Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 75, No. 1, 2019, pp.

8--19
doi: 10.1111/josi.12308

This article is part of the Special Issue “The Social Psychology of Neoliberal-
ism,” Karim Bettache and Chi-Yue Chiu (Special Issue Editors). For a full list-
ing of Special Issue papers, see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/
josi.2019.75.issue-1/issuetoc.

The Invisible Hand is an Ideology: Toward a Social

Psychology of Neoliberalism
∗
Karim Bettache
Monash University

Chi-Yue Chiu
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

On the one hand, neoliberalism, originally an economic theory, has evolved into
a sociopolitical ideology and extended its hegemonic influence to all areas of
life, including the production of psychological knowledge in academia and the
practice of psychology in various domains. On the other hand, neoliberalism has
been criticized as the root of all problems in contemporary societies. Widespread
discontent with neoliberalism is seen as the catalyst for the rising popularity of
populism, the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and the Brexit refer-
endum. The discontent with neoliberalism has also inspired imaginations of what
a postneoliberal society may be like, as evidenced by the rise of neosocialists such
as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the United States or Jeremy Corbyn in the United
Kingdom. In this issue, we have gathered multidisciplinary insights to answer
questions that would constitute a preliminary agenda of a social psychology of
neoliberalism. These questions include: how neoliberalism can be studied social
psychologically? What are the neoliberalist constraints on knowledge creation
and social practices? How can social psychology shed light on the psycholog-
ical responses to the hegemonic impact of neoliberalism and contribute to the
imagination of a postneoliberal world? In short, is social psychology of neolib-
eralism a feasible and useful intellectual project for producing actionable social
knowledge?

What is social about social psychology? This question invites social psychol-
ogists to reflect on their discipline’s defining attributes. This question has also
challenged social psychologists to make their research socially relevant.

∗ Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Karim Bettache, Room 3-2-
11, Department of Psychology (JCSMHS), Monash University Malaysia, Jalan Lagoon Selatan, 47500
Bandar Sunway, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia [e-mail: karim.bettache@monash.edu]
8

C 2019 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues
Neoliberalism and Social Psychology 9

For decades, the Popperian notion of methodological individualism has dom-

inated social psychological inquiry in North America. According to Karl Popper
(1966), “All social phenomena, and especially the functioning of all social in-
stitutions, should always be understood as resulting from the decisions, actions,
attitudes, etc., of human individuals, and . . . we should never be satisfied with an
explanation in terms of so-called “collective” (p. 98). For example, prejudice and
discrimination have been studied as individual attitudes and actions, respectively,
rather than the results of the organized conduct of the social group.
Karl Popper was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), an organization
largely responsible for the rise and spread of neoliberal thoughts. Neoliberalism,
originally a loose economic theory, has evolved into a sociopolitical ideology and
extended its hegemonic influence to all areas of life, including the production of
psychological knowledge in academia and the practice of psychology in the do-
mains of mental health, counseling, and racial relations, etc. Indeed, neoliberalism
may be seen as a ubiquitous, totalizing, and epoch-defining phenomenon. Social
psychology has been criticized for not being sufficiently social partly because of
its subscription to Popperian methodological individualism.
Although neoliberalism has expanded its reach to a wide range of economic,
social, political, and military phenomena at the local, national, and global scale, it
has recently been criticized as the root of all problems in contemporary societies.
Widespread discontent with neoliberalism is seen as the catalyst for the rising
popularity of populism, the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and the
Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. The discontent with neoliberalism has
also inspired imaginations of what a postneoliberal society will be like and pro-
duced neosocialist ideologues such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (United States)
and Jeremy Corbyn (United Kingdom).
Amidst these changes, social psychology, purportedly the most socially rele-
vant subdiscipline in psychology has remained quiet. Is neoliberalism outside the
range of social psychological imagination? If not, how can neoliberalism be stud-
ied from a social psychological perspective? How may social psychology benefit
from critical reflections on neoliberalism’s hegemonic influence on knowledge
creation and social practices? How can social psychology contribute to the debate
on the social and psychological impact of neoliberalism and the imagination of
a postneoliberal world? In short, is social psychology of neoliberalism a feasible
and useful intellectual project for producing actionable social knowledge?
The silence was broken when tens of scholars responded to a call for answers
to these questions. The articles in the current collection capture insights from
scholars in diverse fields (social psychology, political economy, social work, etc.)
and from different continents (America, Europe, and Asia). Some of them applied
existing conceptual and empirical tools in social psychology to debunk utopian
thinking in neoliberalism, adding fuel to the critique of the neoliberal order. Others
engage the readers to critically reflect on the social construction of psychological
science, raising awareness of the inherent neoliberal biases in the preferred theories
10 Bettache and Chiu

