Table of contents:

1. Introduction to applied social psychology

2. The use of theory in applied social psychology

3. Applications of social psychology to increase the impact of behaviour-focused intervention

4. The dilemmatics approach to applied research design: a case study of violent video games effects and aggression

5. The social psychology of consumer behaviour

6. Social psychology and developement aid

7. Social psychology and economic behaviour: heuristics and biased in decision-making and judgement

8. Applying social psychology to the classroom

9. Social psychology and environmental problems

10. Social psychology of health and illness

11. Social psychology and immigration: relations between immigrants and host societies

12. Social psychology and mental health

13. Explaining crime over the life course

14. The social psychology of organizations

15. Social pscyholgoy and political behaviour

16. Social sport and exercise psychology

17. Social psychology and driving behaviour

Hoofdstuk 1: Introduction to applied social psychology

Social psychology is the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of human behaviour and thought in social situations, and the motivations, cognitions and emotions related to such behaviour. Applied social psychology is the systematic application of social psychological constructs, principles, theories, intervention techniques, research methods and research findings to understand or ameliorate social problems. They will increase the social utility(“nut”) of their work by clearly communicating the results of their work.

There are two types of approaches:

• deductive= start with a particular theory and examine to what extent the theory may be helpful. (basic social psychologists)

• inductive= start from a specific social problem and examine to what extent various theories may help to understand this specific problem. (applied social psychologists)

Scientific values important in this field are accuracy, objectivity, scepticism and open-mindedness.

Causes of behaviour and cognitions:

• individual factors

• social factors

• situational factors(contextual)

• cultural factors

• biological factors

There are three major roles for applied social psychologists:

• researcher

• consultant= an applied psychologist assists individuals, groups, organizations or communities to resolve particular problems they are facing.

• policy advisor

Hoofdstuk 2: The use of theory in applied social psychology

A theory is an integrated set of principles that explains and predicts observed events.

The primary functions of theories in applied social psychology are:

• understanding= help making sense of social behaviour.

• solution= guide and inform the development of interventions intended to address a social problem.

• evaluation= testing for practicality and usefulness in the real world. 

The knowledge-deficit model of behaviour change posits that social programmes are underutilized because individuals lack knowledge about the programme or the behaviour. 

The rational choice theory maintains that individuals are motivated to promote their self-interest.

A model is a framework that integrates theories and principles. A construct refers to the inferred affective, cognitive or motivational aspects of human behaviour. 

Social-psychological theories fall into three major areas:

Conformity occurs when a person changes their behaviour to be consistent with real or imagined social expectations. 

More complex social problems are multiply determined, meaning that there are many variables to be changed in order to solve the problem. 

Use-inspired research enables us to develop theories that are both scientifically sound and useful to applied social psychologists. 

Pasteur’s quadrant:

Hoofdstuk 3: Applications of social psychology to increase the impact of behaviour-focused intervention

The applied-behavioural-science approach to intervention is based on the scientific philosophy of B.F.Skinner. The three-term contingency= antecedent→ behaviour→ consequence.

Commonly used antecedent interventions include: 

• education and training

• verbal and written prompts= messages that are strategically delivered in the place where the target behaviour occurs. 

• modelling and demonstrations= demonstrating specific target behaviours to relevant individuals. 

• commitment procedures= asking individuals to formally agree to change their behaviour. 

Three basic consequence strategies are:

• penalties= undesirable behaviours and administer negative consequences to those who perform them. 

• rewards= can be a variety of consequences, including money, merchandise, verbal praise, or special privileges. Reinforcement increases behaviour through the delivery of a consequence while punishment decreases behaviour through a consequence. However it can decrease self-intrinsic motivation. 

• feedback= providing information to participants about the rate or consequences of their behaviours. So if it’s correct or incorrect behaviour. 

Six social influence principles:

• consistency= the fundamental human motive to be consistent, to act in line with attitudes.

1. foot in the door= begin with a small request and build.

2. cognitive dissonance, activate this with prompts and education by making inconsistencies in attitudes and behaviours salient. 

3. public commitment

• social proof= the compliance technique in which evidence about the behaviour of others is provided in order to evoke a confirming response.

