The Psychology of System Change and Resistance to Change

Winnifred R. Louis is Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland. Her research examines how social change occurs and how identity and norms influence decision-making. She has published more than 150 papers studying this broad topic in contexts ranging from collective action and political violence to environmental choices and health. Gi K. Chonu is a senior advisor, a researcher, and a lecturer in psychology at James Cook University, Singapore. She completed a PhD in social psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research focuses on social identity, group transitions, mental wellbeing, and teaching and learning in higher education. Kiara Minto is a research fellow at the University of Queensland, Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. Her published research focuses on responses to child sexual abuse and partner abuse, sexual consent, and sexual health. Her current work prioritises fostering improved social and emotional health related to sex and relationships. Susilo Wibisono is a post-doctoral researcher in the Social Change Lab at the University of Queensland. He has published research on the relationship of religious identity and collective action, and currently is examining the influence of religiosity in environmental action.

• Introduction and overview; Part I. Intergroup Relations and Group Processes: 1. Intergroup relations and processes: what they are and why they matter; 2. Creating and resisting change as disadvantaged groups; 3. How advantaged groups create, perpetuate and grow their advantage; 4. Ideologies of system justification and system change, and how advantaged group members become allies in change; 5. How norms change: processes of conformity, dissent and innovation; Part II. The New Psychology of Intergroup Relations: 6. Intergroup relations in the world ecological and environmental context; 7. Interconnected resilience and resistance: how systems resist change; 8. Societies as ecosystems: the psychology of factions and subgroups; 9. Temporal cycles and the psychology of time; 10. Beyond linear change: from shocks and disruption to inflection points and emergence; 11. Leaders, artists, innovators: the psychologies of history and imagination; 12. Conclusions, reflections and an agenda for the psychology of transformative change.

'In this deeply thought-provoking book, Winnifred Louis and her colleagues bring together a diversity perspectives on intergroup relations – from the psychology of individuals and groups to the nature of systemic change and ecological impacts – to create a brilliant transdisciplinary synthesis that is greater than the sum of its parts. A rare feat in the social sciences.' Harvey Whitehouse, University of Oxford