and practices in the field. Together, these articles offer us a glimpse of what a social
psychology of neoliberalism may be like.
In this article, we first situate neoliberalism in its historical context and
review the major criticisms against the neoliberal order. Next, we provide an
overview of the ways in which the contributions to this issue have helped illustrate
how neoliberalism can be studied social psychologically; how engaging with
neoliberalism can reveal the inherent ideological biases in many psychological
theories and practices; and how social psychological research can help identify
the strategies for containing and resisting the adverse effects of neoliberalism. We
close by inviting readers to imagine how social psychology can contribute to the
imagination of a postneoliberal order.

Situating Neoliberalism

“The freedom of the consumer in choosing what he shall buy, the freedom of the producer
in choosing what he shall make, and the freedom of the worker in choosing his occupation
and his place employment, are essential not merely for the sake of freedom itself, but for
efficiency in production. Such a system of freedom is essential if we are to maximize output
in terms of individual satisfaction. Departure from these individual liberties leads to the
production of not only fewer goods and services, but of the wrong goods and services. We
cannot enrich ourselves merely by consenting to be slaves.”

Mont Pelerin Society, Draft Statement of Aims 1947, in Plehwe, 2009 (p. 23)
In 1925, Hans Honegger, introduced the concept of neoliberalism in his book
Trends of Economic Ideas. In this book, he championed the values of competition
and entrepreneurship and denounced the advancement of the socialist variants
of liberalism (Plehwe, 2009). Neoliberal economic principles were crystalized
in the establishment of the MPS in 1947. MPS’s founding members included
Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Frank Knight, Michael
Polanyi, and Karl Popper. According to its Draft Statement of Aims published on
April 7, 1947, preservation of individual liberty or freedom in a society requires
the establishment of an effective competitive market to direct economic activities.
The establishment of an efficient market requires that individuals can freely choose
what and where they want to work and what commodities they want to produce
and consume. The preservation of an effective competitive order also depends
on the presence of a widely accepted moral code and a culturally shared belief
in self-governance. Also indispensable are the presence of legal and institutional
frameworks that ensure an effective operation of competition and the subjection
of government activities to the rule of law. Finally, totalitarian government that
threatens individual liberty can be prevented only through decentralization of
control and protection of individuals’ right to plan their future (Plehwe, 2009).
MPS was formed to combat the spread of socialist ideas. Although neoliberalism
has many variegated articulations, they consistently affirm the value of market
Neoliberalism and Social Psychology 11

competition and economic efficiency articulated in the Draft Aims of the MPS
(Davies, 2014).
While marginalized, ignored, or derided for decades, the economic ideol-
ogy developed under MPS auspices found an opening in the 1970s. Neoliberalists
attributed the economic crises during that period to excessive government interfer-
ence in the economy. When Margaret Thatcher was elected as the Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom in 1979 and Ronald Reagan as the President of the United
States in the next year, the emergence of neoliberalism found its defining mo-
ments (Harvey, 2005). Following the neoliberalist policy package, Thatcher and
Reagan cut business and income taxes, downsized regulatory state agencies, and
relaxed government regulations of the financial sector, the labor market, and the
environment. As Cerny (2008) noted, “Neoliberalism in its varieties, ‘free market
conservative, neoliberal structuralist and neoliberal regulationist,’ paradoxically
includes an active role for the state in designing, promoting and guaranteeing . . . a
kind of imposed laissez faire somewhat analogous to Rousseau’s image of people
being “forced to be free”” (p. 1).
Meanwhile, national policies were aligned with global trade policies spear-
headed by the World Bank, IMF, and WTO. The result was acceleration of glob-
alization, characterized by free flow of capital within and across nation-states,
and the rise and dominance of transnational corporations and financial institutions
(Phillips, 2014). Fueled by globalization, neoliberalism made increasing inroads
into the political and economic policies of many countries, including transition
economies. The ideology was embraced on both sides of the political spectrum,
effectively eroding what was left of Keynesian social democracy. Many aspiring
transition and developing economies crazed for and embraced neoliberal policy
innovations (Cerny, 2008).
Neoliberalism began as an economic program. However, it has quickly devel-
oped into a global political and cultural hegemony. As Phelan and Dawes (2018)
noted, “Political and cultural identification with other value systems is progres-
sively eroded, as illustrated by social regimes—including media regimes—that
lose any sense of coherent normative alternatives. Neoliberalism is, therefore,
much more than an economic program; rather, it represents a political and cultural
blueprint for constructing the very image of the social presupposed by neoliberal
theorists and reconstituting the very meaning of “liberal democracy”” (p. 13).