1. descriptive norms= what members of the group typically do.

2. normative prompts

3. correcting misperceived norms

4. normative feedback= compares an individual’s behaviour with typical or average group behaviour. 

5. make participation salient

• authority= people are more likely to comply with a request from an authority figure than someone who lacks status. 

• liking= we are more likely to do things for people we know and like. 

1. block-leader approach= recruit community members to serve  as intervention leaders.

• reciprocity= reflects the norm that people should repay others for benefits received from them.

1. pre-behaviour rewards

2. pay-what-you-want

• scarcity= the extent to which something is rare or difficult to obtain server as a heuristic to determine its perceived value

1. avoid reactance= the tendency of individuals to act in ways to re-establish freedom when it becomes limited or threatened.

2. make potential losses salient

3. fear appeals= activate fear, but teach a practical preventive strategy.

Hoofdstuk 4: The dilemmatics approach to applied research design, a case study of violent video game effects on aggression

The three-horned dilemma varies in three desirable qualities: precision, generalizability to situations and generalizability to people. 

McGrath’s properties:

A confound is an additional variable that systematically varies with the independent variable and influences the dependent variable. 

Sampling error is the likely discrepancy between the results obtained in a representative sample and the results one would have obtained if everyone in the population of interest had been studied. 

No single design can answer all questions. Instead of trying to avoid design disadvantages altogether, a good researcher addresses them head on by understanding each study’s limitations and then building a strong body of work in which each study compensates for the others’ weaknesses. 

Rules for deciding between research designs:

1. Pursue programmatic research. Try to think in terms of multiple studies incorporating multiple designs.

2. Do what has not been done before

3. Construct the best research team. Collaboration(samenwerking) is the norm and not the exception. 

Hoofdstuk 5: The social psychology of consumer behaviour

Consumer behaviour consists of the psychological and social processes people undergo in the acquisition, use, and disposal of products. 

Conspicuous consumption is a way to express wealth and to ]something about your personality and about the way we see ourselves.

Thinking goods have exclusively utilitarian functions and feeling goods exclusively identity related functions. 

Theory of planned behaviour has three determinants of people’s behavioural intention: attitudes(favourable or unfavourable evaluations), subjective norms((beliefs about what others who are important to them think they should do and the person's willingness to comply) and perceived behavioural control(beliefs about the extent to which they can perform the behaviour and the extent to which the behaviour is under his/her control). Adding the fourth variable identity similarity(extent to which performing a behaviour is consistent with the person’s self-concept) will improve predictions of intentions. 

Impulse buying is characterized by the fact that it is unplanned and unintended. Often it is even done in disregard of intentions. when consumers pursue a hedonic goal or violation of long-term personal standards(self-control dilemma). 

Advertising influence:

• the cognitive route= advertising as persuasive communications, based on heuristic processing(can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision).

• the affective route= evaluative conditioning. A process that influences affective responses to an attitude object directly without involving cognitions, already using stimuli that are positively or negatively valued. 

• the subliminal route= the information is presented at such brief exposure that viewers are unable to read or even see the text. It only works when the brand is liked, the brand name is not already highly cognitively accessible, if the consumer has a need for the product and if it is offered shortly after the subliminal exposure. 

Hoofdstuk 6: Social psychology and development aid

Development aid projects are focused on improving people’s living conditions in the long run. 

Impact evaluations are often conducted to evaluate development aid projects. These aim at determining to what extent different activities of aid projects contribute to the achievement of the goals envisaged by assessing the short and long term impacts. Kess attention has been paid to underlying processes and unanticipated side-effects which might emerge when interventions are implemented in low income countries. 

Theory of change is an explanation of how and why a set of activities will bring about the changes the projects designers seek to achieve. The theory is the basis of a commonly understood vision of the longer term goals of an intervention, how the project leaders want to reach their short and longer term goals and what measures they will use to assess progress along the way. 

It is crucial to learn more about people’s daily routines as well as psychological processes and to keep in mind that every small innovation also requires a change in people’s behaviour and habits. 

Promotional strategies can be differentiated in three main types: mass media, centralized communication or interpersonal communication. 

