Social Problems: Cognition and Behavior

Introduction: social problems, human cognition, and behaviour

• Societal problems often stem from behavior or human cognitions.
• Integration issues can arise from intergroup conflicts and the tendency to favor one's own group.
• Traffic accidents are largely caused by unsafe driving habits and overconfidence in one's driving abilities.
• Health issues are linked to unhealthy eating and a perceived lack of appetite control.
• Environmental problems result from high consumption and prioritizing personal interests.
• Addressing these problems requires changes in attitudes, values, norms, behavior, and lifestyles.
• Social psychologists use theories, methods, and interventions to address these problems.
• Social psychology studies human behavior and thought in social situations, including motivations, cognitions, and emotions.
• This includes behavior and thoughts related to helping, attraction, conflict, prejudice, self-esteem, group processes, and social exclusion.
• Social psychologists encourage behavior changes to resolve social problems, highlighting the utility of applied social psychological studies.
• Effective solutions require understanding which behavior is causing the problem.
• Applied scientists should focus on behaviors that significantly contribute to a social problem and where interventions can have the most impact.

Social Problem: Traffic Accidents with Moped Riders (Province of Drenthe, Netherlands)

• Traffic accidents are strongly related to speeding
• Understanding factors influencing behavior is crucial for effective behavior-change programs.
• Interventions should focus on changing attitudes and social norms related to speeding.
• This can be achieved through information campaigns that emphasize the risks or highlight disapproval from important figures.
• Applied social psychologists evaluate interventions to determine if they change behavior, determinants, and resolve social problems.
• Evaluation studies test social psychological theories in real-life settings and improve intervention programs.
• Moped riders were shown to be twenty-two times more likely to be involved in traffic accidents than average road users.
• Moped riders were also shown to be forty times more likely than average car users.
• Accident involvement was related to traffic violations, not errors or lapses.
• Efforts focused on speeding because moped riders frequently disregard speed limits and are often fined.
• The study, guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), examined how attitudes toward speeding, social norms, and perceived behavioral control related to speeding.
• Moped riders with positive attitudes and strong social norms favoring speeding were more likely to violate speed limits.
• Behavior control was not significantly related to speeding in this study.
• Traffic safety programs should change attitudes and social norms towards speeding by emphasizing the risks.
• The team recommended presenting examples of youngsters who disapprove of speeding to weaken social norms favoring it, and noted that risks alone do not outweigh the advantages of speeding

Definition of applied social psychology

• Applied scientists should focus on social problems where they can have the most impact.
• Applied social psychology contributes to understanding and managing various social problems.
• It gives an overview of social psychological theories, intervention techniques and research designs that can be applied to better understand and manage social problems
• Applied social psychology systematically uses social psychological constructs, principles, theories, intervention techniques, research methods, and research findings. It is used to understand or improve social problems

Constructs, Principles, and Theories

• Constructs are the building blocks of psychological principles and theories, like attitudes, values, or injunctive norms.
• A principle is a statement of how a psychological process works.
• Examples include the foot-in-the-door technique, cognitive dissonance, and the availability heuristic.
• A theory integrates principles, providing explanations and predictions.
• The Theory of Planned Behavior is an example.
• Theories are not facts or laws and their testability should be tested in practice

Basic vs Applied Social Psychology

• Basic social psychologists develop and test theories, while applied social psychologists focus on practical problems.
• Basic social psychologists may study phenomena out of curiosity, while applied social psychologists aim to solve social problems and improve quality of life.
• Basic social psychologists use a deductive approach, starting with a theory to understand behavior.
• Applied social psychologists use an inductive approach, starting with a social problem to determine theory
• The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been applied to consuming a low-fat diet, drug & alcohol use, smoking, safe sex, recycling, travel mode choice, and driving violations
• A social comparison perspective notes people may be absent from work because they think that they do so less often than others, or because they feel that they are treated worse than their colleagues
• Reciprocity states that people are absent from work more frequently when they feel they invest more in their work than they obtain in return. This could be attributed to negligible contribution to the organizational goals.
• Many scientists and studies combine both basic and applied approaches.
• Combining basic and applied work is valuable, and studies may be both theory and problem-oriented.
• Applied studies may lead to major theoretical breakthroughs
• Basic studies can be conducted in applied settings and contribute to the insight into and management of a social problem
• Research by Shelley Taylor on social comparison among women coping by using the strategies to cope with their disease
• This research was undertaken in order to examine the psychological aspects of the strategies these women were using in coping with their disease.
• Breakthroughs from basic research include various experimental studies demonstrated that losses loom larger than gains
• This is called loss aversion, as people dislike losses more than they like gains of the same size.

Correspondence between basic and applied social psychology

• Both fields develop and test theories, use scientific methods, share the goals of science, and consider factors predicting cognitions and behavior.
• Kurt Lewin: “There is nothing so practical as a good theory."
• Theories aid in understanding, provide frameworks, structure situations, identify critical factors, guide research and interventions, and help interpret results.

