the late 40s and early 50s, he tested these ideas. He tested them in a series of studies which were sort of a quasi-naturalistic, they were sort of field experiments they were done in the USA on teenage boys. Three studies each lasted a period about three weeks or so in which the boys were participants in summer camp activities. What she showed was that in these three studies he could create psychological groups, distinct psychological groups. He could create social arrangements whereby they could come to perceive their interests as in conflict which he did through sports competition and he could show that by creating this conflict of interests he could get competition and indeed he could get the development of highly negative and stereotypical attitudes between the members of these groups. He also showed in his last study that he could take these groups in conflict, these groups demonstrating mutual hostility and by transforming the relationship between their group interests, giving them a superordinate goal, he could produce cooperation, eliminate the hostility and produce the development of positive attitudes. So the attitudes followed the intergroup relationships defined here by group interests. First theory, second theory, relative deprivation. One can also think of this as kind of a social justice type theory and it gets a bit complicated in social psychology how we approach the issue of justice. We might do something a somewhat funny way but we do. How does a group, when does a group experience its situation as one of deprivation? The theory says it isn't a function simply of the objective state in which you are in. What matters is how you judge that objective state. What matters is whether indeed you perceive a discrepancy between what you have and what you feel entitled to. One of the powerful ways in which you judge what you feel you're entitled to is by making social comparisons with other groups. So under conditions where you compare with another group and you judge what you should have in terms of what they have and you compare what you have in terms of what you should have as a function of what they have you may well experience your situation as one of deprivation, comparative relative deprivation or comparative or relative gratification. And it's the sense of collective relative deprivation which generates feelings of collective discontent, resentment, anger and can lead to the development of collective protest, collective hostility. Towards those that you feel may be standing in the way of relative gratification. It's a justice type thing because the argument goes this way, there's an old range of little theories here but the way in which social psychologists have often tend to approach the issue of justice is to say what is fair? What's equitable? What's right? It's not just what we've got or what they've got. It's what they've got compared to what we've got in the light of our definition of ourselves and of them. If we see ourselves as the same as them by relevant criteria we should have the same as them. If we see ourselves as less worthy than them then perhaps we shouldn't have the same as them. So it's not the relative deprivation, it's not a question of having different things or the same things it's whether you judge that difference as equitable just or fair in the light of your judgement of you and of them. What are we like? Are we the same? Are we different? Are we our contribution? What are we putting in? Are we worthy? That's the kind of idea. You're judging what you have, your outcomes, the differences or similarities in outcomes in terms of what you think is fair or unfair and that in turn is a function of how you define yourself and them. I'll illustrate that one very straightforward really. There's lots of examples. I'm talking here about something that Runciman called fraternalistic relative deprivation whether you're comparing your group with other groups, not just comparing you as an individual with other people. It's fraternalistic relative deprivation, comparisons between groups that's fundamental here to the experience of collective resentment, discontent and to the generation of collective action. A study done by Dominic Abrams in Scotland. You ask Scots people how much do Scots workers earn, how much do English workers earn? How well off is Scotland compared to England? What you find is the more they think that the English earn more than them the English are doing better than them and yet they identify strongly with Scotland and they think that's unfair the more likely they are to support the Scottish National Party. It's the same thing in Quebec. This is work done by some French Canadian psychologists so they almost certainly call themselves Quebecois. You ask Francophones what they think about how much Francophones earn compared to English speakers in Quebec and what you find is to the degree that they perceive that English speakers to be earning more to the degree they perceive that as unfair and indeed to the degree that they identify strongly with Quebec which accentuates these things the more likely they are to support the Quebec nationalist movement. It's the experience of collective relative deprivation which makes you resentful, angry leads to collective attempts to do things. Actually a study done by Michael Wensaw is not here I see but not mine. He's at the ANU. He looked at East Germans and West Germans after unification or during the I think over a year period. If you ask if you get East Germans and West Germans and you ask them are you happy with your situation vis-à-vis the West Germans? Are you getting what you think you're entitled to or do you think that East Germans should be getting a little bit more bullshit in the context of East Germany a little bit more aggressive? What do you find? It's not just the degree to which you see yourself as an East German it's the degree to which you compare yourself as an East German with a West German in terms of being German. If we're German we should be having the same as those West Germans and of course we're not and so you'd be more resentment, more activity, more endorsement of social protest. So that's relative deprivation theory. Now we come to social