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.
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