Cristina Jayme Montiel

Mental Models of Poverty in Developing Nations A Causal Mapping Analysis Using a Canada-Philippines Contrast

Causal mapping was used to compare poverty activists and non-activists from Canada and the Philippines (N = 80) in terms of their beliefs about the causes of poverty in developing nations. The causal maps varied as a function of both activist status and country of residence. Activists included more external societal causes in their maps than non-activists, whereas non-activists included more individualistic and internal societal causes. In terms of map structure, Filipino activists included significantly more causal links in their maps than members of the other three groups. A cluster analysis on distance ratios, an index of dissimilarity among the maps, produced three clusters dominated by Filipino non-activists, Canadian non-activists, and Filipino activists, respectively, and a fourth cluster that included a heterogeneous mix of respondents from all four groups. Implications for public education, the effective coordination of antipoverty interventions, and methodological issues related to causal mapping are discussed.

Political Trauma and Recovery in a Protracted Conflict: Understanding Contextual Effects

Psychologists have discovered useful therapeutic strategies to understand and heal the inner world of individuals traumatized by political violence. However, psychological approaches built on unspoken assumptions about context, present an incomplete therapeutic picture for individuals traumatized in protracted social conflicts. Because political environment and psychological well-being are bidirectionally related, situational issues need to be addressed. Four context-related propositions are presented. In a protracted war: (a) traumatizing experiences are not only episodic but also systemic, extending over many years; (b) context may also function as a source of healing; (c) healing efforts do not take place in war-free and comfortable contexts but rather in unsafe and impoverished conditions; and (d) trauma survivors are not only victims and effects, but also empowered transformers and causes of contextual change. Applications to Philippine experiences illustrate the 4 propositions. Further explorations ...

Effects of Social Position on Societal Attributions of an Asymmetric Conflict

Traditionally, the study of peace and conflict has employed macro explanations such as social structure and state conditions. This article extends the discourse on peace and conflict by considering psychological conditions during a heated social conflict. The focus is on societal attribution, a cognitive process involving shared beliefs about the causes of societal events. The present study examines the effects of social positions on causal attributions in an asymmetric conflict that is taking place in the Philippines on the war-torn island of Mindanao. It was expected that causal attributions of the Mindanao war would differ between Christians and Muslims. Four hundred and thirty Muslims and Christians at Mindanao State University-Marawi stated their degree of agreement on belief statements about perceived intergroup inequality and ranked the three most important causes of the conflict in Mindanao. Results indicated that power inequality between groups is perceived only by the disadvantaged Muslim group, while members in the dominant social position were not sensitized to systemic issues. Findings also indicated intergroup disagreements about the causes of the war. The marginalized Muslims believed that structural problems, namely, displaced and landless Bangsa Moro (Muslim Nation) and loss of rights to self-determination were important origins of the conflict. On the other hand, the dominant Christian group attributed the Mindanao conflict to person-related causes like corruption of the mind and moral fiber, as well as sociocultural discrimination. Implications for attribution theory and the practice of peacemaking in asymmetric conflicts are discussed.

Democratization, Psychology, and the Construction of Cultures of Peace

Democratization, which involves an increased distribution of political power among large human pluralities, can be defined in various ways by different cultures. The political process takes place across different units of analysis, from larger interstate and intrastate relations to smaller human units of political collectives and individual citizens. At the turn of the millennium, many new democracies leave behind them recent histories of authoritarianism but collective memories of political abuses remain. Conditions of violence and peace that accompany the transition to democracy include forms of direct, structural, and cultural social transgressions. Democratization processes may likewise unleash a more subtle yet powerful form of social violence, as Western powers impose their own governmental forms that are alien to weaker states. Such impositions of democracy on less powerful societies revive unpleasant memories of Western hegemonic activities during colonial periods and the Cold War. Psychologists c...

Contributions of Psychology to War and Peace.

The contributions of American psychologists to war have been substantial and responsive to changes in U.S. national security threats and interests for nearly 100 years. These contributions are identified and discussed for four periods of armed conflict: World Wars I and II, the Cold War, and the Global War on Terror. In contrast, about 50 years ago, largely in reaction to the threat of nuclear war, some psychologists in the United States and around the world broke with the tradition of supporting war and began focusing their scholarship and activism on the prevention of war and promotion of peace. Today, peace psychology is a vibrant area of psychology, with theory and practice aimed at understanding, preventing, and mitigating both episodes of organized violence and the pernicious worldwide problem of structural violence. The growth, scope, and content of peace psychology are reviewed along with contributions to policies that promote peace, social justice, and human well-being.