Social psychological research has provided important insights on how the effectiveness of two interventions could be further improved by more carefully considering the cultural context.

Cultures inform and influence the self-concept of people and can be differentiated in two dimensions, namely the individualism vs. collectivism and the independence vs. interdependence of self-construals. 

The modernization theory describes the processes of how traditional societies transform to more modern societies. 

As development aid programmes target different groups and require different expertise, interdisciplinary approaches to developing and evaluating these projects would increase our knowledge on how interventions can achieve their ambitious goals and avoid unanticipated negative side-effects. 

Hoofdstuk 7: Social psychology and economic behaviour, heuristics and biases in decision-making and judgement

People select the maximum utility, the net balance of the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Economists saw the principle of hedonic calculus, the computation of utility as the net balance of pleasure and pain, as a universal law of human behaviour from which economic relations and market exchange behaviours could be derived. Cardinal utility gives a value of utility to different options. Ordinal utility just ranks in terms of preference.

The theory of subjective expected utility was the dominant theory of decision-making. It posits that costs and benefits of options are multiplied by the perceived likelihood they occur and that the option with the best net balance of costs and benefits will be chosen. According to prospect theory, losses are more painful than gains are pleasurable.

In negative framing, people are more willing to accept a risk to avoid a loss than in positive framing, to get an equivalent gain. 

Potential loss seems to be associated with danger(in the amygdala). 

The dispositional effect is when investors keep their losing stocks too long, hoping that the value will increase. And they sell their winning stocks too early, as soon as they realize a profit.

Hedonic framing is the tendency of individuals to increase the value for themselves and others by integrating and segregating gains and losses. Integration means here that the gains and losses are incurred on the same occasion without a time interval for the recipient to adapt to a new reference point. Segregation means here that the gains and losses are incurred with a time interval long enough for the recipient to adapt to a new reference point. So there are four cases of hedonic framing:

• segregation of gains

• segregation of losses

• integration of a small loss with a large gain

• integration of a small gain from a large loss

The status-quo bias may be caused by a lack of motivation or ability of consumers to process information about all choice alternatives. It means that if offered a number of options, most people prefer the standard or default option or the option they already possess.The endowment effect means that people want to keep what they possess rather than exchanging it for something else. In this case the standard or default option is owned.

The sunk-costs effect means that you invest more money in a failure, because you already invested in this and you don’t want it to be a waste of money.

Time preference:

1. the sign effect= gains are discounted more than losses. People want more compensation for delaying a gain than they are willing to pay for delaying a loss.

2. the magnitude effect= small sums of money are discounted more than large sums of money. People want relatively more compensation for delaying a small than a large sum of money.

3. the delay-speedup asymmetry= people want more compensation for delaying a gain than they are willing to pay for speeding it up. People want more compensation for speeding up a loss than they are willing to pay for delaying it.

4. preference for improving sequences= people prefer improving sequences with an increasing utility over deteriorating sequences with a decreasing utility, duties first than pleasure. Consumers want to take the regular restaurant first and then the best restaurant.

Hoofdstuk 8: Applying social psychology to classroom

Social comparison is the process of thinking about information about one or more other people in relation to the self. After the age of six or seven the social comparison inferences become part of a pupil’s self-knowledge. It follows a unidirectional drive upwards. 

The preference to compare oneself with others who are similar on related attributes is at the core of the similarity principle. 

Entity theorists believe that intelligence is an innate and stable property of a person. Incremental theorists typically believe that performance can usually be improved by effort.

Big-fish-little-pond effect(BFLPE)= students' academic self-concept is positively influenced by their own academic accomplishments, the high ability levels of others in their immediate context negatively influence it. It seems that the BFLPE represents the counterbalancing, net effects of two opposing processes, one based on contrast between oneself and others and the other on assimilation. Contrast effects occur when the self-evaluative judgement shifts away from the background or context. Assimilation effects occur when the self-evaluative judgement shifts towards the social context. 

Classroom climate is the perceived quality of the classroom, also referred to as atmosphere or ambience. 

Hoofdstuk 9: Social psychology and environmental problems

Natural environments can be processed more fluently than urban environments because of the fractal or self-similar patterns of nature. 

