APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

I. IN HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY:Health Psychologybranch of psychology that studies the relation between psychological variables and health Research suggests that there is a strong relationship between peoples lifestyles and their health. Stress: Its Causes, Effects, and Control Stressresponse to events that disrupt, or threaten to disrupt, our physical or psychological functioning Major sources of stress Major stressful life events Holmes and Rahe (1967) found that accumulated stress is related to health problems. Recent research discovered that people experiencing chronic stress were more likely to get a cold than those experiencing acute stress. Daily Hassles Scores on the Hassles Scale (Lazarus, et al., 1985) are positively correlated with negative psychological symptoms. Stress effects on the body Direct effectsstress affects physiological functioning Ethnic differences exist: African Americans are more prone to stress-induced heart disease than are European Americans. Indirect effectsstress negatively affects health-related behaviors

Coping with stress Emotion-focused coping Perform behaviors that decrease the negative emotions that result from stress, which may not be an effective long-term strategy Positive reappraisal or positive self-talk tend to be more helpful. Problem-focused coping Perform behaviors that change or remove the sources of stress Seeking social support Utilizing others resources, both emotional and task-related, to cope with stress is a highly beneficial strategy to protect ones health from the damages due to stress. Pets can provide nonjudgmental social support, which makes their owners better able to deal with stress. Seeking social support

People who lack social support face an increased risk of dying from diseases, accidents, and suicide.

Happily married people tend to have higher-functioning immune systems compared to people who are divorced or separated.

Providing social support provides similar (or perhaps greater) health benefits as receiving social support does.

Gender differences in coping styles Women typically use a greater variety of coping mechanisms than men do, including both emotion-focused and problem-focused strategies. Men are more likely to cope by avoiding or withdrawing from their problems compared to women. Differences may be due to gender role differences or due to women perceiving stressors as more serious compared to men.

Personal Characteristics and Health Anger and hostility Type A behavior pattern High levels of hostility in individuals with this personality pattern is positively associated with heart disease. Perfectionism Two patterns exist Personal standards perfectionism and Self-Critical Perfectionismindividuals constantly engage in harsh criticism of their own behavior, an inability to derive satisfaction from successful performance, and chronic concerns about others expectations and criticism Both patterns are harmful to health, but self-critical perfectionism is more damaging.

Socioeconomic status Higher socioeconomic status is related to better health. Due to greater availability of nutritious foods, better living environment, higher-quality health care Also, socioeconomic status is positively correlated with general intelligence, which may result in better knowledge and strategies about how to stay healthy. However, both general intelligence and health knowledge can be increased, regardless of ones socioeconomic status, by altering environmental conditions.

Promoting Healthy Lifestyles Both genetic and environmental factors influence longevity. People whose parents live a long life are more likely to do so Positive self-perceptions of aging and a healthy lifestyle are associated with living longer.

Social-psychological perspective on the increase in obesity (about 65% of U.S. adults are obese) Environmental factors responsible include: Dramatic increase in portion size of food, people walk less than they did, media campaigns, people do not eat sensibly (no more sit-down dinners), overweight people are more accepted

Tactics Eat only low-calorie snack foods Eat only when hungry Avoid temptation Increase walking Drink water instead of soft-drinks Lower stress levels Avoid fad dieting (eat less and exercise more) Stick with it (weight management involves a life-long commitment)

II.

IN ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY:-

Social and Environmental Psychology is concerned both with psychological effects of the physical environment and with effects of human action on the environment.Recently some social

