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Open research questions in Social and Intergroup Psychology

909 gap statements mined from Social and Intergroup Psychology papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 9,526 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

Choosing where to publish on Social and Intergroup Psychology? See the ranked Social Science journals.

What the literature leaves open

  • Future work should examine such possibilities using experimental or longitudinal designs. Still, future work may examine finer contextual moderators, such as relative socioeconomic distance or local inequality, which may matter more than absolute income.

    Politics of Envy? Meritocracy Beliefs, Not Envy, Drive Support for Redistribution · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could explore how habitual, RAO et al. Future research might consider using same-ethnicity focus groups to encourage freer discussion. Third, our research was limited by the age range of participants, meaning that we were unable to explore how interactions unfold across the lifespan and how different biographical ruptures influence contact engagement.

    The habitual, spatial and temporal conditions of everyday youth intergroup contact in an ethnically diverse city · 2026 · DOI

  • While this paper focussed on how Russian migrants negotiate stigma primarily through individualized strategies such as individual mobility (achieved by emigration), concealment or disidentification, future research should examine collective forms of identity constructions that emerge in exile.

    Escaping Russia, trapped by identity: National identity negotiation in light of ingroup wrongdoing · 2026 · DOI

  • Although the social self condition showed a higher mean than the personal self condition, this difference did not reach significance and should be examined further using more tightly matched materials and larger samples. Across the two studies, the group efficacy pathway received relatively more consistent support, whereas evidence for the empathy pathway was more limited and warrants further examination.

    The “Bright Side” of Identity Fusion: Promoting Intentions to Engage in Intergroup Prosocial Behavior · 2026 · DOI

  • Fifth, future research could investigate whether neural markers of repetition suppression are associated with the persistence of stereotypical beliefs, resistance to counter-stereotypical information, or the degree to which social categories are perceived as fixed versus flexible.

    The good, the bad, and the in-between: an exploratory study of how different groups may be represented in the brain · 2026 · DOI

  • This may be relevant for interpreting the limited evidence for TTEs, as cognitive liberalization may require more sustained engagement with outgroup perspectives than a brief excerpt-based exposure.

    Experimental tests of the tertiary transfer effect of intergroup contact: Addressing valence, prototypicality and moderators · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should examine engagement and disengagement across a broader range of organizational and labor arrangements, including movements in which activism is more closely integrated with paid work, community organizations, or other forms of collective labor.

    Why do climate activists stay and why do they leave? Mixed-methods analyses of interview data point to collective efficacy and collective identity beliefs · 2026 · DOI

  • Research on social categorization has largely emphasized intrinsic cues such as gender, while the role of structural cues remains underexplored.

    The dominance of social setting cues over gender in social categorization and induction · 2026 · DOI

  • By investigating the positive influence of inclusive leadership on newcomers’ proactive behaviors, this study addresses a gap in the literature concerning antecedents of newcomers’ proactive behaviors.

    The Mechanisms of Inclusive Leadership on Newcomers’ Proactive Socialization Behaviors—An Exploration Based on the Proactive Motivation Model · 2025 · DOI

  • However, its psychological dimensions remain underexplored, necessitating further understanding of the cognitive, emotional and behavioural processes that drive meaningful engagement with global challenges.

    Unpacking global consciousness: Identifying the psychological dimensions that foster awareness and action in an interconnected world · 2025 · DOI

  • Prior research recognizes intergroup emotions as crucial for intergroup attitudes and interactions, but the psychological mechanisms linking prior intergroup interactions to contact intentions remain incompletely understood.

    How can previous intergroup contact predict willingness for intergroup interaction? The mediating role of specific intergroup emotions · 2024 · DOI

  • However, little is known about how exposure to social media content that links dehumanization, disgust, and immigration influences users' attitudes on this issue.

    Effects of dehumanization and disgust-eliciting language on attitudes toward immigration: a sentiment analysis of Twitter data · 2024 · DOI

  • Our reliance on correlational data collected from a single source at a single point in time is an important limitation of this study.

