Disclaimer: I didn’t actually watch the wedding, and this post isn’t on the wedding per-se. But I have seen the plethora of responses to the sermon from the wedding, and this post is in relation to those. It is also psych heavy—although much is Cog.Psych 101—so if you were here for commentary on the sermon, or on wedding dresses, you have come to the wrong place.
In the last few days I think everyone has been bombarded on social media by content about ‘that wedding’ [the Royal wedding if you have been living under a PhD driven rock like me]. However, also interesting has been the responses to the sermon from various segments of my social media feed (if you haven’t been seeing the same responses, well that is unsurprising given the opaque Facebook algorithms). In this post I want to briefly explore two of the main responses to the sermon that I have seen, and from the perspective of Social Identity Theory as I think it highlights something interesting about our interactions.
Before we dive in though, for the sake of the conversation, I am standing on the shoulders of Penny Oakes (along with Alex Haslam and John Turner) on Stereotyping Theory[ref]Oakes, Penelope J., S. Alexander Haslam, and John C. Turner. Stereotyping and Social Reality. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1994.[/ref], as she has built on the work of Tajfel and Turner in the formulation of Social Identity Theory[ref]Tajfel, Henri, and JC Turner. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” Pages 33–47 in Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Edited by WG Austin and S Worchel. Brooks/Cole, 1979.[/ref]. From that basis when I talk about ‘stereotyping’ I am meaning that cognitive process that we all utilise to ascribe ‘characteristics to people on the basis of their group memberships.’ [ref]Oakes et al., 1994, 1[/ref] Now I need to emphasise that this is not intrinsically a negative process, as our modern language uses it. Rather it is just a means of reducing cognitive load by perceiving people as members of social categories in the initial phase. Similarly, I will use the term prototype, which is merely the (often fictive) composite idea of the embodiment of the main characteristics of a social group. These basic definitions will be how i will use stereotype and prototype throughout this post.
Onward therefore to the responses.
The General Response
The first response, to the sermon, I have seen from various friends is one of amazement and shock that such a good sermon could be preached and especially broadcast all over the world. After a bit of digging through various comment sections, I think much of this is to do with a mismatch between Bishop Curry and his sermon, and the cognitive stereotype of Bishops and wedding sermons.
Firstly, a bit on stereotyping and dissonance. We use stereotypes as a means of cognitive minimisation, an effort to know more about an individual or group by ascribing the stereotypical characteristics of that group to the individual. This is done all the time, and we aren’t even conscious of it. In fact, just the other day an elderly lady approached me and started talking to me in an Asian language. This is a stereotypical ascription as she has ascribed the category ‘Asian’ to me on the basis of my racial presentation, and for her that category included language. Unfortunately for her my language repertoire outside of English is solely European, or dead languages, and the blank look on my face must have highlighted that. The response for her was one of sheer dissonance, effectively ‘how do you not know Asian language X, you don’t fit my category of Asian.’ It is this dissonance that draws our attention to things. Such as when Australians are shocked that a footballer graduates with a law degree, as most Australian footballers (of any code) have no tertiary education [real conversation].
In the case of the wedding sermon it is a dissonance between the stereotype of Bishops and sermons, and what Bishop Curry actually delivered.
Simply put, what people were expecting was:
But what they got was this:
Needless to say this causes significant dissonance, much of which was writ large on the faces of several members of the royal family during the wedding. But it is also the same dissonance which has caused such significant engagement with the sermon and Curry. Because this dissonance forces a refactoring of the stereotypes at hand and reassessing where Curry fits. Much of this refactoring comes in the form of comparison with other social-category prototypes that might suit as a representative of a new stereotype for the individual. With this in mind it is completely unsurprising that there have been comparisons drawn with Martin Luther King, who stands as a comparative prototype for the social category that roughly exists as ‘African American preacher.’
Now this is highly simplistic and significantly under-nuanced. But it serves as a basis of the other type of response I want to look at.
The Conservative Evangelical Response
The other type of response I have been seeing is that of conservative evangelicals who have lambasted the sermon as being ‘Gospel-lite,’ and ‘not a real sermon.’ Much of this initial response is in a similar cognitive vein to that of the general response. However, instead of the pre-existing social category being accessed as ‘a bumbling fumbling mumbling old fuddy duddy in a smock’ [a direct quote], there is instead a plethora of prototypes for the social-category ‘good Anglican preacher.’ Notably, one of the prototypical characteristics for the social-category involves ‘preaching the gospel.’ Now this is where the stereotype comparison resonates strongly, as many features of Bishop Curry and his sermon cohere with the social-category stereotype for ‘good Anglican preacher.’ But due to the meta-contrast ratio between ‘good Anglican preacher’ and Bishop Curry, the dissonances stand out strongly against the background consonance.
Here the primary dissonance revolves around that prototypical characteristic ‘preaching the gospel’ and hence the plethora of articles on how/why/when/where Curry did/did not/should have articulated the gospel. Similarly this exposes a new set of dissonances regarding the content of the gospel, and a similar process ensues…
Take Home Lessons
So what are the take home lessons from this flurry of social media activity? Well the primary thing is that dissonance between stereotypes and reality cause interest, and the greater the dissonance between the types, the greater the interest. Furthermore, this is also the case when the dissonance occurs within a stereotype, not just outside of the stereotype. For social-identity people, both internal and external stereotype comparisons are examples of the meta-contrast ratio at work.
In the end we should not be surprised when these sort of things attract strong interest and debate, it is breaking the stereotypical norms that we have set up, and things that break stereotypical norms are of great interest to us as social individuals, as we attempt to make sense of the world.