identity theory which is somewhat more complex by the same token I think it makes certain points more powerfully. This is a theory which I worked with on Retouchfun in developing and interestingly enough paradoxically it actually began with the kind of paradigm I described at the beginning the minimal group paradigm but whereas on Retouchfun and myself and others took one way in a sense the field in many respects tended to interpret the day in a different way and we'll come back to that. Social identity theory. This has three elements to it, three basic sort of components to it. The first component one can think of is in a sense an analysis of collective motivation, analysis of collective psychology. Talschwell argues here people in society categorise themselves into groups. They have social identities. They define themselves in terms of social category memberships to make sense of their social location to orientate themselves to society to understand where and what they are in society because they define themselves in terms of group memberships. In terms of these social identities they seek to evaluate themselves in terms of these social identities. The way in which you evaluate a group membership is by comparing it with another group. Just like the way you evaluate yourself as an individual is by comparing yourself with other individuals because we have a desire to evaluate ourselves positively and a desire to evaluate the groups with which we identify positively then this tendency to make comparisons leads to a drive, a motive for what he called positive distinctiveness, positive group distinctiveness. We want to compare favourably with other groups. As you define yourself in terms of a category, evaluate yourself in terms of a category by making comparisons between groups you want to compare yourself favourably with them. He called this a need for positive social identity. You have a need for positive social identity which in some sense we achieve by seeking and maintaining and enhancing the positive distinctiveness of our own groups compared to other groups. You can see the link already to the thing I've said before. The difference is tough for Tajfa. This was only one element in the theory and the other two elements were absolutely fundamental and indispensable. The two other elements. First one he called the idea of an interpersonal intergroup continuum. If you were here last week it's easier to think of it in terms of the notion that under certain kinds of conditions one behaves as an individual in relation to other individuals at other times one behaves as a group member in relation to other group members. In the language of last weeks of categorisation theory it's his idea that sometimes we define ourselves in terms of personal identities and individual differences and act in those terms. Sometimes we define ourselves in terms of social identities in terms of intergroup differences and act in those terms. So it's this notion of a continuum in the way in which people interact as individuals, vis-a-vis individuals or as an us vis-a-vis of them. We vis-a-vis of them. This idea for Tajfa, this kind of continuum, had a couple of functions in the theory. One was to try and explain the kinds of conditions under which this need for positive social identity came. He wasn't saying it's always there. It only tends to come into play to the degree that people are defining themselves as group members and making comparisons as group members. The second kind of function it has was to try and say, insofar as you are seeking positive social identity and are facing challenges, threats, problems posed to that motive by reality, how do you cope with it? Are you more likely to react to those challenges as an individual or as a group member? When do you seek to react as an individual person or when do you seek to react collectively by changing the situation of the group as a whole? That was the other kind of notion. What he basically suggested, and I'll put a few things together here, is people are much more likely to react to any identity problems, social identity problems, as a group, as opposed to as an individual, to the degree that they identify strongly with the group, to the degree that they perceive group boundaries as impermeable. You can't move between groups. You are stuck in this group and to the degree that you have a belief about society, which leads you to accept the notion that actually you can only react to your problems collectively as a group, as a whole. Do you have a belief in meritocracy? Do you have a belief that really the society is free, that any individual can go somewhere? What do you think that's a load of capitalist bullshit? What do you think? That kind of notion. So you're saying ideological factors, psychological factors, but also your perception about group boundaries in whatever the immediate social situation. All these things were relevant to whether you tried to deal with your identity problems as an individual, by moving as an individual, or as a group by acting and getting the group as a whole to act. Second idea. That's the second notion. We put these together at the end. He didn't say, OK, groups now always seek to be better than any other. What he used the analysis of collective psychology to do was to say, now let's look at reality. Let's look at societies in which groups are divided up and stratified, in which there are differences between groups in terms of power, in terms of wealth, in terms of status, which there are some groups at the top and some groups at the bottom. We can use this analysis of collective psychology to try and make sense of the various kinds of identity challenges or problems your position in this kind of a social system is going to create for you. We can also start to use this analysis to specify the different kinds of ways you can cope with the problems posed by any particular location in this social situation. In fact, we can put all these things together, and I'll give you some examples. It's probably the best way of trying to illustrate it. But what I'm going to say for the minute here, before I get to that, is the theory, therefore, is not the assertion of some universal drive or assertion