psychological approaches have intensified their contributions to research in the environmental domain, helping it to focus more consistently on the shared aspects of all environment related experiences. Social dilemmas, also known as social traps, reflect a conflict between ones selfinterest and the interest of a larger group. Many environmental problems can be conceptualized as social dilemmas in that acting in self-interest results in a less-than-optimal situation for the greater whole. Not all environmental issues are commons dilemmas. Some are "public goods" dilemmas in which an individual is contributing less than his or her fair share to a resource (e.g., not doing voluntary litter clean up, not making an effort to use public transportation). How the environment influences us There are many ways in which the environment influences us. In order to feel comfortable, you need to be in an environment with a certain temperature, in order to perform optimally, you need a certain amount of light, etc., etc. However, each of us perceives environmental circumstances differently. The way the environment is perceived, is mediated by (social-)psychological factors. One such factor is attitude. For example, people are less annoyed by noise when they have a positive attitude towards the source of the noise. You are not annoyed but the sounds of the drums your are playing, but your neighbour might be. This is several implications. One of them is that it is not enough to reduce the objective levels of exposure to noise psychological factors need to be considered as well if we want to reduce annoyance. The approach to consider human needs and what most people feel comfortable with while building the environments we are surrounded with, has been called social design. A socially designed building can increase the productivity of those working in it and make those living in it or visiting it feel more at ease. How we influence the environment Many environmental problems are caused by or closely linked to human behaviour. Some of these problems are severe and do not only harm the planet we live on but threaten our very own lives. Global warming is an example of such a problem. It is in our best interest to take action that solve these environmental problems. We once again apply our classic approach: Identify the contributory factors and behaviours, understand what these factors and behaviours are caused and influenced by, and, finally, design interventions based on the gathered knowledge (and test

the effectiveness of the interventions!). We will deal with the second step in great detail in the following sections. III. IN LEGAL AFFAIRS:Before the Trial Begins: Effects of Police Interrogation What is the best way to interrogate suspects? Most people prefer an inquisitorial approach versus an adversarial approach Videotaped interrogations should show both the interrogator and the defendant How do interrogators encourage compliance? Conduct formal interrogation in intimidating location Get witness or suspect to experience uncertainty, trust in the officer, and expect that he or she is supposed to know the answer to every question Additional aspects that involve social influence Minimize severity of the crime and the charge Suspect may confess after being given a false sense of security

Present suspects with fake polygraph results and fingerprint data, inaccurate eyewitness identifications, and false information about the confession of a fellow-suspect False evidence and uncertainty about what to do, peoples belief in their own false confessions, and the remembrance of imaginary details about a crime they did not commit increase the likelihood of false confessions.

Effects of Media Coverage on Perceptions of Defendants Tends to assist the prosecution and hurt the defense The negative information people receive leads to a strong tendency to perceive that the suspect is guilty. Typically, more publicity is related to a greater likelihood that the jurors will convict the defendant. Government officials provide the media with much information about the crime and suspects.

Biasing effects of pretrial publicity can be reduced when jurors are given reasons to be suspicious of the motives behind why incriminating evidence might have been given to the media.

The Accuracy of Eyewitnesses Eyewitness Testimonyevidence given by persons who have witnessed a crime plays an important role in many trials Researchers have found that eyewitness testimony is not very reliable. Identify innocent persons as criminals Make errors regarding important aspects of a crime Report remembering events that did not actually occur Suggestibility due to leading questions and source monitoring can lead to memory distortions Other factors that decrease the accuracy of eyewitness testimony Intense emotions Time and intervening information (e.g., misleading post-event information) Memory distortion and memory construction False memories can be created and can influence jurors judgments of guilt or innocence. These memories are created by imagining the event and by confabulating (making up information). Recovering forgotten memories of traumatic events Evidence for the accuracy of these memories is mixed. Some of these memories may have been constructed.

Increasing eyewitness accuracy Conduct cognitive interviews in which eyewitnesses are asked to report everything they can remember and to describe events differently from what they report actually occurred Improve police lineups by using the blank-lineup control in which lineup contains only non-suspects Present pictures of the crime scene and of the victim Display the line-up one person at a time rather than as a group Encourage witnesses to offer first impressions

Effects of Attorneys, Judges, Defendants, and Jurors Attorneys Battle to get desired outcome Voir Dire: attorneys examine potential jurors to determine who will be helpful to them Ask leading questions to elicit specific responses Attorneys remarks when emotionally charged may be impossible to disregard

Mental contamination (judgments, emotions, or behavior are influenced by mental processes that are not under ones control) occurs

Forensic psychologists have contributed to changes in the legal system to increase its fairness.

