Applied Social Psychology

The term 'applied social psychology' is used to denote a methodical utilization of socio-psychological models, study approaches and outcomes, concepts, ideologies, and intervention approaches for comprehending or ameliorating social issues. Psychologists belonging to this subfield concentrate on comprehending and solving practical issues and coming up with intervention approaches to enhance individual, organizational and societal response to social issues. While this domain's chief concern is the generic tackling of practical and social issues revolving around the environment, education, and so forth, social psychology may also help enrich people's lives (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Social psychological theories offer prescriptions to solve practical and social challenges. This paper is presented as a review of literature on social psychological theories and their generic role in resolving practical and social problems.

A key applied social psychological theory is Cognitive Dissonance, whose main premise is that an individual is driven to remain consistent in his/her cognitions or perceptions as any dissension in this regard may give rise to psychological discomfort (Brehm, 2007). The term 'dissonance' involves aversion or discomfort; individuals can alleviate such distress by altering their cognitions. What is its effect on family dynamics, familial issues and teen problems? In what way is dissonance theory possibly applicable to such situations? The mid-teenage is a phase characterized by a drastic rise in alcohol consumption behaviors. As premature drinking onset has been associated with social and health issues like participation in risky sexual activities, underage drinking has been often regarded by the society, especially teens' parents, as signs of problematic conduct. Research reveals parental reduction of support and control as a reaction to teen drinking. The rationale behind this reaction is, however, yet to be ascertained. Glatz, Kerr and Stattin (2012) utilized the theory of cognitive dissonance for hypothesizing on parental responses. They posited that parents of teen drinkers suffered from cognitive dissonance. For decreasing related distress, these parents would alter their own perceptions of drinking and adopt more liberal views instead of attempting to correct their children. A school-based longitudinal study sample was utilized for hypothesis testing. It was discovered that parents of teen drinkers eventually showed less opposition to adolescent drinking. Further, parents who didn't change their perceptions (i.e., those who continued to vehemently oppose teen drinking) suffered from more anxiety as compared to parents who eventually adopted more liberal views. These outcomes indicate that for getting rid of the conflict between awareness of their child engaging in drinking and their non-tolerance with regard to adolescent drinking, parents would alter their perceptions and adopt more liberal views. The above finding is significant as an intervention suggests that parental perceptions of teen drinking contribute greatly to decreasing teenage drinking. This information may aid in improving interventions for reinforcing strict parental attitudes against drinking (Glatz, Stattin& Kerry, 2012).

Bandura's social learning construct proposed in 1977 is a second fundamental social psychological model grounded in the belief that individuals learn from social interactions. Independently, an observation of other individuals'conduct helps one cultivate and exhibit similar conduct. From the standpoint of applied social psychology, this theory explains potential techniques to reduce worry and apprehension in the course of clinical procedures. Pain, after all, represents a social aspect and inadequately handled procedural pain has long as well as short-term adverse impacts on kids. Blanchette and Page (2009) looked into social learning theory's contribution to developing, expressing and maintaining pediatric-level procedural pain. The theory furthers theoretical insights into the subject of pain, in addition to sound therapeutic mechanisms. From the standpoint of social learning, complex, cognitive behavior therapy may integrate sources affecting self-effectiveness (such as emotional arousal through imagery, videotaped modeling or indirect experience, and behavioral rehearsal or performance achievements, and distraction behavioral training to reduce pediatric-level procedural pain (Page &Blanchette, 2009).

Concepts from applied social psychology may prove valuable in promoting, and educating the society on, health. Furthermore, social psychology positively impacts multiple health promotion goals: e.g., timely disease identification, support and education of patients using models linked to decision making, loss, management, stigmatization, and social comparison. With regard to health education, socio-psychological models may facilitate primary health-issue prevention. Social psychology facilitates identification of psychosocial determinants of health-linked behavior, creation of behavioral modification interventions, and extensive intervention application. For instance, Schaalma and coworkers (1994) tested an AIDS/HIV Prevention initiative whose basis was social influence and social cognitive theories. The goal was: improving students' HIV-related awareness and prevention, ensuring resistance to peer pressure to engage in risky sexual behavior, and clarifying group attitudes towards condom utilization and safe sex. According to this assessment, relative to control-school AIDS education, the experiment ensured a greater positive effect on teens' AIDS awareness, perceptions, felt social pressures, risk assessment, self-effectiveness expectations and safe-sex decisions (Kok, Schaalma, De Vries, Parcel, & Paulussen, 2011).