of some universal superiority. It's an attempt to analyse a variety of different ways that groups in different positions can react to their situation as a function of their collective psychology and as a function of these ideological, structural and psychological factors which encourage them to look for collectivist solutions or individual solutions. So it's meant to be a complex theory here. Examples, if you are in a low status group, if you have a low status group, then in terms of that status dimension you have negative social identity, not positive social identity. The notion is that one of the things that determines how you react to your high or low status is a function of your beliefs about the nature of the differences between the groups. Low status groups have a problem in the sense that they need to achieve a positive social identity. High status groups have a problem in the sense that they need to maintain a positive social identity. But he argues in both cases you have to take into account the nature of the beliefs that the groups have. The nature of the beliefs they have about what status differences are like. Are they fixed, immutable, stable, legitimate? Are they part of the natural order of things or are indeed they contestable, unfair, unjust, illegitimate, unstable? Are they insecure or secure in his terminology? So, some examples after all that. Some examples. If you're a member of a low status group that believes that your inferiority on some status dimension is legitimate and stable and also that you believe that group boundaries are permeable, that you can move freely between them, you're not likely to seek positive distinctiveness directly on that status dimension. Indeed, you're not likely to in any way assert your difference or superiority vis-a-vis the high status group. You're likely to accept its superiority, but as an individual you're likely to dis-identify with your low status group and seek to move up. One example. If you are a member of a low status group that sees your inferiority as legitimate and stable but believes that group boundaries are impermeable, that you as an individual can't move up, again if it's legitimate and stable you're not likely to seek to challenge the high status group on that dimension. But what you may well tend to do is to look for alternative ways of finding a positive social identity. We call this the social creativity option. You can do various things. You can start to compare not with them, but with them. You can say we may not be as good as them, but we're better than them. You can look to change a reference group, your output for comparison. Or you can start to accentuate different kinds of dimensions from those directly relevant to the status dimension. We may not be as competent, but we're an awful lot nicer. We may not be rich, but we are spiritual. You can do that. Or you can start, of course, to change the actual values of the dimensions. We may not be white, but black is beautiful. You can do those kinds of things. These kinds of things are ways of finding an alternative positivity as a group, but they do not challenge the status quo in terms of the status dimensions, but they can give you positive social identity on alternative ways. The third thing you can do, if it's your low status group, if you see that difference as illegitimate and unstable and you believe that the boundaries are impermeable, then you're likely to be highly motivated directly to challenge the high status group, the dominant group on those status dimensions. You're likely to engage in a directly challenging competitive strategy. That was a theory. If you're a high status group, if you perceive your superiority as completely legitimate, but you feel threatened, you're likely to be extremely discriminatory to keep them in that place. If, on the other hand, you feel that your superiority is unstable and perhaps even illegitimate, well now you may either want to abandon that status dimension and look for other ways of being superior, or indeed you may seek to find other ways of being superior to bolster and make legitimate that initial superiority, but certainly you're going to react in different kinds of ways. Let me try and put all that together here. The theory is trying to show that how groups in the pursuit of a positive social identity can adopt a whole variety of different strategies, a varied collection of strategies, which is a complex function of where they are, high or low, of what they believe about the nature of the differences between them, legitimate or illegitimate, stable or unstable, and what they believe about the nature of group boundaries and of the social system. A complex set of ideas. Evidence, again, actually about 25 years now, and I think there is a mass of evidence in favour of this kind of an analysis. There are issues to do with the detail of specification, but if you take the absolutely three fundamental empirical themes it says, you find the evidence is very, very solid. If you impose a status hierarchy on groups, one is high, one is low, with the people in those groups, especially in the low status group, think that the boundaries are permeable, you will almost certainly decrease identification with the low status group, and you will lead those status members to identify more with the high status group. There is study after study after study showing that. On the other hand, if you impose a status hierarchy on groups where the boundaries are impermeable, it does not necessarily reduce identification or cohesion amongst the low status group, it may even enhance it. First thing, second idea, we find again at study after study, the degree to which a subordinate group or a low status group, the degree to which the members actually do identify with that group, is an absolutely powerful predictor, a direct predictor under appropriate conditions of whether they are likely to act collectively to put their subordination right. Whether they are likely to act collectively to change things to achieve a positive identity. If I miss something out, that's right. I'll mention a study, make it a bit more concrete here. I'm going a bit too fast. On the first one, this is a study again done by