Critical Discourses on Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism has been severely criticized on ideological grounds. Criticisms

of neoliberalism as an ideology have centered on its corrosiveness and iniquity
as a particular historical regime of capitalism. It has also been criticized for
subordinating public life to market forces, displacing the welfare commitments of
the state, and justifying capitalist dominance (Phelan & Dawes, 2018).
12 Bettache and Chiu

Neoliberalism has also been disparaged for its adverse effects on social equal-
ity. In the last 40 years, the dominance of neoliberalism in advanced capitalist
economies was accompanied by growing social inequality. For example, between
the mid-1970s and 2006, the GDP of the United States had trebled and stock prices
had increased many times. Although the economy and business have prospered,
the income of the average American worker and family has remained largely
stagnant (Manne & McKnight, 2010).
The following quote captures the austerity of the economic “outcaste” in the
market system:

For those left or cast outside the market system, a vast reservoir of apparently disposable
people bereft of social protections and supportive social structures there is little to be ex-
pected from neoliberalization except poverty, hunger, disease, and despair. Their only hope
is somehow to scramble aboard the market system either as petty commodity producers,
as informal vendors (of things or labor power), as petty predators to beg, steal, or violently
secure some crumbs from the rich man’s table, or as participants in the vast illegal trade
or trafficking in drugs, guns, women or anything else illegal for which there is a demand
(Harvey, 2005, p. 185).

The failure of the neoliberalist paradigm to address problems of inequality,

which have grown worse over time, has been the catalyst for the rise of right-
wing populism. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers questioned the neoliberalist
assumptions that markets are capable of self-correction and that government in-
tervention in the markets is counterproductive. The neoliberal paradigm faced a
legitimacy crisis when the Occupy Movement, inspired by the Arab Spring, erupted
first on Wall Street and quickly spread to other advanced capitalist economies.
O’Donnell (2018, p. 1039) characterizes the Occupy Movement as “a pan-issue
movement behind which citizens, enraged with the way free market capitalism
was perceived to be making a tiny minority exoritantly wealthy and the poor su-
perfluous, could mobilize.” The justice crisis also incites the global civic unrest
since the 1990s to fight for canceling debt in poor countries.
These developments pave the way for the rise of populism. Populism is a
generalized response to inequality and noninclusive economic growth that ne-
oliberalism has exacerbated. Antiestablishment is the driving theme of right-wing
populist movements. A shared contempt for crony capitalism and its policies (cor-
porate welfare, Wall Street, insider trading, tax cuts for CEOs) and the isolation
of a common enemy (e.g., immigrants) unified the populist movements and were
partly responsible for the surge of right-wing populism and the election of Don-
ald Trump (O’Donnell, 2018). However, recently right-wing populist movements
have effectively been co-opted by the neoliberal order. Donald Trump, for exam-
ple, spearheaded neoliberal policy (e.g., decreased taxation of the rich) at historic
speeds. Furthermore, in the service of neoliberalism, populism diverts attention
from the cause to a significant portion of society who are blamed for the economic
hardships of the majority: immigrants and social minorities. This paved the way
for a different form of populism, that is, of neosocialism. Bernie Sanders and
Neoliberalism and Social Psychology 13

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are examples of such ideologues who demand rein-

statement of the welfare state, taxation of the rich and social inclusiveness.