The social design involves adapting the design of a building to needs and ideas of the people who live/work in that building, or even visit it, so as to increase the wellbeing and performance of users. 

Not only are our well-being and behaviour affected by the environment, but human behaviour affects environmental quality as well. Global warming refers to an increase in the earth’s average temperature, caused in part by the emission of greenhouse gases, most of which can be attributed to the combustion of fossil fuels.

Environmental behaviour is the behaviour that changes the availability of materials or energy from the environment or alters the structure and dynamics of ecosystems or the biosphere, which influences human well-being and things people value.

The new environmental paradigm(NEP) measures a person's beliefs about the relations between humans and the environment. NEP support is particularly related to low-cost behaviour. 

Values have four key features:

1. it’s a belief about the desirability of a certain end-state.

2. it’s abstract and therefore transcend specific situations.

3. it serves as guiding principles for the selection and evaluation of behaviour, people and events.

4. it’s ordered in a system of priorities.

There are types of values that are particularly relevant for understanding environmental beliefs, norms and actions:

• hedonic values= reflect a key concern with improving one’s feelings and reducing effort (pleasure and enjoying life).

• egoistic values= imply that people particularly consider individual costs and benefits when making choices (power, material wealth and ambition).

• altruistic values= reflect a key concern for the welfare of other human beings (equality, social justice and helpfulness).

• biospheric values= reflect a key concern with non-human species and the biosphere (preventing pollution, unity with nature and respecting the earth).

The norm activation model proposes that pro environmental behaviour occurs in response to personal norms, that is, feelings of moral obligation(“verplichting”). This later extended to the value-belief-norm theory of environmentalism, which proposes that behavior occurs in response to personal norms and that personal norms are activated by outcome efficacy and awareness of consequences.

People can reduce the conflict following their values and personal norms by self-serving denial, that is, deny their feelings of moral obligation to act pro environmentally in order to justify a choice to act in an environmentally unfriendly manner.

Habits’ key characteristics:

1. they are performed frequently.

2. they are in a stable context.

3. they are automatically repeated.

4. the intended outcomes are yielded over and over again.

When habits are strong, intentions are hardly related to behaviour.

A way to change behaviour is through interventions, they may target a person’s perceptions, cognitions, motivations and norms. They can be aimed at changing the context in which decisions are made.

Types of interventions:

• provision of information

• modelling= the use of models who demonstrate the recommended behaviour.

• block leader approaches= people who inform others in their social network about a particular environmental issue.

• behavioral commitment= a written or verbal promise to perform a target behaviour.

• feedback

Antecedent strategies are preventive and consequence strategies are about appropriately responding to behavior

Strategies aimed at changing the incentives may be aimed at rewarding good behaviour or punishing bad behaviour.

Hoofdstuk 10: Social psychology of health and illness

The pressure on health and life expectancy are in large part related to not engaging in healthy behaviour, engaging in unhealthy behaviours and not adhering to medical treatments. 

The motivation to behave healthily is primarily caused by people’s expectations of the benefits of behaving healthily: the positive outcome expectations of engaging in healthy behaviour. A conclusion based on biased social comparison is unrealistic optimism. 

Implementation intentions do specify when and where a person will engage in the specified behaviour. 

Patients give meaning to their illness on the basis of their beliefs and social comparisons and in the context of the social support they receive.

A way to promote healthy behaviour is by using a fear-appeal and convince people that the solution is within their reach. 

Computer-tailored persuasion: adaptation, feedback and personalization. 

Regulatory focus theory(RFT) proposes that people can pursue goals with either a promotion or a prevention focus.Those who pursue goals with a promotion focus construct pleasure as the attainment of hopes, ideals and aspirations, and construe pain as the absence of these.

Hoofdstuk 11: Social psychology and immigration, relations between immigrants and host societies

Acculturation refers to the process of adapting to a different culture. One-dimensional models of acculturation= giving up the culture of origin and gradually moving towards identification with the host culture. The melting pot ideology was that immigrants added a slightly different flavour to the mainstream culture. Multidimensional models of acculturation= immigrants may relay to their heritage and host cultures to different degrees in the various domains. 