Defendant and Juror Characteristics Defendants race (ethnicity) African American defendants are at a disadvantage in the legal system. More likely to be convicted of murder and to receive the death penalty than are whites Defendants physical appearance, gender, and socioeconomic status Attractive defendants, female defendants, and those of higher socioeconomic status are less likely to be found guilty of most major crimes Defendants behavior in the courtroom Defendants who smile are more likely to receive leniency. Jurors gender Women are more likely than men are to convict in sexual assault cases Jurors differ in terms of the attitudes and beliefs they hold Some have a leniency bias and others believe in legal authoritarianism Jurors differ in how they process information Some have already arrived at a decision before the trial begins and seek evidence that confirms their initial opinion. Others construct two schemas: one for the guilt and one for the innocence of the defendant. These jurors fit information they hear into the relevant schema and listen to all available evidence.

IV.

IN ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY:-

What people do with or against each other (interaction), how they inform each other (communication), and what they in these moments feel and think, what they would like, could, or ought to do (psychic processes). Special emphasis is given to affiliation/communion and power/agency as the main dimensions of human coordination. These intertwined social and psychic processes are influenced by the social context, i.e. the social, political, and economic structures via the implied positions, role expectations, and identities of the interactants, and these processes, in turn, may somewhat change the social context. Within the scope of organizational psychology, social psychology is applied to organizational issues, such as team work, leadership and participation, innovation, decision making, conflicts, organizational politics, and the use of power as promotive or restrictive control. This, in turn, stimulates new social psychological questions and hypotheses. Social psychology deals with social interactions between individuals and groups. As individuals populate, run, and confuse (!) organizations, analyzing individual behavior and interpersonal interactions is critical for understanding organizational effectiveness and success, as well as individual satisfaction and well-being. V. IN PEACE AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT:-

Although international conflict and conflict resolution are societal and intersocietal processes, which cannot be reduced to the level of individual behavior, there are processes central to conflict resolution - such as empathy or taking the perspective of the other . . . and creative problem solving-that . . . take place at the level of individuals and interactions between individuals. Add to this the unique contribution that social psychology can make by specifying the situational processes that mediate between the macro-structural and micro-individual levels of analysis. Other social sciences consider situations, but only social psychology focuses on situational mediation systematically. In doing so, the discipline provides both distinctive variables and distinctive explanations that usually involve subjective interpretations of the

social environment. This situational and subjective perspective is the discipline's unique contribution and forms the core of its potential applications. The universality hypothesis predicts that social psychological processes operate in similar ways across nations and target groups although the macrocontexts vary widely. The mediation hypothesis holds that key social psychological predictors serve as critical mediators of the effects of social factors on dependent variables at the micro level of individuals. Given vastly different distal social factors, the same social psychological processes can lead to distinctly different outcomes in different settings. Social psychologists have long been interested inthe role of social contact and communication in theresolution of conict. Research has shown that theseprocedures help to alleviate mild conict but may beworse than useless in severe conict, allowing argu-ments and ghts to develop (Deutsch 1973). Sherif (1966) found that a better way to reverse escalation in his camps was to get the boys to cooperate on superordinate (i.e., shared) goals. The value of thistechnique has been conrmed in other settings.Zartman (1997), an international relations scholarwho takes a psychological approach, has argued thatsevere conict is most likely to be resolved when bothsides become motivated to escape the conict, acondition he calls ripeness . He nds that superordinate goals (mutually enticing opportunities) seldom underlie ripeness in international conict and civilwar. Rather, ripenessisusually produced by a mutually hurting stalemat , in which the parties nd that theyare enduring unacceptable costs in a struggle they cannot win, sometimes augmented by the perceptionof an impending catastrophe if the conict continues.

REFERENCES:www.deltacollege.edu/div/socsci/faculty/.../Baron_ModuleALH.ppt http://www.scribd.com/doc/12493808/Conflict-and-Conflict-Resolution-Social-Psychology-of# http://www.psychology.hu-berlin.de/profship/org