Social psychology as it is today with broadening it field by the research work on touching various aspects of life, viz. population psychology, health psychology, environmental psychology, legal system and psychology. It can be used to understand personal health problems as well problems our earth is facing. Social psychology has adopted multicultural perspective to understand behaviour with respect to the cultural and social context. Dissonance and attribution theory have created the most voluminous body of experimental work. During the late 1960, it was pointed out that the mainstream social psychology had emphasised predominantly individual cognitive processes and had neglected the social context and that it had relied too exclusively on experiments in laboratory settings. Modern Social psychology has notable features such as that it has broadened its repertoire of methods. It has become much more relevant to the understanding of everyday life with research works focused on its application in various areas.
The social phenomena are explained with respect to different social and cultural settings. The cognitive approach to the explanations which was more or less sidelined by experimental and behavioural approach is again gaining significance. New trends such as socio-biology and evolutionary social psychology have broadened the realm of theoretical tools of social psychology. Practical demands have always far surpassed the theoretical knowledge is social psychology. The 1970 and 1980 were marked by growing concerns with the application of social knowledge. “Applied social psychology is the utilisation of social psychological principles and research methods in real word settings in an effort to solve a variety of individual and societal problems” (Weyant 1986).
Various applications of social psychology I. Population Psychology: Population psychology concentrates on the effects of the rapid expansion of the number of humans on this planet and on efforts to control this expansion. How is it that the number of human beings has grown in this fashion? Sagan (1989) explains the mathematical phenomenon in terms of the ‘Secret of the Persian.’ In addition to this indirect effect the body’s immune system functions less well when stress is high. This finding of a direct link between psychological responses and the body’s defense against disease has led to the development of the field of psychoneuro-immunology. This interdisciplinary approach studies stress, emotional and behavioural reactions, and the immune system simultaneously. Zimmerman (1990) suggests that the term ‘learned hopefulness (as contrasted with learned helplessness) be applied to individuals who know how to solve problems and who feel a sense of control.
Several other personality variables have been studied which predict the possibility to develop or not develop sickness, for example neurotic individuals react more negatively to stress than those who are not neurotic and are also more likely to become ill as a result. Health is also affected by the kind of goals for which we strive. People also differ in their characteristic feelings of pessimism and optimism. Those with a pessimistic outlook view events uncontrollable. Type A behaviour pattern (competitiveness, anger, an urgency about time and a workaholic lifestyle) as a personality variable is associated with aggression. Research indicates that people identified as Type A, compared to Type B, have higher blood pressure, produce smallest amounts of HDL good cholesterol and are twice as likely to suffer from heart disease. It appears that the anger component is a critical factor that leads tocoronary problems. Thus, working hard to achieve does not cause heart disease, but failure to achieve elicit a hostile self-schema for the Type A person. This hostility in turn is detrimental to good health.
A familiar concept in health psychology is the importance of social support-physical and psychological comfort from friends and family. The general finding is that people who interact closely with family and friends are better able to avoid illness than those who remain isolated from others, if illness does occur, those who receive social support recover more quickly. It is because there is someone with whom one can talk about unpleasant life events rather than engaging in self-concealment. When an illness does strike, the person has to make a series of critical choices and decisions- noticing and interpreting symptoms, deciding to take action and coping with medical procedures. Thus, research in health psychology focuses on individual lifestyles and their perceptions and attitudes so that it can contribute to the better personal health just by enthusing right kind of thinking.
II. Environmental Psychology: Environmental psychology is the field that deals with interaction between physical world and human behaviour. Among the environmental factors affect behaviours are environmental stress, noise, temperature, air pollution, atmospheric electricity etc. The negative effects of human actions on the environment in include global warming and the ever-mounting problem of waste. Studies designed to consol littering suggest that pro-environmental behaviour can be increased by the use of prompts, rewards and legislations.
III. Industrial Organisational Psychology: It is an application of social psychology which focuses on understanding behaviours in work settings, especially within the field of industries and organisations. Work related attitudes include employees’ evaluation of jobs (job satisfaction) and of their organisations. Research has emphasised the determinants and the consequences of these attitudes.
