{"id":25915,"date":"2024-10-22T17:00:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=25915"},"modified":"2024-10-22T17:00:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T16:00:48","slug":"the-queens-death-provoked-revealing-study-about-crowd-behaviour-and-britishness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/the-queens-death-provoked-revealing-study-about-crowd-behaviour-and-britishness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queen\u2019s death provoked revealing study about crowd behaviour and \u2018Britishness\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research on the public mourning after the Queen\u2019s death offers new insights on how groups or crowds of people with a shared identity \u2013 in this case \u2018Britishness\u2019 \u2013 navigate periods of change and uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Psychologists from multiple universities across the UK including Keele University and The Open University probed how those who queued to pay their respects in London and Edinburgh collectively navigated her death.<\/p>\n

They say the findings could help inform how politicians might navigate periods of change in the future where the electorate has a shared identity. The research has just been published in the British Journal of Social Psychology<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The paper forms part of a larger project that explores who took part in the events following the monarch\u2019s death, how they experienced their participation and the impact it had on their understanding of themselves and their Britishness.<\/p>\n

The queue<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When the Queen died in September 2022 after 70 years on the throne, more than 250,000 people queued to file past her coffin in London\u2019s Westminster Hall.<\/p>\n

Four days after her passing, researchers spoke to people as they queued to pay their respects to the monarch in Edinburgh and London.<\/p>\n

In studying \u201cthe queue\u201d researchers wanted to understand more about the social and cultural significance of this period of uncertainty, as well as the importance of the monarchy \u2013 and this loss \u2013 to their shared identity.<\/p>\n

Dr Sandra Obradovi\u0107, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the OU, and lead author of the research paper under the guidance of Dr Sara Vestergren from Keele\u2019s School of Psychology, said: \u201cWhen we think about crowds, we often think about the \u2018disruptive\u2019 one, the ones that come together to challenge the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this project, we had an opportunity to study a different kind of crowd, one that comes together to assert the status quo, something particularly important in a moment of rupture, that opens a space for change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Findings<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The researchers discovered people placed a huge significance on the Queen\u2019s death and that it created an \u201cin between\u201d state in the public consciousness \u2013 a concept known as \u2018liminality\u2019.<\/p>\n

In dealing with the collective loss, experts discovered that it prompted people to reflect on what the monarchy\u2019s significance is to the British national identity.<\/p>\n

Those they interviewed talked of the Queen being a representative of \u201cBritishness\u201d, and her death as a loss to the British national identity.<\/p>\n

Others discussed the value of the monarchy as an apolitical and unifying feature in an otherwise divided society.<\/p>\n

Dr Sara Vestergren, Lecturer in Psychology at Keele University, said: \u201cIt has been a privilege to be part of, and study, these events as they unfolded. As psychologists we were very excited to share these findings on how crowds like these transform people, create a hegemony, and how they define and develop British identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other universities involved in the study include St Andrews, Heriott-Watt, Canterbury Christ Church University, Sussex, Strathclyde and Bath.<\/p>\n

Picture credit: Howard Cheng, Shutterstock<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research on the public mourning after the Queen\u2019s death offers new insights on how groups or crowds of people with a shared identity \u2013 in this case \u2018Britishness\u2019 \u2013 navigate periods of change and uncertainty. Psychologists from multiple universities across the UK including Keele University and The Open University probed how those who queued to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":21991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[858,860,869,1525,1640,1862,1863],"class_list":["post-25915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","category-psychology","tag-faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences","tag-faculty-of-fass","tag-fass","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-queens-death","tag-queens-funeral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}