a Canadian Steve Wright and his colleagues. They simply looked at people who, this is an experiment. You've got a collection of people here who are told that if they perform well on a task, they've got an opportunity of joining this much higher status group, which is a very advantaged group. There's a lot more money involved, it's a much nicer place to be. And then you say to them, right, well, if you've done the task and if you've performed well, you've got an option of getting in there, now why don't you ask them if they'll let you in? And then what you manipulate and expand is the degree to which and how the higher status group says no, you can't come in or whether you can come in. If the group is completely open, anybody that does reasonably well is allowed in, that's one thing. If the group is completely closed, nobody, no matter how well you've done, is going to be allowed in, and that's the way it's going to stay, or even in between, proportions. 20% of you can come in, 2% of you can come in. And what you find very straightforwardly, as long as the people believe that just a few of them, just some of them, can get in on individual merit, there is a minimal collective reaction to this unjustified response. It's only when the members feel that none of them can get in do they turn to what he calls non-normative collective action. They start to talk about doing something, making a fuss collectively, one example. OK, so the permeability, impermeability thing, the role of identification in collective protest, they've got Chris Vinstra here, Chris Vinstra and Alex Haslam published a paper, was it last year or this year? The British Journal of Social Psychology, they followed up some work done by some British social psychologist Kelly. Participation in trade union activity, and what you find is, of course, it's people that identify strongly with the trade union movement who are much more likely to get involved in collective action union participation to pursue the rights and interests of trade unions. But you also find that interacts with their understanding of the social situation. High identifiers are much more likely in general to do something, and that's likely to increase the degree that their understanding of the intergroup relationship, them and the bosses, is a conflictual one. Low identifiers don't do as much, and when they're faced with a bit of conflict, they do even less, they want to get out. That's one of many studies. Identification does tend to predict powerfully the degree to which you act collectively. And the third empirical notion, this business of the perceived nature of status differences, again I think there's study after study after study, showing that whether high or low status groups see their differences between them as legitimate and stable, or illegitimate and unstable, is a very powerful predictor of the degree to which they will either engage directly in discriminant or competitive strategies, or find alternative ways of doing that. That's what they're dealing with, their identity problems. A study I did with Rupert Brown way back in the 70s, manipulated all these things orthogonally, high status, low status, illegitimacy of the status relationship with both high and low, stability, instability of the status relationship. Can you change it or not, high and low? In general you'll find if you create a consensual status system, the high status group quite naturally will say in general we're better than them, that's what you've just told them. But what you find is the low status group will tend to say yes they're better than us, but as you move towards a situation in which it's both illegitimate and unstable, they stop saying that and start to say no, we're as good or better than you. The high status group, so we find the greatest assertion of positive distinctiveness, the greatest assertion of ingrubb favoritism, if you like, for the low status groups, comes where they see their position as both illegitimate and unstable. The high status groups, the greatest assertion of your superiority comes when you see your position as legitimate but unstable, where you start to see it as illegitimate as well as unstable, you start to look for alternative ways in which you can say we're better than you. Alternative ways, not direct ways directly related to the status difference. OK. Let me try and put all that together now and give you a much more straight, I hope a much more straightforward expression of what I'm saying. And this is all three theories, because it's the same idea in all three theories. Intergroup attitudes are highly varied and indeed they are highly variable. And they always vary, always vary as a function of an interplay between people's collective psychology as group members, the social structure of intergroup relationships and people's collective beliefs, theories, understandings of the nature of those intergroup relationships. So it's people's collective psychology as group members, not individual psychology. It's collective psychology always within a social structure, always within a context of differing intergroup relationships, not in a social vacuum. And it's always a function of that interplay as mediated by people's collective understandings of that intergroup relationship. What it means to them, how they understand it, how they see themselves, how they see the others. So it was those three things that predict intergroup attitudes, never individual psychology in a social vacuum. If you think of Shuri, I should also say that not only gives us a way of putting these theories together, it also starts to show us the bridges between them. Because it's not a case of one of these theories is better than the other. To me, I think it's clear they're all at work and the real issues. Something that's been happening over the last 10 years but somewhere where it's very important we move much more consciously is to understand how all these processes are interrelated and indeed they are. If you want to know how people are defining their interests, you must know how they define themselves. As a function of how they define themselves and the content of that identity, that shapes the way they perceive their interests. And