summary of key questions across all 6 topics, (criminological as option in year 2)
for questions on use of psychological knowledge in issues and debates
“How can Social Psychology be used to reduce prejudice in situations
such as crowd behaviour or rioting?”
Crowd behaviour or “mob mentality” occurs when people behave differently in large
groups. It can lead to violence and vandalism. This is called rioting.
One example of crowd behaviour is the racist incident involving Chelsea fans in the
Paris subway in 2015. The fans refused to let Mr Sylla board a train and chanted racist
chants.
Chelsea FC apologised to Mr Sylla. Other fans raised money for him to come to London
and see “the true spirit of the club.” The four ringleaders were banned from matches.
An example of rioting would be the Ferguson riots of 2014. When Michael Brown was
shot by a white police officer, there was a protest about racist police tactics that turned
into a riot that lasted for days.
Social Identity Theory explains crowd behaviour because the people see the crowd as
their ingroup but anyone else is viewed as an outgroup and shown less respect, which
may lead to vandalism or violence.
The Chelsea fans saw Mr Sylla as an outgroup because he was French and black. Social
Identification meant they joined in chanting together and Social Comparison meant they
pushed him off the train.
, 2
By inviting Mr Sylla to London, Chelsea fans are including him in their ingroup. This
might make him feel better about tem and reduce racist incidents in future.
The Ferguson riots might be because of the racial composition of the Ferguson PD,
which is mostly white, whereas Ferguson is mostly black. This leads each group to treat
the other badly, which is why the police overreacted and the crowd turned violent.
SIT suggests we can reduce prejudice by encouraging people to view others as
members of their ingroup. However, Realistic Conflict Theory would say the Ferguson
unrest won’t stop so long as African Americans have less access to resources like
wealth or jobs or protection by the law.
“How can Cognitive Psychology help people suffering
from dementia?”
Dementia is a disease affecting 850,000 people in the UK. The most common
type is Alzheimer’s. It causes loss of memory, confusion and depression. There
is no cure.
Despite this, sufferers can be helped if they are diagnosed early. Prof. Bruno
has a test that picks up the warning signs of dementia. Patients to a word
recall test of 15 words. If they don’t recall the “primacy” words from the start of
the list, this often predicts they will get dementia in the next few years.
Cognitive Stimulation can help dementia sufferers. This involves discussions
and activities like singing and games. One treatment from America involves
bringing a kindergarten into a residential home so that the sufferers can play
with the children.
Validation Therapy is another approach. Hogewey is a “dementia village”
where the residents can “live in the past” without being contradicted or
confused. Different parts of the village resemble different lifestyles the
residents had when they were younger. The residents are healthier and more
mentally alert than normal sufferers.
Tulving’s Episodic LTM can be applied to dementia. Dementia sufferers tend
to lose recent episodic memory then the disease “works backwards” until
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