Some Ethical Issues In Applied Social Psychology: The Case of Bilingual Education and Self-esteem

Ideas and theories from social psychology are often put to practical use. Sometimes these borrowed concepts and theories are carefully implemented, sometimes they are not. Education is a practical area where social psychology is often applied, sometimes without much care. As an example of the problem, this article examines how educators used self-esteem to justify bilingual education programs for language minority students and whether this application of social psychology is warranted. We find that the postulated effect of bilingual educations on self-esteem does not occur. Also, self-esteem research and theory are misapplied in attempting to justify bilingual education with respect to its supposed effects on self-esteem. Finally, we raise the question of what responsibility the field of social psychology has to correct misapplication of theory and concepts.     

应用心理学与基础理论

从严格控制的实验室研究得到的一般原则,常常难以解决实际问题。把独特个案的研究与普遍规律联系在一起,也往往不是容易的。这里,实践优于一般理论是很显然的。应用心理学家的任务就是把日常经验转换成普遍原理,以便提高其科学价值和生命力。     

Applied Social Psychology: A Critical Theoretical Perspective

The purpose of this analysis is to review, through a critical theoretical lens, social psychology applied to work and organisations. In our reading of the applied social psychological literature four key issues emerged. These include the valorisation of a positivist epistemology, an owner/management perspective on workplace issues, a focus on intra‐psychic variables or internal mental states when accounting for organisational problems, and the ignoring of moral and ethical commitments in determining workplace research and practice. Each of these issues is then further analysed in light of insights from the field of Critical Management Studies. This alternative approach to organisational behaviour points to the ways in which applied social psychological theory and practice have the potential to disadvantage workers.     

Intervention of Community Social Psychology: The Case of Colombia

La psychologie des Communautés Sociales peut être considérée non seulement comme une approche mais aussi comme un champ d'action prometteur sur la scène colombienne. Le document présent vise à décrire quelques antécédents et le contexte général socio-politique en Colombie, où plusieurs applications de la Psychologie environnementale sociale ont été utilisées pour résoudre les problèmes des communautés. Des considérations théoriques et méthodologiques issues de ces applications seront discutées au travers de trois cas. Enfin, nous présenterons une série de commentaires et de conclusions qui donnent une vision globale des différentes applications données en référence.
Community social psychology can be considered not only an approach but also a promising field of action on the Colombian scene. The aims of the present paper are to describe some of the antecedents and the general socio-political context in Colombia, where several applications of social-environmental psychology have been used to solve community problems. The implied theoretical and methodological considerations of these applications will be discussed in relation to three specific cases. Finally, we will present a number of comments and conclusions that give a global vision of the different applications referred to.     

A Decade of Applied Social Psychology: An Editorial

The view of the outgoing editors on applied social psychology and on the past decade of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology is presented. The history of the Journal, conceptualizations of its purpose, assessments of journal quality and evaluation approaches to its achievement are discussed. Finally, questions about the future of applied social psychology and the future of the Journal are raised.     

The Social Psychology of Groups and Group Psychotherapy: One View of the Next Century

Will fields that study groups in general, such as social psychology, and fields that use groups to achieve therapeutic goals, such as group psychotherapy, move toward unification in the future or will they drift apart? One possible future assumes that these two approaches to groups will become better integrated as (a) societal changes increase individuals' reliance on groups; (b) research and theory on group processes become more sophisticated; and (c) basic and applied researchers work together more closely in examining groups. Such unification requires, however, changes in the training, outlook, and procedures used by both practitioners and researchers.     

Decision Making: Research and Theory Challenges for Applied Social Psychology

The potential for contributions by applied social psychology to decision research and theory is explored. Most decisions by groups and individuals are social in origin or impact, suggesting that social psychologists should consider decision making as a relevant topic. Early applied work is considered. Mathematical model approaches are explored. Both are found wanting, especially where we wish to apply our science to complex and multiple uncertain decision problems. Examples of recent relevant research that fit well into an applied social psychological framework are provided, indicating the variety of potential topics for investigations. Finally, the need for encompassing theory is considered. The characteristics of needed theory are discussed.     

An Analysis of the Relations Between Basic and Applied Psychology

This article illustrates the possible application of homeokinetics to the constructive process of the origin of life. The homeokinetic strategy is to seek out cycles at all time scales in a system where they can be discovered (spectroscopy) and to show how interacting cyclic processes can account for historical emergence of new entities, many of which also are cyclic processes. The full story of emergence necessarily begins with cosmology, which eventually results in an earth that can support geological processes, which form the matrix for life.     