that in turn affects, of course, whether you perceive your interests as cooperative or competitive. If you define yourself as trade unionist versus manager, you may well experience competitive interests. If you define yourself as a member of the insect company versus somebody else, workers and managers may see their interests as cooperative. How you define yourself collectively shapes the way you define your interests and therefore your understanding of intergroup relationships. The degree to which you start to assert in some way a positive group identity, even if you're a subordinate group, is going to change whether you experience your situation as gratifying or depriving. It's going to change your beliefs about your entitlements, about what you're getting is fair. Where you compare outcomes between us and them, you may think it's fair. So long as you accept they're better than us, those slave owners are better than us, but once you start to say no, we're as good as them, it changes your experience and what was now fair becomes experienced as injustice, a source of resentment and indeed collective action. Vice versa too, of course, conflicting interests play a role in the ways in which people define themselves as this group as opposed to that group. They're one of the fundamental ways where people experience and conflict your relationships which enhances identification within groups. Process is to do with the experience of injustice, whether you think you've got reasonable outcomes, whether you think that we're being treated fairly, because after all it's not just what we get, we should be treated fairly. If we're all Australians, we should all be treated as Australians. If you start to feel you're not all being treated as Australians and it's inappropriate, even though you see yourself as an Australian, you start to experience what Tyler calls procedural injustice. You can see how that is likely to shape your awareness and beliefs about the nature, the differences between us and them, and change your beliefs about the social system. All these things are interrelated and there are various little studies here and there which show these links, but certainly it's important to further them. I'm totally lost here because now I want to come back to the first bit. I have to do this. Frustration, aggression, group formation and ethnocentrism. There are some complicated issues here but they're all worth saying. If you look at frustration and aggression and displacement theory, is it compatible? Does the literature that we have for 40, 50, 60 years, is it compatible with what I'm saying? Or is it contradictory to what I'm saying? Actually it's completely and utterly compatible. One of the first things we learnt, and this was before we even looked at frustration and aggression, the context of intergroup attitudes, is that there is certainly no automatic and inevitable link between frustration and aggression. Frustration can lead to many things, one of which may be aggression, and you can certainly have aggression which doesn't require frustration.  So there's no automatic link between frustration and aggression. If you also look for this Freudian concept of displacement, a very difficult concept to get at, because it always implies this idea that somehow the actor knows the real cause but is missing the real cause and going somewhere else. Try again, you look at the literature, you will find one or two studies which look like something like that is happening, but it's always an interpretation by the researcher. In fact, this isn't my judgement particularly, this is John Duckett, also Tarshfell's, also Michael Billig's. It also indeed Rupert Browns in his textbook just a few years ago. There is still actually no good evidence whatsoever for the concept of displacement. If you actually look at what's happening in terms of frustration and aggression in intergroup relations, and Tarshfell puts this most clearly, you can also look at it in terms of individuals when they're frustrated and whether they're aggressive or not. You find actually the whole thing, it's not at all an individual automatic motivational link, it's actually a highly collective cognitive link. To understand when frustration is experienced and whether it leads to aggression on the part of the group or not is actually always, you always have to focus on how the group is making sense of its situation. What is a frustration relative deprivation theory is a development here. You don't just find yourself in a situation you feel is a frustration, you have to do cognitive work. Who are we? What are our goals? What are our values? What are our aspirations? Where are we trying to go? You have to have all that kind of knowledge and then to say this thing that is happening to us is thwarting us, is a deprivation, is a function of social comparisons, all these other things. Highly cognitive work to make sense of one's situation even to define as a frustration. Even then, how do you explain it to yourself? Why are we being frustrated? Who is doing it to us? Who is the enemy and why are they doing it? You have to have a theory of your relationship to others even to make sense of why you've got this frustration. What's behind it? Who's behind it? What are they up to? And even then, third one, have you developed all these things actually are interrelated? Do you have an understanding which leads you to believe, a collective understanding which leads you to believe given that they are the enemy and are doing it to us that actually aggression and conflict is going to get us somewhere? Do you believe that? That's Tarshville's analysis here. To understand how this frustration-aggression thing can work as a theory of collective behaviour, you have to understand that all of this is highly cognitively motivated. So it's the very opposite of the Freudian thing. The aggression isn't happening because people don't really know what's going on, they've just got to go somewhere, it's happening actually because they're putting an awful lot of work into understanding who they are, where they're going, what's happening to them and what they can do about it. They're actually thinking. You may disagree with the theory, but it's