Emotional Climate, Human Security, and Cultures of Peace

Abstract

The objective of this issue is to review the work that has been published on emotional climate and the issues it raises, to present new work that addresses these issues, and to begin the work of relating emotional climate to research on human security and cultures of peace. The issue has three sections. The first focuses on articles that discuss the measurement of emotional climate, how it may be related to a society's peacefulness, and the psychosocial processes involved in its generation. The second involves work on human security and ways it may be restored after societal trauma. The third presents articles that relate emotional climate to cultures of peace.This introduction begins with a discussion of the concept of emotional climate, a review of what we have learned from past studies, the challenges posed by this research, and how some of these challenges are addressed by the authors in this issue. This review is followed by a short description of the concept of human security and how it may be linked to emotional climate. Then, we introduce the concept of a culture of peace and the articles that begin to relate its assessment to measurements of emotional climate. A final section briefly discusses the relationship between emotional climate, peaceful cultures, and peace psychology.

National identification as a function of perceived social control: A subjective group dynamics analysis

“…However, it appears consistent with evidence that shows that positive ingroup emotions (e.g., security, trust, pride in being a group member, or the belief that the group will overcome current injustices and threats) are associated with individuals' ability to recover from negative collective emotional experiences, individuals' well-being, and perception that the ingroup contributes to general human welfare (De Rivera & Paez, 2007;Fredrickson, 2009;Paez, Espinosa, & Bobowik, 2013;Paez & Rimé, 2014). In turn, negative emotions about the ingroup (e.g., despair, hopelessness, shame, insecurity, mistrust, moral outrage, or collective anger) seem to be associated with perceived group ineffectiveness, for instance in preventing social exclusion or loss of power (O'Mara, Jackson, Batson, & Gaertner, 2011;Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007;cf.…”

“…Third, and most likely, we may have missed an important step in the mediation process between trust in the social control system or perceived anomie and ingroup identification. Indeed, based on findings by De Rivera and Paez (2007), Fredrickson (2009), and Swann and colleagues (Swann, Gómez, Seyle, Morales, & Huici, 2009), it is possible that a positive emotional climate is an important missing link between trust in the social control system and perceived anomie, on the one hand, and social identification, on the other hand. In this vein, we may expect trust in the social control system and perceived anomie to be positively and negatively associated, respectively, with positive emotional climate in the ingroup, which, in turn, should be associated with stronger identification.…”

Leadership and Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: Test of a Mediation and Moderation Model

“…We have hypothesized that one of these variables is OCI. A positive socio-emotional climate is quite relevant for creativity, when the working teams share a positive effect, is more likely to have new and novel ideas (De Rivera & Páez, 2007). In addition, autonomy, security and positive relationships perceived by employees are organizational climate features that increase the innovation capability (Da Costa et al, 2014;Thakur, Hsu, & Fontenot, 2012).…”

Percepción del Clima Socioemocional y la Confianza Institucional en Víctimas de Violencia Política: Valoración del Impacto de la Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación

“…En un clima emocional percibido como positivo son más frecuentes las conductas de tipo prosocial (Páez, Javaloy, Wlodarczyk, Espelt & Rimé, 2013). Es frecuente encontrar una percepción del clima más negativa entre los miembros de los grupos de menor estatus social, como de hecho lo son las víctimas en contexto de represión política (De Rivera & Páez, 2007).…”