A third key social psychological theory is that of social penetration. People are increasingly engaging in online activities on social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. But issues of internet user self-disclosure are not clear. Wang and Tang's (2012) application of the theory of social penetration to blogging demonstrated that bloggers revealed views, experiences and feelings to real-life best friends much more than they did to their internet audiences and parents. However, they do apparently voice their personal experiences and in various subjects on the internet for maintaining their blogs or recording their lives online. The study effectively examined the social penetration model and proved that bloggers do, apparently, know the risks linked to extensive online disclosure and, hence, would more readily divulge information on their experiences and interests as compared to financial or personal issues. Applying social penetration to bloggers questioned the prior research's notion that individuals self-reported divulging considerably more information on the internet than in real life; authors found that bloggers were more ready to express themselves extensively and profoundly to their real-world best friends as compared to blog followers. Clearly, actual interpersonal relationships cannot be replaced (Tang & Wang, 2012).

A fourth social psychology element -- the terror management model -- proposes that for maintaining psychological security in spite of knowing one's mortal nature, mankind needs to believe in cultural views of the world, which convince people of their significance and endurance in this world instead of reinforcing the belief that they are nothing but animals destined to being obliterated after dying. Greenberg and Kosloff (2008) assessed terror management theory's primary underpinnings and studied its implications for comprehending typecasting, bias, political attitudes and intergroup disagreements to reveal that when reminders of one's mortality amplify the psychological necessity of supporting these worldviews, typecasting, bias, hostility towards out-groups and support for charming leaders grows. Terror management issues result in dis-identification of bias targets with their in-groups, as well as confirmation of negative in-group stereotypes. Hence, clearly, if kids are taught to maintain a belief in cultural worldviews that emphasize recognition of, and tolerance towards, other people, thus presenting avenues for dependable bases of self-esteem and love and encouraging people to regard death with careful consideration, they might come to terms with their mortal nature without venting their frustration regarding it on other people (Greenberg & Kosloff, 2008).

Will applied social psychology be able to facilitate problem-solving? How? The above questions have been answered by the aforementioned articles which explicitly describe social psychology models' and concepts' application to resolving practical and social issues in all domains of life, including familial issues, risky teen behaviors, terror management, health, and social networking. A majority of social issues have socio-psychological elements. Applied social psychology facilitates clarification as well as resolution of those issues.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.84.2.191

Brehm, J. (2007). A Brief History of Dissonance Theory. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1(1), 381-391. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00035.x

Glatz, T., Stattin, H., & Kerr, M. (2012).A Test of Cognitive Dissonance Theory to Explain Parents' Reactions to Youths' Alcohol Intoxication.Family Relations, 61(4), 629-641. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00723.x

Greenberg, J. & Kosloff, S. (2008). Terror Management Theory: Implications for Understanding Prejudice, Stereotyping, Intergroup Conflict, and Political Attitudes. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(5), 1881-1894. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00144.x

Kok, G., Schaalma, H., De Vries, H., Parcel, G., &Paulussen, T. (2011).Social Psychology and Health Education.European Review Of Social Psychology, 7(1), 241-282. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14792779643000038

Page, L. &Blanchette, J. (2009). Social learning theory: Toward a unified approach of pediatric procedural pain. International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy, 5(1), 124-141. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0100875

Schneider, F., Gruman, J., & Coutts, L. (2012). Applied social psychology (1st ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Schaalma, H. P., Kok, G., Poelman, J., & Reinders, J. (1994). Development AIDS education; a systematic approach based on research, theories and cooperation. In D. R. Rutter, & L. Quine (Eds), Social Psychology and Health: European perspectives (pp. 175-94). Aldershot: Avebury.

Tang, J. & Wang, C. (2012). Self-Disclosure Among Bloggers: Re-Examination of Social Penetration Theory. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social Networking, 15(5), 245-250. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0403