nevertheless a theory, a function of collective understanding, not just collective confusion and irrationality. And of course, if you look at scapegoating, what do you do? If you are the ruling elite of some empire where you're the Romans or the British or whoever and you want to divide and rule, what do you do? Do you just oppress people and hope they attack the other target? Of course you don't. What do you do? You actually put an awful lot of work into providing these people with a political analysis of who they are and what their interests are, which helps to persuade them that it's not you against whom the problem, the aggression and anger should be directed, it's them. They're the problem. That's what you do. You give them a theory and an understanding. They just prompt their motives in some way. If we come to, I have to do it in the last five or seven minutes, and there are some difficult ones here. So this is kind of paradoxical, this business of anger. The people that tend to argue on the basis of the recent work that it's just psychological group formation which produces ethnocentrism, they tend to do that on the basis of social identity theory and they tend to do it often on the basis of the research done in the name of social identity theory. Which for me is deeply ironic. The first thing that one finds of course is that they've always misunderstood the theory. They've always focused just on the collective psychology and ignored the fact that Tajfil said that's not the theory. The theory is collective psychology in the social structure as a function of collective understanding. That's the theory. They always tend to focus just on the collective psychology. And then they pick out some one single factor like self-esteem or identification or social categorisation. And they say that causes it. And in fact when you look at the research where they've looked at those kinds of things, what you find is sometimes those things cause tendency to failure own group, but by no stretch of the imagination do we find any automatic or inevitable link. On the contrary, it's where you find people in the industry who say social identity theory is wrong. They're the people who've tested this vulgarized simple form and found that's wrong. Which to me is an argument for social identity theory, not an argument against it. If there are some other kinds of issues too. Is positive distinctiveness the same as hostility and derogation? No it's not. Saying you're better is not at all the same as saying that you're against somebody, antagonistic to somebody. The relationship between the search for positive distinctiveness superiority in terms of the positive of your identity and aggression against an outgroup is a complex relationship. To make sense of it we have to put social identity processes in the context of these other kinds of processes, relative deprivation, conflicting interests, and also in the context of political, historical and social analyses. It's not just a matter of a search for positive distinctiveness. There can be links, but by no stretch of the imagination is positive distinctiveness the same as prejudice in the sense of hostility or antagonism. If we look at the social categorisation paradigm, the minimal group paradigm, again, and I think I was in my first ever study as a PhD student I looked at this and I think all the evidence has been consistent with ever since. Again, there's no large automatic and inevitable link between social categorisation in this minimal group paradigm and favouring one's own group. The more you look at it the more you find it's actually quite a complex and subtle process. It can look simple if you as an experimenter just look from outside and think you know it all but don't try to make sense of what your subjects are doing. When you look at what your subjects are doing and in this stripped down paradigm one of the things they are doing is put a lot of effort into making sense of this situation. The researchers took the sense away, the subjects try and put it back and you have to understand how they're trying to make sense of it to really understand what's going on. If you say that and look at the data you find indeed it is not at all clear that psychological group formation in this kind of abstract sense inevitably produces favouritism towards one's own group. It varies with whether the in-group outgroup membership is an appropriate way of defining yourself in the situation. You can give people higher order identities. You can give people lower level identities. You get them to act in terms of me. You can get them to ignore the in-group outgroup boundary. If you get them to make a judgement of in-group and outgroup on the same dimension or in different dimensions let them pick their dimensions. You can reduce the level of in-group favouritism quite dramatically.


to that long as you know me you know I'm saying that that listen man I didn't even see that coming I seen y'all down there we had spoke a little bit about it when I came down and visited y'all how much how many views did they do when you posted man like they both currently got a million a piece on Instagram and Facebook yeah we on TV shot out the e-heater reason you see us in for special treat my boys in the building DJ K is in the building man stand up man fast ENT is in the building man this guy right here man he been working he back on boss talk one of one it's been a year now and he back you know I'm saying East Texas in the building stand up you know a lot of people understand man what it means to come from nothing and then make nothing out of something that's what your boy ECO did make something out of nothing yeah I was going into exactly make something out of nothing and at the end of the day you got to understand man it's just something to be a part of some you know that you know where you linked up with some good people you know I'm saying shout out to mama Scott shout out to all of them people down in the country man pop Johnson trio talk no peel talk road Tarantino everybody man up what's that boy AJ one what's it what's that brother what's your brother AJ one K or some K one we ain't gonna play AJ man what's that girl that was a D1 D what the journey