    Making Sense of Claims of Unfairness: Third-Party Overall Fairness Perceptions Negatively Affect Claim Veracity and Deontic Reactions · 2026 · DOI

  • This question is particularly understudied during toddlerhood (between 1 and 2 years of age), before children can reliably report racial attitudes from around 3 to 4 years of age.

    Does the Race of the Stranger Matter? Investigating Toddlers’ Wariness Towards Familiar and Unfamiliar Racial Group Strangers · 2026 · DOI

  • However, beyond perceptual discrimination, it remains unclear whether infants use racial groups to guide their social behaviors, such as whether they approach or withdraw from people of different racial backgrounds.

    Does the Race of the Stranger Matter? Investigating Toddlers’ Wariness Towards Familiar and Unfamiliar Racial Group Strangers · 2026 · DOI

  • In contrast, incidental empathy (that stems from factors unrelated and is extrinsic to the outgroup) still needs to be explored.

    The Effects of Incidental Empathy on Outgroup Perception · 2026 · DOI

  • Although the consequences of selectivity have been extensively studied, there remains a gap in the literature for how to persuade people to reduce their selectivity.

    Mitigating Selective Exposure to Information via Accuracy and Defense Focused Messages · 2026 · DOI

  • However, little is known about whether its mitigating effects go beyond the laboratory and how long such effects might endure.

    The durability of imagined contact on intergroup attitudes and prejudice: An intervention among Japanese nationals towards Korean outgroups · 2025 · DOI

  • This allows us to focus our further research on the problem of the accuracy of the GATA measure.

    Are Implicit Attitudes “Implicit” for their Holders? Testing GATA Construct Validity · 2025 · DOI

  • H4 is inconclusive: while the political office variables produce a steeper treatment-conditioned divergence across demotivation than the civic action ones, the formal three-way tests are not significant at conventional levels for any prompt.

    Motivational depletion conditions efficacy-based interventions in political ambition · 2026 · DOI

  • First, because inexplicable personal relationship behavior and trust in sociopolitical relationships were both assessed pre-election (as compensation should be relatively immediate), this analysis could not establish temporal precedence.

    Generating Collective Social Safety in Times of Political Change: The Motivating Effects of Inexplicable Behavior · 2026 · DOI

  • While limited to the UK, Study 2 provides further evidence against desensitization (or response escalation).

    Does Islamist terrorism still affect political attitudes? · 2026 · DOI

  • This study investigated the use of imagined contact and its durability in the Japanese context, a setting in which this method has not been widely explored.

    The durability of imagined contact on intergroup attitudes and prejudice: An intervention among Japanese nationals towards Korean outgroups · 2025 · DOI

  • Future studies could explore these relationships and their moderators experimentally and longitudinally…

    How White people manage the weight of the past: The role of advantaged identity strategies in linking colonialism to current racial inequality · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in understanding how war conditions affect arguing orientations. The study aims to fill this gap by comparing results from three distinct conditions of war.

    Orientations toward Interpersonal Arguing in Ukraine, Across Three War Conditions · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Social and Intergroup Psychology

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Future work should examine such possibilities using experimental or longitudinal designs (“Politics of Envy? Meritocracy Beliefs, Not Envy, Drive Support for…”, 2026); (2) Research on social categorization has largely emphasized intrinsic cues such as gender, while the role of structural cues remains underexplored (“The dominance of social setting cues over gender in social categorization and…”, 2026); (3) Beyond perceptual discrimination, it remains unclear whether infants use racial groups to guide their social behaviors, such as whether they approach or withdraw from people of different racial backgrounds (“Does the Race of the Stranger Matter? Investigating Toddlers’ Wariness Towards…”, 2026); (4) Its psychological dimensions remain underexplored, necessitating further understanding of the cognitive, emotional and behavioural processes that drive meaningful engagement with global challenges (“Unpacking global consciousness: Identifying the psychological dimensions that…”, 2025); (5) Little is known about whether its mitigating effects go beyond the laboratory and how long such effects might endure (“The durability of imagined contact on intergroup attitudes and prejudice: An…”, 2025). 909 gap statements have been mined from Social and Intergroup Psychology papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 9,526 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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