Work motivation is influenced by cognitive factors, the outcomes of performance, and the perception of inequity. A common problem in organisations is conflict, and psychologists have identified both organisational causes competition over scarce resources, and interpersonal causes such as stereotypes, prejudices, grudges and ineffective communication styles. Organisational conflicts can be reduced or resolved by such techniques as bargaining, superordinate goals and the induction of represses incompatible with anger and conflict.
Various applications of Social psychology are-
Educational psychology:
Educational psychology is devoted to the study of how humans learn in educational settings, especially schools. Psychologists assess the effects of specific educational interventions: e.g., phonics versus whole language instruction in early reading attainment. They also study the question of why learning occurs differently in different situations.[5]
Another domain of educational psychology is the psychology of teaching. In some colleges, educational psychology courses are called “the psychology of learning and teaching”. Educational psychology derives a great deal from basic-science disciplines within psychology including cognitive science and behaviorially-oriented research on learning.
Environmental psychology:
Environmental psychology is the psychological study of humans and their interactions with their environments. The types of environments studied are limitless, ranging from homes, offices, classrooms, factories, nature, and so on. However, across these different environments, there are several common themes of study that emerge within each one. Noise level and ambient temperature are clearly present in all environments and often subjects of discussion for environmental psychologists.[14] Crowding and stressors are a few other aspects of environments studied by this sub-discipline of psychology.[15] When examining a particular environment, environmental psychology looks at the goals and purposes of the people in the using the environment, and tries to determine how well the environment is suiting the needs of the people using it. For example, a quiet environment is necessary for a classroom of students taking a test, but would not be needed or expected on a farm full of animals.[16] The concepts and trends learned through environmental psychology can be used when setting up or rearranging spaces so that the space will best perform its intended function. The top common, more well known areas of psychology that drive this applied field include: cognitive, perception, learning, and social psychology.
Forensic psychology and legal psychology:
Forensic psychology and legal psychology are the area concerned with the application of psychological methods and principles to legal questions and issues. Most typically, forensic psychology involves a clinical analysis of a particular individual and an assessment of some specific psycho-legal question. The psycho-legal question does not have to be criminal in nature. In fact, the forensic psychologist rarely gets involved in the actual criminal investigations.[17] Custody cases are a great example of non-criminal evaluations by forensic psychologists.[18] The validity and upholding of eyewitness testimony is an area of forensic psychology that does veer closer to criminal investigations, though does not directly involve the psychologist in the investigation process. Psychologists are often called to testify as expert witnesses on issues such as the accuracy of memory, the reliability of police interrogation, and the appropriate course of action in child custody cases.[19]
Legal psychology refers to any application of psychological principles, methods or understanding to legal questions or issues. In addition to the applied practices, legal psychology also includes academic or empirical research on topics involving the relationship of law to human mental processes and behavior. However, inherent differences that arise when placing psychology in the legal context.[20] Psychology rarely makes absolute statements. Instead, psychologists traffic in the terms like level of confidence, percentages, and significance. Legal matters, on the other hand, look for absolutes: guilty or not guilty. This makes for a sticky union between psychology and the legal system. Some universities operate dual JD/PhD programs focusing on the intersection of these two areas.[19]
The Committee on Legal Issues of the American Psychological Association is known to file amicus curae briefs, as applications of psychological knowledge to high-profile court cases.[19]
A related field, police psychology, involves consultation with police departments and participation in police training.[19]
Health and medicine:
Health psychology concerns itself with understanding how biology, behavior, and social context influence health and illness.[21] Health psychologists generally work alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings, although many also teach and conduct research. Although its early beginnings can be traced to the kindred field of clinical psychology, four different approaches to health psychology have been defined: clinical, public health, community and critical health psychology.[22]
Health psychologists aim to change health behaviors for the dual purpose of helping people stay healthy and helping patients adhere to disease treatment regimens. The focus of health psychologists tend to center on the health crisis facing the western world particularly in the US. Cognitive behavioral therapy and behavior modification are techniques often employed by health psychologists. Psychologists also study patients’ compliance with their doctors’ orders.[23]
Health psychologists view a person’s mental condition as heavily related to their physical condition.[24] An important concept in this field is stress, a mental phenomenon with well-known consequences for physical health.[23]
Social psychology as it is today with broadening it field by the research work on touching various aspects of life, viz. population psychology, health psychology, environmental psychology, legal system and psychology. It can be used to understand personal health problems as well problems our earth is facing. Social psychology has adopted multicultural perspective to understand behaviour with respect to the cultural and social context. Dissonance and attribution theory have created the most voluminous body of experimental work. During the late 1960, it was pointed out that the mainstream social psychology had emphasised predominantly individual cognitive processes and had neglected the social context and that it had relied too exclusively on experiments in laboratory settings. Modern Social psychology has notable features such as that it has broadened its repertoire of methods. It has become much more relevant to the understanding of everyday life with research works focused on its application in various areas.