Social Psychological Study of Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism as a Multifaceted Construct

The foregoing review aims to provide an overview of the sociopolitical context

for a social psychology of neoliberalism. We now turn to some candidate agenda
items for inclusion in a social psychology of neoliberalism. First, we will explore
the multifaceted nature of neoliberalism as a social psychological construct. Next,
we will provide examples of how the psychological impact of neoliberalism can
be studied scientifically using the conceptual and methodological tools currently
available in social psychology, and discuss how a non-neoliberalist social psychol-
ogy can help correct the reductionist and cultural biases inherent in some broadly
accepted social psychological theories and practices.
Neoliberalism is a multifaceted construct consisting of a constellation of
axioms. As a zeitgeist or political-economic common sense, its political economy
axiom privileges preservation of individual freedom through the establishment
of effective competitive markets with minimal government intervention (Beattie,
2019). Paradoxically, neoliberalism’s ideological commitment to free market also
confers authority and power to the state to have institutions and policies that ensure
efficient operations of the market.
The social moral axiom in neoliberalism confers universal moral inviolabil-
ity to the values of free choices and self-governance. As a mainstream ideology
in advanced capitalist economies, neoliberalism prioritizes economic growth and
prescribes free market solutions to almost every social, political, or economic
problem or crisis. Neoliberalism exerts its global hegemonic influence by advo-
cating reforms to transform the social and cultural value systems in developing
countries into ones that support global economic growth.
The psychological axiom in neoliberalism asserts that freedom from interfer-
ence by others is a universal human desire. It also asserts that economic inequality
benefits individuals because it inspires personal agency and fosters the develop-
ment of the entrepreneurial self, which privileges productivity, innovation, and
wealth creation (Beattie, 2019). Citing evidence for the adverse psychological
effects of inequality and poverty, Beattie (2019) questioned the beneficial psy-
chological effects of inequality. This critique highlights the relevance of social
psychology to public discourses on neoliberalism.

Individual and Contextual Differences

Different individuals in a society agree with and internalize the neolib-

eral ideology to different extents (Beattie, Bettache, & Chong, 2019). Thus,
14 Bettache and Chiu

neoliberalism as a sociopolitical ideology can also be studied as an individual dif-

ference variable. Bay-Cheng, Fitz, Alizaga, and Zucker (2015) have constructed a
Neoliberal Beliefs Inventory (NBI) to capture individual differences in attitudinal
identification with the belief that free, meritocratic market competition with min-
imal government intervention is the best way to organize society. Subscription to
neoliberal beliefs as measured by the NBI predicted ethnocentrism among Amer-
icans and their inclination to morally exclude Central American asylum seekers
and be apathetic toward protection of asylum seekers’ rights (Dutt & Kohfeldt,
2019). There is also consistent evidence that in the United States, neoliberalism
is a core component of a right-wing attitudinal syndrome. Specifically, endorse-
ment of neoliberalism is positively related to right-wing authoritarianism, social
dominance orientation, as well as system justification of economic and gender
inequality (Azevedo, Jost, & Rothmund, 2019).
The associations of neoliberal ideology with other ideologies are context
dependent. For example, in the United States, people who subscribe to neolib-
eral beliefs tend to possess personal qualities characteristic of homo economicus:
these individuals are narrowly self-interested and consistently strive to raise their
socioeconomic standing and dominance in the society. For example, they tend
to score high on self-interest and narcissism, embrace agentic values, endorse
the social dominance orientation, and feel pressured to compete for the sake of
avoiding social disapproval. In contrast, in India, people who embrace neoliberal-
ism tend to blend qualities of homo economicus with those of homo reciprocans
(reciprocity and cooperation). For example, these individuals tend to score high
on both self-maximization and prosocial orientation and embrace both agentic
and communal values. Furthermore, in India, endorsement of neoliberalism is not
connected to the preference for inequality and has only a weak association with
the social dominance orientation (Beattie et al., 2019). These country differences
can be attributed to the communitarian emphasis in Indian culture, which serves
to soften the hegemonic influence of neoliberalism. An alternative explanation is
that neoliberalism is not well developed in India as it is in the United States. Once
neoliberalism has tightened its grip on Indian culture, we may observe greater
cultural convergence in the functional relationship between neoliberalism and its
attendant psychological attributes. Future research is needed to test these two
alternative explanations.

Cognitive Availability of Neoliberal Beliefs

The influence of neoliberalist ideology on individual cognitions, motivations,

and behaviors also vary across situations, depending on its salience or cognitive
availability in the situation. In a transition economy like China, where market has
started to replace traditional norms in social regulation, rendering the concept of
free market salient decreases interpersonal trust (Zhang & Xin, 2019). Likewise, in
Neoliberalism and Social Psychology 15

