Community Psychology Overview

Genetic Predisposition

• Brindal 2021 COVID Study: Examined life satisfaction before, during, and after the COVID pandemic.
• Dispositional factors (individual characteristics) influenced how people perceived their life satisfaction.
• Limitation: Study relied on self-reported, subjective, and retrospective data.

Community Psychology

• Considers environmental factors and political systems' impact on behavior.
• Rejects individualism and first-order change (addressing individual problems).
• Accepts collectivism: focuses on societal issues and second-order change (transforming systems).
• Examines societal, media, and environmental elements that influence individual lives.

Second-Order Change

• Empowers communities to address their problems.
• Emphasizes preventative measures.

Kelly (2019)

• Studied social enterprises in Scotland.

History of Social Psychology

• Aristotle: Society shapes human development.
• Comte: Individuals are both products and producers of their social environment.

1879: Wilhelm Wundt

• Founded the first psychology laboratory.
• Separated psychology from philosophy and biology.

1898: Norman Triplett

• Pioneered social psychology.
• Published the first social psychology paper.
• Developed the Social Facilitation Theory.

John Dewey

• Advocated for collectivist efforts to shape society for the benefit of all.

1908: McDougal

• Published the first social psychology textbook.

Ross

• Published a social psychology textbook.

1920-1930: Floyd Allport

• Considered the father of social psychology and experimental psychology.
• Focused on individual dispositions rather than society.
• Studied community ties during the Great Depression, identifying them as protective factors.

Indigenous Australians

• Facts: Comprise 3.3% of the Australian population.
• Facts: Average age is 22.
• Facts: 35% live in cities, 20% in regional areas, 22% in outer regional areas, 22% in remote areas.
• Facts: 260 distinct languages existed at the time of colonization.

Indigenous Australians Cosmology

• Views the world, waters, earth, flora, fauna, and other people as spiritually interconnected.
• Semin-nomadic: Movement between traditional lands.
• Social, religious, spiritual activities: Focus on belonging to their country.
• Kinship and language groups: Each person has a spiritual connection for well-being.
• Defined relationships: Each person has a predetermined relationship with others, dictating behaviors, responsibilities, expectations, and obligations.

Colonization

• Destroyed Indigenous culture.
• Government control from 1883-1967.
• Granted citizenship in 1967.

The Self

• Self-awareness: The act of thinking about oneself.
• Self-awareness: Includes introspection.
• Self-concept: Our knowledge about who we are.
• Self-concept: Our sense of self.
• Self-concept: Includes elements such as gender, location, occupation, personality, likes/dislikes, physical attributes, nationality/ethnicity, relationships, religion, hobbies, and interests.

Chronicity of the Self

• Defining ourselves in ways that distinguish us from others, often focusing on differences.

Two Types of Self-Construal

• Describes how we define and make meaning of ourselves in relation to others.
• Salient: Describing ourselves in specific contexts.
• Chronic: Describing ourselves consistently across contexts.

Independent Self-Construal

• Defines the self through stable personality traits.
• Values independence and uniqueness.
• Compares the self to others.
• Examples: "I am smart," "I like psychology," "I am a good person," "I am conscientious."

Interdependent Self-Construal

• Defines the self in relation to others and group membership.
• Values harmony with those close.
• Examples: "I am a Geelong Cats Supporter," "I am Australian," "I am a student at ACAP."

Two Types of Interdependent Self-Construal

• Relational Interdependence: Includes close relationships with other people.
• Relational Interdependence: Common in women and Western societies.
• Relational Interdependence: Examples: "I am a daughter," "I am an aunt," "I am a best friend."
• Collective Interdependence: Incorporates membership of a large group.
• Collective Interdependence: Common in men, especially in non-western societies.
• Collective Interdependence: Examples: "I am a member of the footy group," "I am a student at ACAP," "I am an Australian."

Singelis (1994) Self-Construal Theory Study

• Conducted at the University of Hawaii.
• Employed the Self-Construal Scale.
• Results supported the theory.

Han & Humphreys (2016) Self-Construal Study

• Examined the use of self-construal in interpersonal relationships.
• Found that individuals with interdependent self-construals displayed higher levels of emotional empathy.

Hamilton & Biehal (2005) Self-Construal Study

• Investigated the role of self-construal in advertising.
• Found a positive association between independent self-construal and responses to individualistic advertising.

