Social Psychology Special Issue

Psychology people in profile
How the CSGP led to the Group Processes & Intergroup Relations journal (GPIR)…
‘Despite the success of European social psychology it had set itself in a confrontational
position in relation to American research. A key aim of the journal was to create a bridge
between these contrasting traditions. And actually it was my wife’s idea, we just followed
her instructions!’
The success…
‘There are half a dozen journals specialising in the psychology of groups, and some have
been around for many decades and are extremely well respected. Within about five years
of launching GPIR it had established itself as the leader amongst these journals, and has
sustained that position ever since.’
(one of whom is still one of our Associate
Editors) were all very committed to the
project and devoted a lot of effort to attract
good contributions from authors and to
ensure the operation was highly professional
from the start. We’ve also been supported by
a succession of outstanding editorial assistants,
most of whom started as PhD students
at Kent and all of whom have gone on to
have successful careers.
Since the start of GPIR, there must have been
different trends/emphases in group and intergroup
relations research… Where do you think
research is headed towards now?
That’s an excellent question. There are
always fashions and fads but the central questions
largely remain the same (social influence,
prejudice, change). I think that GPIR
is a natural place for continuing to make
cross-level connections (that is, linking the
individual, group, intergroup, and societal
levels). As issues become more globalised
(such as climate change, migration,
responses to human crises, demographic
shifts, and cross-national/cultural relationships)
and as modes of communication and
information sharing are changing rapidly,
there is an ever growing need for social
psychological research to address how
people respond and approach such issues.
Research techniques and types of data are
always developing too so the field is
constantly moving.
A few pints of beer… there came a world-class journal.
‘At the time the door was fairly open, we just had to find a publisher and come up with a
good proposal. As it turned out, this transpired at a BPS conference and our discussions
commenced over a few pints of beer. But these days the commercial pressures are
different and even if it is technically much easier to launch a journal, ensuring that it
succeeds and getting substantial investment from a publisher is a big challenge. The main
challenge though is to identify a potential long-term audience for the content of the
journal. With GPIR we knew that the existing mainstream journals simply did not have the
capacity to cope with the growing volume of excellent research. One of our members has
actually recently launched a new multidisciplinary journal, Contention, which is doing
extremely well and for which we have very high hopes.’
Issue 97 December 2015 7