By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Sponsored by the Ashland Public Library, the Needham Free Public Library (NFPL) shared an online Q&A event with author Gail Sahar. This is Sahar’s second appearance through the NFPL as she discussed different aspects of her most recent book, “Blame and Political Attitudes: The Psychology of America’s Culture War.”
While her first appearance was more a detailed explanation of her book, this event allowed audience members to ask any questions they had about aspects of her book and what is going on within the world today. Those in attendance certainly did not disappoint with their questions, all of which Sahar had great input and answers for.
Sahar is currently a Jane Oxford Keiter Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College and has been teaching social and political psychology while also researching attitudes toward controversial social issues for over twenty five years now. Due to her current teaching status, she was able to relate a lot of her book towards what she teaches within her classes.
According to the NFPL website, Shahar’s “research focuses on how a person’s worldview or political ideology is linked to their perceptions of the causes of social problems and how those perceptions influence blame, emotions, and opinions. She has investigated public attitudes toward numerous issues such as poverty, abortion, and terrorism. Her work offers hope to those working for political change as it suggests ways to influence the attitudes of others by focusing less on political ideology and more on perceptions of the causes of social problems.”
Perhaps the most important point that Sahar made throughout this Q&A is that, no matter what problems are going on in our current world, there is hope for a better future. In terms of recent peaceful protests, she specifically stated, “I do find those types of things encouraging, sort of a power to the people's moment. It is a time where you can say individuals really can do things when they ban together and I wish we could do more like that. Not just around unions but just in general, having people paying attention. I think even, as horrible as these events were, even the police killings and seeing the number of diverse groups who came out to protest, for example, whether you agree with the protesting or not and the outcome of them, I think most people think that the peaceful protesting was fine. At the very least it meant people were engaged and I do find that pretty encouraging and hopeful.”
Not everyone is going to see everything the same, but just because people are different doesn't mean that they are a threat. By doing this type of research, writing her book and teaching her classes, Sahar is trying to spread this type of knowledge to anyone who is willing to listen.
As for what is next for Sahar, she believes she will take a break from books for now and focus more on articles and different projects with her students.
The NFPL is always sharing great author events like these. For more information about upcoming events like this one, please visit their website at www.needhamlibrary.org.