The social phenomena are explained with respect to different social and cultural settings. The cognitive approach to the explanations which was more or less sidelined by experimental and behavioural approach is again gaining significance. New trends such as socio-biology and evolutionary social psychology have broadened the realm of theoretical tools of social psychology. Practical demands have always far surpassed the theoretical knowledge is social psychology. The 1970 and 1980 were marked by growing concerns with the application of social knowledge. “Applied social psychology is the utilisation of social psychological principles and research methods in real word settings in an effort to solve a variety of individual and societal problems” (Weyant 1986).
Various applications of social psychology
I. Population Psychology: Population psychology concentrates on the effects of the rapid expansion of the number of humans on this planet and on efforts to control this expansion. How is it that the number of human beings has grown in this fashion? Sagan (1989) explains the mathematical phenomenon in terms of the ‘Secret of the Persian.’ In addition to this indirect effect the body’s immune system functions less well when stress is high. This finding of a direct link between psychological responses and the body’s defense against disease has led to the development of the field of psychoneuro-immunology. This interdisciplinary approach studies stress, emotional and behavioural reactions, and the immune system simultaneously. Zimmerman (1990) suggests that the term ‘learned hopefulness (as contrasted with learned helplessness) be applied to individuals who know how to solve problems and who feel a sense of control.
Several other personality variables have been studied which predict the possibility to develop or not develop sickness, for example neurotic individuals react more negatively to stress than those who are not neurotic and are also more likely to become ill as a result. Health is also affected by the kind of goals for which we strive. People also differ in their characteristic feelings of pessimism and optimism. Those with a pessimistic outlook view events uncontrollable. Type A behaviour pattern (competitiveness, anger, an urgency about time and a workaholic lifestyle) as a personality variable is associated with aggression. Research indicates that people identified as Type A, compared to Type B, have higher blood pressure, produce smallest amounts of HDL good cholesterol and are twice as likely to suffer from heart disease. It appears that the anger component is a critical factor that leads tocoronary problems. Thus, working hard to achieve does not cause heart disease, but failure to achieve elicit a hostile self-schema for the Type A person. This hostility in turn is detrimental to good health.
A familiar concept in health psychology is the importance of social support-physical and psychological comfort from friends and family. The general finding is that people who interact closely with family and friends are better able to avoid illness than those who remain isolated from others, if illness does occur, those who receive social support recover more quickly. It is because there is someone with whom one can talk about unpleasant life events rather than engaging in self-concealment. When an illness does strike, the person has to make a series of critical choices and decisions- noticing and interpreting symptoms, deciding to take action and coping with medical procedures. Thus, research in health psychology focuses on individual lifestyles and their perceptions and attitudes so that it can contribute to the better personal health just by enthusing right kind of thinking.
II. Environmental Psychology: Environmental psychology is the field that deals with interaction between physical world and human behaviour. Among the environmental factors affect behaviours are environmental stress, noise, temperature, air pollution, atmospheric electricity etc. The negative effects of human actions on the environment in include global warming and the ever-mounting problem of waste. Studies designed to consol littering suggest that pro-environmental behaviour can be increased by the use of prompts, rewards and legislations.
III. Industrial Organisational Psychology: It is an application of social psychology which focuses on understanding behaviours in work settings, especially within the field of industries and organisations. Work related attitudes include employees’ evaluation of jobs (job satisfaction) and of their organisations. Research has emphasised the determinants and the consequences of these attitudes.