Effects of Political Framing and Perceiver's Social Position on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom Fighter

Positioning theory was invoked to predict that framing effects of political violence are moderated by the social position of the message receiver. As a reference, for the purpose of this study, the societal structural configurations of Malay Muslims and Filipino Christians led to their classification as respondents from the Dominant Social Position, and Malay Christians and Filipino Muslims as participants in the Nondominant Social Position, respectively. Respondents read a vignette about either a terrorist or a freedom fighter who bombed a building, and then described the story character using trait attributes on a semantic differential scale. Respondents from disadvantaged groups preferred freedom fighters over terrorists, whereas respondents from dominant groups evaluated terrorists more highly than freedom fighters.

Nationalism in Local Media During International Conflict Text Mining Domestic News Reports of the China–Philippines Maritime Dispute

Using the lens of positioning theory and a mixed methods strategy, we investigate domestic media’s production of nationalism during an international conflict. Philippine and Chinese news accounts of the Scarborough Shoal conflict are text mined by RapidMiner software. With almost 100% accuracy, mathematical models successfully classify sets-of-words that belong to each domestic newspaper. Principal components analyses show that Philippine Daily Inquirer reports revolve around words related to local fishing and livelihoods. News accounts in China’s People’s Daily uphold national sovereignty. A complementary qualitative analysis of the news reports gives our mathematically derived themes more meaning. Philippine maritime claims cite recent Philippine history and international law. China’s story references lost sovereignty and ancient rather than recent history. Positioning analysis demonstrates how each newspaper claims its own country owns Scarborough Shoal and is the victim of the other country. Our findings show how two contradictory and nationalistic versions of an international conflict may be linguistically constructed by domestic media. Our research also highlights the illuminative power of positioning theory in the field of international relations and media analysis.

Political Psychology in the Philippines

This paper describes researches in Filipino political psychology. Presentation of the literature is organized chronologically by major political events that mark the demise of one political season and the birth of another. The political backdrop includes nationalist movements, student protests, martial law, Senator Benigno Aquinos assassination, and the EDSA Revolutions success. Research interests cover topics like kinship, socialization, conflict, transition, and public opinion surveys. The article ends by looking at possibilities forfuture research in political psychology in the Philippines.

The Moro Struggle and the Challenge to Peace Building in Mindanao, Southern Philippines

Montiel, Rodil, and Guzman describe the islands of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines and analyze the ethnic conflicts between two of the three primary groups which make up most of the population; the indigenous Muslim minority (Moro) and the Christian migrant majority. Peace movements at the individual, group, and government level are discussed along with suggestions for interventions at each level. Historical review reveals the presence of self-sustaining tribal communities with animistic beliefs, followed by the arrival of Muslim missionaries introducing monotheism. Spanish colonization is credited with the addition of Christian religion and the beginnings of deeply rooted animosity created through many years of war. Additional tensions are postulated to result from inclusion of Moro sultanates in the American takeover, which were not previously part of the Philippine state under Spain. American colonial rule is also credited with contributing to the internal conflicts through labeling of groups, changing land ownership laws, and homestead movements which displaced indigenous people. Further under American governance, the authors describe a process of marginalization through mandatory English education and increasing Filipino presence in bureaucracy. These events are presented as setting the stage for the violent conflict between the Moro and Filipino which followed.

Social Representations of a Controversial Peace Agreement: Subjective Public Meanings of the GRP-MILF MOA

Using social representations theory, we studied the social meanings of a controversial Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. In Study One, we describe the discursive content of the social debate by content analyzing articles from newspapers and selected websites. Study Two uses a survey to examine the fit between social representations of the political elite, as found in media, and the non-elite in Mindanao territories where the MOA was hotly contested. Study Three presents the social representations of the MOA at the local level through analysis of key informant interviews and archival data. Discriminant analysis on survey data shows that in general, the debate of political elites in media mirrors the contentions on-the-ground. However, the issue of constitutionality was only taken up by the political elite. Our findings suggest that the political stumble of the GRP-MILF peace process lay in a lack of procedural fairness and an on-the-ground participatory process acceptable to all antagonistic parties. However, the socially represented fair procedure is not about conventional democratic ways like using or not using a constitutional frame, but rather about pragmatic positioning and public consultations.