The best strategy is integration. Immigrants who are more individualistic are often characterized by a high level of cosmopolitism, selectively adopting elements from a number of cultures.

The contact hypothesis suggests that negative attitudes held by one group towards another are caused by a lack of knowledge about that group. The similarity-attraction hypothesis states that when one perceives another to be similar to oneself in various characteristics, this other will be positively evaluated. So we like people and groups who we think are like us and our own group. 

The instrumental model of group conflict identifies two determinants of intergroup antagonism: resource stress and social dominance orientation.

The common ingroup identity model proposes that once people are defined as part of an ingroup, they will be treated in a similar way to other ingroup members. 

Examples of interventions:

• enhancing contact between members of different groups

• reducing unnecessary social categorization

• acceptance of others identity

• training of competencies

Creolization is a term referring to the process by which elements of different cultures are blended together to create a new culture. Pluralism is a term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, whereby their values and practices are accepted by the dominant culture, provided such are consistent with the laws and values of the wider society.

Hoofdstuk 12: Social psychology and mental health

Social comparison theory. Individuals may compare themselves with others who are similar(lateral comparisons), better off(upward comparison) or worse off(downward comparisons). 

The self-discrepancy theory states that individuals have three possible selves: the actual selve(beliefs about themselves in the present), the ideal self(hopes and aspirations) and the ought self(feelings of duty, obligation and responsibility). Another self has been proposed, the feared self. This is the one that someone doesn’t wish to become or is afraid of becoming.  

The attributional model of depression can say something about depression, namely that people hold themselves responsible for the bad things that happen to them, even if they had no control over the event whatsoever. Causing people to think very negatively about themselves and to become depressed. 

Children who have caretakers who are always available for them, and responsive to their needs when they are in distress, will most likely develop a secure attachment style. In contrast, children whose caretakers show rejection, a lack of responsiveness or physical and emotional abuse, are more likely to develop an avoidant attachment style. Children whose caretakers respond inconsistently to their needs are more likely to develop a preoccupied attachment style. 

The social exchange theory assumes that individuals form and continue relationships on the basis of reciprocity in costs and rewards in their relationships. 

Hoofdstuk 13: Explaining crime over the life course

The dual taxonomy is a theoretical framework that proposes a complementary set of developmental theories explaining patterns of both life course persistent and adolescence limited offending which it is suggested underlie the age-crime curve. 

Several criminal careers can be distinguished, including age of onset or first-time participation in offending, the frequency of offending and the duration of the offending period. 

The higher the individuals criminal propensity, the earlier the onset, the higher the frequency and the longer the duration of offending. 

Life course persistent offenders(LCP) and adolescence limited offenders(AL). Desistance for AL offenders primarily results from changes in social, rather than individual factors.

The dynamic process whereby juvenile delinquency fosters adult crime by closing off conventional opportunities is known as cumulative disadvantage. 

The dual taxonomy is likely to oversimplify the reality of offending over the life course. 

Hoofdstuk 14: The social psychology of organizations

The social identity approach emphasizes the need that people have to develop a clear sense of who they are and where they belong. The process of social categorization indicates the tendency to classify individuals and their distinctive features by organizing them into social groups. 

Most employees like jobs in which they have some leeway in deciding how to plan and organize their activities(autonomy), where they can engage in a range of different tasks(task variety) and where they need to develop and display different competencies(skill variety). Individual characteristics play a role too. Organizational commitment has emerged as a relevant factor in work motivation, which relates to several behavioural consequences that are important for organizations.  

Hoofdstuk 15: Social psychology and political behaviour

Popularity was influenced by the match between motive scores of the president as compared with the society of that time, whereas presidential performance was influenced by leader characteristics, such as power motivation, independent of the match with the needs of that time. The concept of operational code refers to leaders’ belief systems about the world, such as whether the nature of political life is one of harmony or conflict, whether the future is predictable and can be controlled or not, and how political goals are most effectively pursued. 

The prospect theory can be viewed as a response to expected utility theory. According to this last one, the possible costs and benefits of alternative decisions are multiplied by the likelihood they occur; the option with the highest utility is chosen. According to the propest theory, decisions deviate from expected utility if decision-makers are afraid to experience losses and when risk is in the moderate to high range; the decision-maker is then willing to take more risk in order to prevent potential losses.

