Pauline GRIPPA

Bio

Pauline Grippa holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the Université libre de Bruxelles (Center for Social and Cultural Psychology). Her dissertation, which combines field studies and experiments, explores conflicts within social movements, with a particular focus on the dynamics of competition between submovements within the broader struggle. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre d’Étude de la Vie Politique (CEVIPOL) as part of the “NotLikeUs” project funded by FNRS-FWO. After analyzing internal conflicts within social movements, her current research focuses on affective polarization between citizens and dissatisfaction with politics, aiming to identify factors that can reduce this polarization and its detrimental effects on democratic processes.
 

CV

• 10/2024 - ongoing: Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre d’Étude de la Vie Politique as part of the « NotLikeUs » project funded by the FNRS-FWO

• 01/2021-10/2024: PhD student, FRESH (FNRS-F.R.S.) at the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology (ULB, Belgium) under the supervision of Professor Laurent Licata

Areas of research
 

• Intergroup relations
   
• Social movements
   
• Identity threats
   
• Politicized identities
   
• Ideological conflicts
   
• Competition over social recognition

Research

My doctoral research focused on intergroup conflicts within social movements and their consequences on cooperative dynamics within the movements. Through four qualitative and quantitative studies, we found that conflictual relationships within social movements can arise when members of established subgroups fear being supplanted by emergent subgroups that are ideologically different and attract social recognition. Our research suggests that the fear of being supplanted relies on the perception that another subgroup’s identity and ideology not only differ from theirs but could erase the established subgroup’s identity and ideology.

In addition to my doctoral research, my interests also include political identity and citizen mobilisation in the context of collective actions such as the #Balancetonbar and #BoycottQatar2022 movements. I have also studied the processes of agentivity in the discourses of decolonial activists in Belgium.

Publications

Lastrego, S., Grippa, P., & Licata, L. (2023). How and why decolonial activists mobilize or challenge the victim status: The case of Belgium's Afro‐descendants. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 33(4), 824-834.

Link