Differences in the Approach Taken

• Applied research may necessitate adjustment of theories or the development of new ones.
• People tend to discount consequences that occur in the long term.
• Applied studies on environmental risk perception revealed that environmental risks are not always discounted.
• Science relies on scientific methods and is guided by core values like accuracy, objectivity, skepticism, and open-mindedness.
• Accuracy involves gathering and evaluating accurate information, while objectivity minimizes bias.
• Scepticism involves accepting findings as accurate only to the extent that they have been verified over and over again by the data
• Open-mindedness involves accepting evidence as valid. Basic and applied researchers adhere to these values to maintain validity.
• Psychologists follow ethical guidelines, including respect for rights and dignity, compliance with law, concern for welfare, avoidance of harm, and integrity.
• Important ethical precepts include avoiding deception (unless justified), obtaining informed consent, respecting privacy, and debriefing participants.
• Researchers motivated by description, prediction, causality, and explanation
• Applied social psychologists focus on behavior and cognitions, considering individual, social, situational, cultural, and biological factors.
• Actions are shaped by different factors as social psychologists understand factors and the conditions that affect behavior

Social Influence

• Opinions and actions are often shaped by the opinions and actions of others
• People may behave differently when others are waiting for a traffic light
• People wear specific clothing because role models wear such clothing
• Appearance of others affects interaction and evaluation
• Female motorists in distress receive more help than male motorists
• Behavior is strongly affected by social situation
• Obedience is an example of the role of social influences on behavior
• Studies reveal most normal people complied with shock experiment
• Judgements are often swayed by inaccurate feedback

The Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 2007)

• Demonstrated a classic demonstration of power of social situations
• 24 male college students volunteered where half were assigned to guards while rest were assigned to prisoners
• Guards weren't told to be specific but had to maintain law and order in the prison with own set of rules.
• Dramatically changed later on for guards who became brutal sadists, those played role of prisoners transformed into abject, frightened, and submissive men
• Study indicates personal identities, long cherished values can be distorted by participants internalized situated identities of guards/prisoners
• Many can be made to do almost anything by the strength of the situation that they are put in
• parallels between this experiment and real-life situations, such as the incidents in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where Iraqi prisoners were seriously abused by US guards in 2003 and 2004

Other Facets that Affect Situations as well as Behavior

• Situational factors reflect the contextual factors that can affect one's behavior, feelings, and thoughts
• Amount of recycling bin affects participate or not
• Higher temperature causes irritableness and aggressiveness
• environmental stressors such as noise, crowding etc make us less helpful.

How location can affect behavior

• City dwellers are less friendly when many people are around
• They pretended to be in need of help and observed whether they received help from city dwellers
• Received twice as much help from residents of cities like Rio de Janeiro and Madrid compared with residents of Bangkok, Singapore, New York, and Amsterdam.
• People in sparsely populated cities appeared to be more helpful than those in densely populated cities
• This is because residents of densely populated cities cope with the many people around them by keeping others at a distance and by ignoring incidents happening in the street. Thus, crowding can make people unfriendly.

Other Factors Affecting Behavior

• Cultural factors refer to cultural values or norms that affect cognitions , feelings, and behaviors
• Norms may relate to social rules that concern behavior in specific situations like smoking or at bars
• Ideals of female beauty have shifted from curvy figures to stick thin
• Biological factors pertain to the effect of biological processes and genetic factors on our behaviour, feelings, and thoughts.
• Preference for urban landscapes are caused from humans having to survive natural landscapes for thousands of years
• Mating preferences have been related to reproduction capacity, that is, we find people more attractive if they have symmetrical facial structures .
• small waist-to-hip ratio are believed to be more attractive than those having a large waist-to-hip ratio.

Qualities of applied social psychology

• A need to solve social issues with a drive to address social problems and, because of this, a tendency to follow an inductive approach
• Applied psychologists are particularly trying to contribute towards solving social problems
• Applied social psychology is not value free
• Researchers apply scientific values of value free to have objective and empirical data in order to use a variety of interventions and theories
• A meta analysis is performed to take consideration various factors to solve when trying to understand problems
• When behavior is anonymous it is likely less influential
• A meta analysis is important to evaluate multiple research designs
• Interdisciplinary research with multiple disciplines to gain information on other scientific disciplines is critical
• It is critical to be aware of other research to consider knowledge from a wide range of other disciplines
• Different disciplines use simple concepts to describe different phenomena, or different concepts for similar phenomena

Field, Theoretical and Social

• Applied social psychologists conduct research in field settings
• Less inclined to conduct true experiments, and are more apt to use quasi-experimental or correlational designs
• They conduct true experiments at all to yield results with high practical value
• Applied social psychology aims to understand and solve social problems of different kinds and to increase quality of life
• Social problems may be reduced by changing people's attitudes, norms, values, perceptions, behaviors, and lifestyles.
• Social utility may be needed, to solve a problem and scientists could reduce thermostat settings
• mass media campaigns are generally far less costly than individualized information
• This proves that scientists are developing quantitative estimates about costs
• Finding effects are needed to guarantee practical significance as statistically significant