The groupthink theory means that particular circumstances can lead small groups to make poor decisions. These circumstances include ingroup cohesion, isolation from outside influences, directive leadership and stress.The personality factor that had the strongest impact on a successful presidency was openness, this is lacking in groupthink.

The main reason why people vote is that they conceive of it as a civic duty. It is the presence of social norms. The theory of reasoned action states that the direct determinant of behaviour is the intention to perform that behaviour. Salient beliefs result in attitudes towards voting options, which fairly accurately predicted voting intentions and hence vote choice. The Michigan model states that the resulting orientations(whether positive or negative), comprise a system of forces that direct votes towards one of the political parties. There are six such forces, so-called partisan attitudes. These attitudes were influenced by voters’ party identification. 

The hot-cognition hypothesis predicts that all previous thoughts are affectively charged and stored as such in long-term memory. Consequently, feelings of positive and negative affect emerge after this categorization process. The theory of motivated reasoning posits that these hot-cognitions drive the processing of new information.

Three mechanisms which lead to biased processing of new information:

• disconfirmation bias= put more effort to generate counterarguments.

• confirmation bias= seek information that confirms and is consistent with one's beliefs.

• prior-attitude bias= citizens with strong attitudes evaluate congruent arguments as being stronger and more convincing. 

Ideologies:

• Socialism→ high equality and high freedom

• Communism→ high equality and low freedom

• Capitalism→ low equality and high freedom

• Facism→ low equality and low freedom

Important role players with prejudice are right-wing authoritarianism(Autoritarisme is een staatsvorm gebaseerd op ondergeschiktheid tegenover de staat, waarbij er ingeperkte mogelijkheid is om oppositie te vormen en de uitvoerende macht op wetmatige manier te contesteren) and social dominance orientation(whether a person prefers relations between ingroups and outgroups to be equal or hierarchical).

Hoofdstuk 16: Social sport and exercise psychology

Intervention mapping is a useful framework for planning, implementing and evaluating theory-driven behavioural interventions. 

Physical self worth could be determined by four subcomponents: bodily attractiveness, physical conditioning, physical strength and sporting competence. Perception of physical self often is the strongest predictor of global self-worth in children. 

Group cohesion depends on two dimensions: group integration vs. personal attraction and social vs. task aspects. 

Increasing group cohesion and consequently performance:

• team stability

• environmental factors, such as size of the group 

• individual cognitions and behaviours

• the way a team is coached

The social facilitation theory suggests that the mere or imagined presence of others watching you perform a task increases physiological arousal levels, which will facilitate performance of well-learned or simple behaviours. However, if the task is complex, not well mastered or un-practised increased arousal levels will result in the performer executing the incorrect response. Resulting in impaired performance. 

The acclimatization hypothesis suggests that athletes who have a predisposition to be self-conscious will not be affected by pressured situations. The reinvestment theory suggests that athletes who have a tendency to reinvest are more likely to choke compared with athletes low in dispositional reinvestment. 

Social loafing and the Ringelmann effect were identified as group processes potentially inhibiting performance.

Hoofdstuk 17: Social psychology and driving behaviour

Aberrant driving behaviour: violations, errors and lapses.
Aggressive violations can result from:

• Trait aggression= a relatively stable personality characteristic, pertaining to those individuals who exhibit aggressive behaviours in various domains. 

• State aggression= is induced by a certain environment or in a certain situation. 

The self-enhancement bias is an inclination to make overly positive judgements regarding the self. 

The risk homeostasis theory proposes that drivers have a target level of risk that they are willing to accept. The risk allostasis theory proposes that decisions concerning whether capabilities meet task-demands are based on the perceived task-difficulty at a given moment, which is signalled by feelings of risk. 

The task capability interface model provides a description of the driving task and depicts how task-difficulty can be inferred from task-demands(complexity of the driving task) and one’s capabilities as a driver. 

There are three types of interventions that can be used to improve traffic safety: enforcement, driver education and persuasive messages .Enforcement is a stationary(automated) and mobile(officer patrol) identification of law violations and then the application of fines or incarceration as a consequence.