Mandel (2003) Self-Construal Study

• Primed participants for independence or interdependence by reading the Sumerian Warrior Story.
• Task: Participants chose between risky or safe options in financial and social scenarios.
• Interdependent Participants: Took more financial risks because they felt they had family support. Exhibited less risk-taking in social situations, potentially due to a fear of social consequences.
• Independent Participants: Took fewer financial risks, as they relied less on familial support. Displayed more social risk-taking, possibly because they lacked a fear of social consequences.

The Self-Concept of Indigenous Australians

• Holistically defines Aboriginal health and well-being, encompassing the community as a whole.
• Definition: Includes the self, kin, family, community, traditional lands, ancestors, and spiritual existence.

Song et al. (2019)

• Research focused on Culture, Motivation, and Comparisons with Facebook Fatigue.

Johnson (2012)

• Examined how people respond to upward social comparisons (comparing themselves to people who are more successful).
• Threats to Self-Esteem: Feelings of inadequacy can arise when comparing oneself to someone more successful.
• Positive Responses: If individuals believe they can improve themselves:
  • They may perform at a higher level.
  • They may engage in self-improvement behaviors.
• Negative Responses: If individuals believe they cannot improve:
  • They may attempt to harm the more successful individual.
  • Examples of harmful behaviors:
    • Interfering with their performance.
    • Forming alliances against them.
    • Speaking poorly about them.
    • Withholding information.
    • Creating negative rumors.
    • Increasing social loafing (reduced effort in group activities).

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

• Comparing yourself to a friend: The threat to one's self-esteem depends on how much they care about the comparison.
• Reducing the threat: If someone cares about a comparison, they can reduce the threat by:
  • Dissolving the friendship.
  • Devaluing the relevant skill or activity.
  • Sabotaging their friend to prevent them from succeeding.

Tesser & Smith (1980)

• Experiment: Brought friends to the experiment.
• Results: People under threat from outperformance in areas they care about will often sabotage their friends.
• Results: It is deemed worse to be outperformed by a friend than a stranger.

Nicholls and Stukas (2011)

• Narcissistic Personality and Competitiveness: Highly narcissistic people are more likely to distance themselves from friends who outperform them.
• Narcissistic Personality: Narcissists prefer friends who they can easily beat.

Attitudes

• Components: CAB (Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral)
• Cognitive: Thoughts and beliefs about a target.
• Affective: Emotions, feelings, and reactions towards a target.
• Behavioral: Actions or tendencies towards the target.
• Implicit Attitudes: We often say we are aware of our own implicit attitudes.

Schemas

• Mental representations of the things we encounter in our everyday lives.
• A mental blueprint or script for how to expect something to be or behave.
• Reduces cognitive load and saves time by providing a framework for understanding and reacting to situations.
• Allows us to go beyond the information provided and make inferences.
• Example: Knowing that fast-food restaurants require customers to line up is a schema based on past experiences at fast-food restaurants.

Heuristics

• Mental shortcuts for decision-making and judgments.
• Provide quicker solutions but may lead to errors.
• Rules of thumb for forming attitudes quickly.

Types of Heuristics

• Representative Heuristics: Judges whether an example belongs to a certain group based on how similar it is to the mental representation of that group.
• Representative Heuristics: Relies on similarity, ignoring base rate statistics.
• Representative Heuristics: Example: Classifying a chihuahua as a dog because it resembles other dog breeds.
• Availability Heuristics: Estimates the likelihood of an event based on how easily it comes to mind.
• Availability Heuristics: The more accessible an event, the more common it is assumed to be.
• Availability Heuristics: Example: Overestimating the frequency of a certain news event because it is frequently reported.

Schwarz et al. (1991) Heuristic Study

• Participants: German female students.
• Task: Recall words.
• Conditions: Recalling 6 or 12 examples of a word.
• Results: The easier it is to recall information, the more likely it is believed to be true.

Illusory Correlations in Heuristics

• The belief that two variables are associated, when in reality, no association exists.
• Example: Thinking strange behavior is more common during full moons, despite no actual link between full moons and behavior.

Two Types of Thinking

• System 1 Thinking: Fast, automatic, intuitive, and emotionally charged.
• System 2 Thinking: Slow, deliberate, analytical, and requires effort.

Test your knowledge on key concepts in Community Psychology, including its approaches to behavior and significant contributions to Social Psychology. This quiz covers historical figures, studies, and societal impacts related to Indigenous Australians and self-construals.