the United States and Germany, increasing the cognitive salience of neoliberalism
exacerbates the feelings of anomie, threat, unfairness, and hopelessness, which
in turn aggravate negative sentiment toward the establishment elites (Hartwich
& Becker, 2019). This finding resonates with the idea that the dominance of
neoliberalism may have created a justice crisis in these advanced capitalist states.
Furthermore, as a multifaceted construct, the specific ways neoliberalism
impacts individual psychology depends also on which component idea of it is
salient in the immediate behavioral context. For example, politically engaged
Americans who have a favorable attitude toward Donald Trump are inclined to deny
the reality of climate change. This relationship is mediated in part by a component
belief in neoliberalism: aversion to wealth redistribution (Panno, Leone, & Carrus,
2019). That is, Americans may favor Trump because of his right-wing neoliberal
loathing of wealth redistribution. Because of the perception that environmental
protection is connected to left-wing political orientation, which is sympathetic to
equality, distributional concerns, and market skepticism (Neumayer, 2004), Trump
supporters are also skeptical of climate change and its alleged androgenic causes.
The theoretical heuristic of studying the effect of component ideas in neolib-
eralism as opposed to the global effect of neoliberalism is highlighted in a series
of studies carried out by Zhang and Xin (2019) in China. Their studies show
that increasing the cognitive salience of the impetus attribute of market (the value
and practice of profit maximization and economic growth) reduces interpersonal
trust. In contrast, increasing the cognitive salience of the rule attribute (regula-
tory mechanisms that ensure orderly development of market economy) insulates
interpersonal trust from the erosive effects of selfish maximization. In short, ne-
oliberalism, once unpacked, is amenable to social psychological analysis, which
can generate fresh insights to enrich the dialogue on neoliberalism and human
sociability.

Neoliberalization of Psychological Knowledge and Practices

On the one hand, social psychology has developed powerful conceptual and
empirical tools to debunk the utopian thinking in neoliberalism—the false be-
lief that a self-organized market is capable of autocorrection and self-healing for
all kinds of problems it encounters. On the other hand, the science and prac-
tices of social psychology are to some extent reflections of contemporary history
(Gergen, 1973). In a way, it functions similarly to the hypothesized invisible hand
in the free-market: neoliberalism is invisible yet regulates psychology’s assump-
tive world.
Reflecting on the hegemonic influence of neoliberalism on academic knowl-
edge production, Gjorgjioska and Tomicic (2019) observed that neoliberalism
has fostered the proliferation of a culture of surveillance and performance audit
in some universities, turning these universities into business-like entities. Such
16 Bettache and Chiu

culture is fortified through a reward system (tenure and promotion) based on the
productivity, the use of business models to guide policies and practices, and the
application of corporate management techniques to optimize efficiency. In so-
cial psychology, social representation theorists aspire to provide a critical voice
to counter the realist ontology, positivist epistemology, and quantitative methods
in social psychological research. Nonetheless, many of them feel pressurized to
cut their feet to fit the shoes of neoliberal universities, and to comply with the
methodological individualist norms embodied in mainstream social psychological
research.
Adams, Estrada-Villalta, Sullivan, and Markus (2019) further argue that en-
gagement with neoliberal academic establishments has produced social psycho-
logical knowledge imbued with neoliberal biases. Such biases are reflected in “a
radical abstraction of self from social and material context, an entrepreneurial
understanding of self as an ongoing development project, an imperative for per-
sonal growth and fulfillment, and an emphasis on affect management for self-
regulation.” Furthermore, the practice of a social psychology infected with neolib-
eral biases can reproduce and reinforce the influence and authority of neoliberal
systems. This critical analysis calls for the construction of a culturally inclusive so-
cial psychological science informed by a plurality of cultural traditions to counter
the hegemonic influence of neoliberal social psychology.
The hegemonic influence of neoliberalism permeates not only knowledge pro-
duction but also various psychological practices. Dougherty (2019) noted that the
neoliberal axiomatic belief in self-governance requires that citizens be responsible
for their own well-being and contribute to the market economy. This neoliberal be-
lief lends legitimacy to the social welfare policies that have made self-governance a
prerequisite for receiving social support. For example, neoliberalism reduces men-
tal illness to a biological condition curable by using psychoactive drugs. Thus,
using drugs as a mechanism to restore mental health affords patients the oppor-
tunity to self-govern their own drug consumption and have a deinstitutionalized,
independent, and productive life. As a result, despite the contestable efficacy of
using prescribed psychoactive drugs in restoring the psychosocial functions of the
mentally ill, prescriptions in themselves have become a way for poor mental pa-
tients to meet the “medical necessity” criterion for some social security programs.
Furthermore, Dougherty (2019) contends that “the use of prescribed psychoactive
drugs depends on the formation of psychological interventions that ignores the
structural determinants of poverty and, instead, locates disability within psycho-
logical features.”
Similarly, Peters (2019) concluded from her interviews with Rape Crisis
Center clinicians that the prevailing neoliberal medical model in the United States
views distress as a disease and holds the individuals responsible for fixing their
own problems. This analysis calls for critical reflections on and rethinking of
the neoliberal medicalized framework: Instead of situating adjustment problems
Neoliberalism and Social Psychology 17