Roles of applied social psychologists

• May want to focus on social problems of different kinds or increase quality of life
• Reduce them by changing people's attitudes, norms, values, perceptions, behaviors, and lifestyles.
• Consider type of behavior most problematic which factors are influential to solve problems
• Three major roles for applied social psychologists: researcher, consultant, and policy advisor

Overview of Book

• Part 1: Basic issues in applied social psychology
• Part 2: Discusses relevant social psychological concepts, principles, and theories. and intervention techniques that aim to improve social problems via behavioral change
• Chapter 4 provides an overview of research designs
• Demonstrating how social psychologists can help to understand and manage various social and practical problems
• To understand and solve social problems in various areas of application, specific theories and intervention techniques will be introduced
• Discussion would be on consumer behavior (Chapter 5); developing countries (Chapter 6), economic behavior (Chapter 7), education, sports and traffic behavior (Chapter 17)
• (Chapter 8); environment (Chapter 9); physical health (Chapter 10); issues of integration and immigration (Chapter 11); mental health (Chapter 12); law and criminality (Chapter 13); organizational issues (Chapter 14); political behavior (Chapter 15); sports (Chapter 16); and traffic behavior (Chapter 17)

Concluding Point to Keep In Mind

• Social science can solve for the main difference the two is that basic social psychologists are particularly interested in developing and testing theories and typically follow aDeductive Approach
• Applied social Psychologists understand practical solutions generally following An inductive approach
• Describe 3 main roles of psychologists
• Researcher to examine to study cause to help improve the issue
• Consultant: To serve as the point of understanding problems
• Policy: Provide the influence into a structure's dynamic
• In this chapter, theories of how to apply scientific approaches
• Theory that they use: To create new perspectives that provide more efficient solution
• Different techniques to explain different phenomena or not and not for smaller applications as the analysis
• The ability to implement research can better identify new challenges and research

The Use of Theory in Applied Social Psychology

• Jessica works to lower road congestion/ increase the use of public transport
• Theories useful in 3 ways. EXPLAIN human behavior, guide the physicians with symptom analysis, guide EVALUATION Academic research in Universities
• 3 Basic function to use theory in the situation
• To be useful are 3 qualities
• To Understand with insight regarding problems
• Evaluate are the steps involved in take to solve it

Theory

• Theory is not facts but ideas to demonstrate observe sense. Can be wrong or not to understand more to get from them
• Can use knowledge if necessary for a situation to avoid assumptions that can lead policy into action
• Knowledge -deficit model
• Conserve Energy, smoking and Diabetes are examples of it to demonstrate its application in society
• Theory and Principle: Can test hypotheses, examine how it may be from empirical views
• Model is integrated with theory and principles connected with some code and consequence
• Consists for everything that must work together in order to properly function
• Theory of driving with rationale as the center of influence. (EX: Cost to drive, how they feel etc)

Theory and Applied Social Pyschology

• To be consistent with theory: cognition and practice must coalign (driving is not better if you change attitudes), thoughts should match actions, attitude/belief that does not fit in the right circumstances can be a trigger,

Intention and Behavior

• Understand what those things do as the best predictor for human, as each component is not intended but have 3 different construct to show: (Attitude, subjective norm, per action control.)
• What influence one to follow on his decision to create a direct request when complying, can be from reducing, maintaining, improving their value of self

Different ways of solving problems in groups

• Theories Of Obedience: Focuses on legitimacy of the situation (EX: Being in a community that respects law etc) -Model offers help of influence and support between others (Advertising, etc) while the main center is to have both parties win
• ELM revolves around the 2 routines: (processing/peripheral).
• Persuasion can occur but is temporary and weak, the best to process would be what it may be worth etc,

Social Psychological Theories

• Can greatly reduce the likelihood of HIV as people get educated more, having social-psychological beliefs and theories
• Have clear ways for how influence, individual responses and foundations improve interventions
• How is one will have prejudice in terms the 3 levels in summary while they connect stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, while there has also been work on the response of the stigmatized individual.
• Identity maintenance believes that if one is part of something it gives them good intention for worth and pride in one's group

Conclusion, Contact Theory and Social Theories

• Suggests that if what the individuals are thinking and doing can be well with intention in super ordinary
• What is necessary for interaction with no competition as positive intentions or just good
• Pluralistic and diffusion of responsibility are some components that are for the situation

Action that can be Taken to Solve Socials Issues or Problem

• Look to your peer for guidance for their help to improve with others success as feedback
• Important is when, whom , why to start solving it in order to avoid assumptions
• To be familiar with what might improve a the goal then how do people take that in mind and be familiar with others actions -A journey for to learn well to apply that to the system
• Look to you peer before them to help the process and learn the proper help -What if they may start with new techniques that all might agree with , while having support during the dynamic.