Work motivation is influenced by cognitive factors, the outcomes of performance, and the perception of inequity. A common problem in organisations is conflict, and psychologists have identified both organisational causes competition over scarce resources, and interpersonal causes such as stereotypes, prejudices, grudges and ineffective communication styles. Organisational conflicts can be reduced or resolved by such techniques as bargaining, superordinate goals and the induction of represses incompatible with anger and conflict.
From MPC-004 Advanced Social Psychology – IGNOU
Various applications of Social psychology are-
Educational psychology:
Educational psychology is devoted to the study of how humans learn in educational settings, especially schools. Psychologists assess the effects of specific educational interventions: e.g., phonics versus whole language instruction in early reading attainment. They also study the question of why learning occurs differently in different situations.[5]
Another domain of educational psychology is the psychology of teaching. In some colleges, educational psychology courses are called “the psychology of learning and teaching”. Educational psychology derives a great deal from basic-science disciplines within psychology including cognitive science and behaviorially-oriented research on learning.
Environmental psychology:
Environmental psychology is the psychological study of humans and their interactions with their environments. The types of environments studied are limitless, ranging from homes, offices, classrooms, factories, nature, and so on. However, across these different environments, there are several common themes of study that emerge within each one. Noise level and ambient temperature are clearly present in all environments and often subjects of discussion for environmental psychologists.[14] Crowding and stressors are a few other aspects of environments studied by this sub-discipline of psychology.[15] When examining a particular environment, environmental psychology looks at the goals and purposes of the people in the using the environment, and tries to determine how well the environment is suiting the needs of the people using it. For example, a quiet environment is necessary for a classroom of students taking a test, but would not be needed or expected on a farm full of animals.[16] The concepts and trends learned through environmental psychology can be used when setting up or rearranging spaces so that the space will best perform its intended function. The top common, more well known areas of psychology that drive this applied field include: cognitive, perception, learning, and social psychology.
Forensic psychology and legal psychology:
Forensic psychology and legal psychology are the area concerned with the application of psychological methods and principles to legal questions and issues. Most typically, forensic psychology involves a clinical analysis of a particular individual and an assessment of some specific psycho-legal question. The psycho-legal question does not have to be criminal in nature. In fact, the forensic psychologist rarely gets involved in the actual criminal investigations.[17] Custody cases are a great example of non-criminal evaluations by forensic psychologists.[18] The validity and upholding of eyewitness testimony is an area of forensic psychology that does veer closer to criminal investigations, though does not directly involve the psychologist in the investigation process. Psychologists are often called to testify as expert witnesses on issues such as the accuracy of memory, the reliability of police interrogation, and the appropriate course of action in child custody cases.[19]
Legal psychology refers to any application of psychological principles, methods or understanding to legal questions or issues. In addition to the applied practices, legal psychology also includes academic or empirical research on topics involving the relationship of law to human mental processes and behavior. However, inherent differences that arise when placing psychology in the legal context.[20] Psychology rarely makes absolute statements. Instead, psychologists traffic in the terms like level of confidence, percentages, and significance. Legal matters, on the other hand, look for absolutes: guilty or not guilty. This makes for a sticky union between psychology and the legal system. Some universities operate dual JD/PhD programs focusing on the intersection of these two areas.[19]
The Committee on Legal Issues of the American Psychological Association is known to file amicus curae briefs, as applications of psychological knowledge to high-profile court cases.[19]
A related field, police psychology, involves consultation with police departments and participation in police training.[19]
Health and medicine:
Health psychology concerns itself with understanding how biology, behavior, and social context influence health and illness.[21] Health psychologists generally work alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings, although many also teach and conduct research. Although its early beginnings can be traced to the kindred field of clinical psychology, four different approaches to health psychology have been defined: clinical, public health, community and critical health psychology.[22]
Health psychologists aim to change health behaviors for the dual purpose of helping people stay healthy and helping patients adhere to disease treatment regimens. The focus of health psychologists tend to center on the health crisis facing the western world particularly in the US. Cognitive behavioral therapy and behavior modification are techniques often employed by health psychologists. Psychologists also study patients’ compliance with their doctors’ orders.[23]
Health psychologists view a person’s mental condition as heavily related to their physical condition.[24] An important concept in this field is stress, a mental phenomenon with well-known consequences for physical health.[23]