within the person and focusing on symptom elimination, there is a need for the
clinicians to understand the sociopolitical context of oppression and to promote
social change that will ultimately end sexual violence.
Popperian methodological individualism is also the central theme in Perez and
Salter’s (2019) critique of interracial policies in the United States. The neoliberal
utopia is a world without racial division, because the fully privatized, free market
is presumably color blind. The market is like a level playing field that rewards
individuals based primarily on their merits or market values. Failing is the result
of not trying hard enough, not because of one’s race or structural inequality in the
system. This perspective discourages government-sponsored social programs such
as affirmative action that may address structural racial inequality. It also reduces
justifiable critiques on racism to oversensitivity of “snowflakes.” Importantly, the
authors argue that neoliberalism should not be seen as separate from those who
profit from it: An Euro-White elite that, in a postcolonialist world, had a head start
where it comes to its privileged position. Hence, their economic power through
neoliberalism may function as a tool to strengthen White supremacy on the global
stage.

Regulating and Resisting Neoliberalism

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that people do want government to deal with their problems—
especially when it comes to issues of health, poverty, old age, disability and education. It is
government intervention there that can give people faith in democracy. But, the neoliberal
state is too engrossed in corporate wellbeing to bother with social wellbeing.
(Minna Salami, 2017).

George Monbiot (2016) deemed neoliberalism as the ideology at the root of

all our problems. As scholars, we must ask ourselves: Is it? Can it be managed?
Based on the results of their experimental work, Zhang and Xin (2019) believe that
in China, marketization worsens social relations when marketization exalts self-
maximization. Establishment and effective enforcement of market rules can curtail
the erosive effects of neoliberalism on human relations. Consistent with this view,
the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers added fuel to the crisis of neoliberalism when
it exposed the greed of powerful financial corporations, as well as the inefficacy
of state control over selfish maximization of the financial giants. The failure of
the state to correct market injustices provides a cause for political activism that
challenges the neoliberal order.
The justice crisis resulting from unchecked neoliberal quest for selfish gains
may have powered political activism in contemporary history, because fighting
to overturn the neoliberal order may confer to the activists a sense of personal
significance, which studies have shown to be a factor that increases the activists’
willingness to self-sacrifice for a meaningful cause in the future (Jasko, Szasto,
Grzymala–Moszczynska, Maj, & Kruglanski, 2019).
18 Bettache and Chiu

Conclusion

We hope the articles in this issue will break social psychologists’ silence on
issues related to neoliberalism, an ideology that has transformed and will continue
to transform our society, science and its applications, as well as people’s lives. The
authors in the issue have presented credible arguments and evidence for utility and
feasibility of a social psychology of neoliberalism, which could help to offer an
answer to the field’s existential question: What is social about social psychology?
Minna Salami (2017) has the following vision of what a postneoliberal world
would be like:
All this points to the need for a radically different system of governance. We need something
that both retains the assistance that we once relied on the state for—such as the preservation
of social and health services, the environment, cultural works and shared ideals, such
as democracy, freedom of expression and equality—and transforms human psychology;
shaking up the status quo by acknowledging our dependence on one another, while also
expanding consciousness by encouraging individual enlightenment.

In closing, we wish to leave the readers with these questions: What is the
prospect of having a postneoliberal social psychology? What will such a social
psychology be like? What can social psychology contribute to this postneoliberal
utopia?

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KARIM BETTACHE is a lecturer of Psychology at Monash University. His re-

search interests strongly focus on social and political psychological constructs
that may drive the marginalization of human groups (e.g., discrimination, conser-
vatism, or right-wing extremism). He is a fierce proponent of scientific activism
where scholars show courage and move beyond neutrality when it concerns psy-
chological phenomena that are harmful to disadvantaged groups.

CHI-YUE CHIU is Dean of Social Science and Choh-Ming Li Professor of Psy-

chology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests are in the
social psychology of culture, globalization, communication, and human compe-
tencies.
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