A public talk by Dr. Gordon Sammut, University of Malta, Malta, organized by the Department of Psychology and Counseling at Webster University Geneva.

Date: 24 April 2019

Time: 16:30 – 17:30 (followed by a small reception)

Place: LLC Commons Room

This is a free event, open to the public, but we please request that you register here.

In everyday routine interactions, individuals make sense of elements of the world around them in different ways. An event that might be an opportunity for some might be interpreted as a threat by another. In social life, different representations are debated in an effort to resolve disparities. This lecture will propose that mentalities constitute an impediment to resolving intergroup and intercultural cleavages. Mentalities can be defined as generalized sociocognitive interpretations of the environment that predispose individuals to experience events in particular ways. Research suggests that five mentalities orient our perceptions and experiences of the world, namely: a. Civic, b. Survivor, c. Pragmatic-Opportunist, d. Pragmatic-Strategic, and e. Localised. Empirical findings demonstrate critical differences between mentalities in attitudes towards immigration. Mentalities are also found to be associated with certain socio-demographic

variables, such as education. The lecture concludes by outlining a research programme on mentalities, that promises to further our understanding into how individuals form social coalitions to compete against other social groups.

Gordon Sammut is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Malta. His research interests are concerned with issues related to open and closed-mindedness, intergroup and intercultural relations, and the clash of social representations in modern life. He is Associate Editor of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. His publications include Methods of Psychological Intervention (2017), The Cambridge Handbook of Social Representations (2015), and Understanding the Self and Others: Explorations in intersubjectivity and interobjectivity (2013).

This is a free event, open to the public, but we please request that you register here.