Basic and Applied Cognitive Research in a Country Discovering Psychology

The paper illustrates how the author started research in the field of applied cognitive psychology. The paper describes the obstacles and opportunities associated with living in a country where Psychology was underdeveloped. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

心理学对和谐社会的贡献

心理学在现代社会中具有满足社会需求的任务。多数国家都有这种社会需求,使得心理学成为真正意义上的跨国界学科。心理学确实能够提供解决问题的一般方法,但在面对某个国家的具体国情时则需要特殊的处理方法。在不同体制国家里所做的研究并不一定完全适用于其他国家,这意味着对一个国家里提出的心理学问题,还必须在本国内做进一步的基础研究。每个国家都需要这种心理学的本土化过程。本文提供一些研究案例,其研究成果既是有意义的,但还需要进一步研究。如何为和谐社会做贡献,作者提出了一个研究框架     

Social Identity, Health and Well-Being: An Emerging Agenda for Applied Psychology

The social environment comprising communities, families, neighbourhoods, work teams, and various other forms of social group is not simply an external feature of the world that provides a context for individual behaviour. Instead these groups impact on the psychology of individuals through their capacity to be internalised as part of a person's social identity. If groups provide individuals with a sense of meaning, purpose, and belonging (i.e. a positive sense of social identity) they tend to have positive psychological consequences. The impact of these identity processes on health and well-being is explored in the contributions to this special issue. In this editorial, we discuss these contributions in light of five central themes that have emerged from research to date. These themes address the relationship between social identity and (a) symptom appraisal and response, (b) health-related norms and behaviour, (c) social support, (d) coping, and (e) clinical outcomes. The special issue as a whole points to the capacity for a social identity approach to enrich academic understanding in these areas and to play a key role in shaping health-related policy and practice.     

Support for Intimacy Skills Groups from Research in Social Psychology

Work done by social psychologists on self-disclosure is relevant for intimacy skills groups. This research is reviewed and a structured group on intimacy training that integrates the research findings is discussed.     

Means of Assessing Ordinal Interactions in Social Psychology: The Case of Sexism in Judgments of Social Power

This article assesses the efficacy of several statistical methods used for detecting male sexism in ratings of social power. Sexist ratings would be indicated through the observation of an ordinal interaction where female powerholders suffer when being rated by male targets. Such an interaction is typically assessed through an ANOVA. However, Bobko (1986) and Strube & Bobko (1989) recommend alternate methods that may be more appropriate. These methods are reviewed and evaluated using data obtained from 381 undergraduate students. Participants provided ratings of their male and female supervisors' power usage. Analysis indicates that the methods for detecting ordinal interactions recommended by Bobko & Strube are more appropriate than the traditional ANOVA. Furthermore, sexist ratings were observed for 3 of 6 power bases.     

Political Psychology as Applied Psychology: An Introduction

On souligne, dans I'introduction du numéro spécial d' Applied Psychology: An International Review sur la Psychologie Politique, qu'il existe deux courants parmi les contributions au champ de la psychologie politique. L'un traite des implications politiques en jeu quand la politique est utilisée pour illustrer des problématiques psychologiques. L'autre est une « Psychologie Politique politique >> où les orientations des Sciences Politiques définissent les problématiques. La seconde partie de l'introduction montre que cette discipline emprunte largement à trois grandes théories de la psychologie (la théorie cognitive, la théorie de I'apprentissage et la psychanalyse) et que la plupart des publications abordent des thèmes en rapport avec les psychologies sociale, clinique, de la personnalité et du développement. Enfin, les sept contributions émanant d'auteurs de quatre continents sont brièvement introduites.
The introduction to Applied Psychology: An International Review's special issue on Political Psychology argues that there are two streams of contributions to the field of political psychology. One is work with political implications where politics are used to illustrate psychological research questions. The other is a "political Political Psychology" where the agenda of political science defines the research questions. A second part of the introduction shows that the discipline draws most heavily on three grand theories of psychology, namely cognitive theory, psychoanalysis, and learning theory with most publications working on questions related to social psychology, personality, clinical, and developmental psychology. Finally the seven contributions by authors from four continents are briefly introduced.     

Community Psychology: The Case of Cameroon

Community psychology in Cameroon is a budding discipline even its practice, given the scarcity of professionals with specialised training. However, this paper highlights public and private community-oriented projects that resonate with the principles of community psychology. The demands are high with the impact of globalisation, corruption, poverty and HIV/AIDS. Yet it is evident that professional responses to these demands will be slow because even the teaching, research and use of the main discipline of psychology face major problems, blocking its expansion and use. There is the need for strong academic and professional leadership that is usually blocked by tribalism, weakness in the pedagogy of programmes and underdevelopment and unawareness of social problems including the absence of structures for strengthening institutional capacity. These explain why only rudimentary psychological services exist for Cameroonians. There is therefore an urgent need for the rapid formalisation of community psychology in teaching, research and service for alleviating people's distress in Cameroon.