man all right man listen man let's get it right man we're gonna start this thing off right now man the whole team man you guys are extraordinary man I watch you man I watch you I remember when you did that Thunderbird with a healthy my execution and 300 and I was like man this dude right here he knows how to pick who to put on his tracks how did y'all even do that like what made y'all work together man shout out Ralph Sheridan you know the Prince of the city you know I think he was a big puzzle piece and putting that together and you know that the rest is history he called he made the call but honestly to be on the shout out Audi we already kind of had our relationship anyway we had our report to where you know he'll just be telling me a lot of you know give me a lot of good game or not you know son and I'm you know I'm a I'm a hearing and I'm gonna soak it all in you know cuz I'm trying to learn you know and grow to be the best I can be and he's definitely somebody to look up to in this hip pop game you know I respect his craft and so just to make that song with him was really cool that's all hard as hell you know a lot of people love this song I got off on it he did his shit is he always gonna do and it's like I can listen to it and never get tired so I love this whole album like but now shout out 300 shout out my nigga Audi for show bro man like like you guys had different scenes on it you look like y'all are standing up high on something I remember that man how was it making that video man it was cool it was different I tried to step outside the box or step away from the norm or what I was doing at the time which is working with a lot of models so I had like took a detour all for a couple videos it just doing shit with no models and you know I'm saying like that was just me how do you know some hip hop shit you know I'm saying it was like an apocalyptic type space we shot the video in it was like the end of the world I just mean him love you do things that you're doing it should be noise being made you know like I said working with the people that you guys have worked with you know I'm saying and and to be honest with you that long as you know me you know I'm saying that that listen man I didn't even see that coming I seen y'all down there we had spoke a little bit about it when I came down and visited y'all I didn't know which way y'all was gonna go with it but I knew something was in you know happening something was about to go down and then I see of course he danced in this little dance it was like a little bit you didn't put out much but the little nigga dance across ti I'm talking about and when he did it you know he was smooth as ti be and then ti basically um you posted that and that did how much how many views did that do when you post man like they both currently got a million apiece on instagram and facebook wow that's kind of crazy you know like it's you don't never expect to go viral like true enough obviously like here is ti but it's like damn I never went viral like that yeah you know it's the first time feeling kind of like the bust down a million like yeah if you you wake up and it's two motherfuckers arguing on your post no like yeah that's part of what we do yeah like when was the last time ti even did a song that's big that's the whole game he hadn't done a song with nobody like that I've seen in a long time and for y'all that you're gonna have to break that down to us like how did you guys even get him to do it like how did y'all end up linking with him uh rp the it was clay uh yeah he was living during the time when you guys was linking with him and um just give me an understanding well I think I want to believe I think he just died recently yeah he did so the song was already complete correct so he didn't get to hear it yeah the song he'd been he heard the song the first day I met him wow that's I did the verse the first day I met him so he like run the mic over stuff and I recorded it right in front of him you know I was getting his dreads refreshed or dreaded you know send out their watches up I was like man it's a real experience I hate that you know rp clay passed away that's really sad you know it's a we kind of took our time getting to the video shoot whenever he got ready you know to get his mind and and his self together for it you know what's so crazy is you in the elite group you know what I'm saying you got songs with this guy that you know he done done songs with everybody from young thug to you in a class listen man you in a different class when you start thinking about the people who have done songs with this guy uh who's been in music with this guy you you start thinking from that level and you start to understand this guy's been on tracks with a lot booze and all these people got they got projects coming out together him and booze I was waiting on that project before they had they little scuffle you know what I'm saying for the back and forth when so but just to see that you guys was able to get down there and get you something out of it was man that's a blessing man because it don't happen all the time right it's one of the ones like I wasn't up here talking to y'all like no cap y'all can go back and watch the interview from yeah yeah yeah yeah the one we did first and you and it's clear enough that this was the guy that you really liked a lot and I and I think that's hard man so I mean that's what it's all about I would you know I ain't gonna use the word like but it's just um respect respected and you know of course probably you could use out of lies to a degree I'm not one of those guys that's no get up here and not give people they flowers I'm not an artist or a rapper that's the same to be like I listen to 50 cent when I was growing up in Lil Wayne and the rest of the goats you know what I'm saying the GZ's and the undre 3000's and uh you know you can go all out the Kanye's or the Hoop Drake now future you know like it's a lot of greats to listen like it's hard how do you make bad music when you know what I'm saying you got all this influence of just classic material and you got to be yourself I think that's what make everybody different yeah we on boss talk tv shout out the e-heater reason you see