PYC1502 NOTES
A Student’s A-Z of Psychology
Social Issues:
• The psychologist Kurt Lewin developed a theory, called field
theory, which emphasised the interplay between personal
characteristics (such as habits and beliefs) and environmental
elements (such as the physical environment, social situations and
group dynamics).
• In this section we shall look at 4 issues that are pertinent to
contemporary society.
1 Violence:
• Violence begins when one person fails to esteem the other
person, stops respecting the other person’s dignity and starts to
abuse him or her.
• Psychological violence:
o Showing itself in violent talk and intolerance of others.
• Structural violence:
o Showing itself in the unfair distribution of commodities as a
result of class- or race-based stratification in society.
• Violence of poverty:
o Showing itself in the indignity of subhuman living standards.
• Today, violence is the leading cause of death in the 15-44 age
group worldwide.
• There are many kinds of violence, but the following broad types
are perhaps most evident in contemporary society:
o Violence for material gain.
o Domestic violence.
o Sexual violence.
o State and collective violence (colonialism and apartheid).
o Self-directed violence.
• These acts of violence do not occur in isolation.
,• There are 3 main theoretical approaches to understanding
violence:
o The instinct or socio-biological approaches see violence as
an inborn survival strategy.
In the past, instinct enabled humans to hunt for food
and react to a threat.
o Frustration-aggression approaches explain violence as the
outcome of frustration.
o According to the observational learning approaches, we
learn to be violent through direct reinforcement and through
modelling our behaviour on that of others.
• Violence causes fragmentation in the sense that it breaks up and
destroys important linkages and relationships in communities and
it is disempowering in the sense that it undermines people’s ability
to fulfil appropriate functions in their groups and communities
• Alienation is a consequence of societal violence.
o Societies are normally organised around rules in terms of
which people accept personal responsibility for their conduct
and expect others to do the same.
o Violence goes against this orderly, rule-bound existence
and, in the long run, creates a state of lawlessness that
threatens people’s psychological well-being.
o One of the effects of such a state is alienation.
o There are 3 interrelated aspects to alienation:
The fear that you yourself, or your family or friends will
fall victim to violence.
The avoidance of all kinds of behaviour that used to be
spontaneous (travelling at night or certain roads)
The experience of being at the mercy of forces beyond
your control, which gives rise to feelings of
helplessness, isolation, lack of commitment to society
and mistrust of people.
• The effect of violence depends on how children experience it and
on what coping mechanisms they apply.
, • A culture of violence, intimidation and terrorism is damaging to the
psychological well-being of children and can result in various
forms of maladjustment:
o Maladjusted behaviour refers to a behaviour pattern that is
displayed in response to a certain situation (adjustment) but
that fails to serve the purpose (maladjustment).
o The 1st form of maladjustment as a result of violence is
when the behaviour becomes a permanent pattern, which is
continues long after the violence has already disappeared.
o A 2nd form of maladjustment in reaction to violence is
identification with the instigators and perpetrators of
violence.
o This 3rd form of maladjustment is characterised by an
uncritical acceptance of reasons why an individual or a
group is branded as the enemy.
o The 4th form of maladjustment is the development of a
skewed morality that comes from fanatical adherence to a
particular ideology.
2. Discrimination:
• Discrimination is a negative behaviour towards members of a
particular group.
o It is usually based on stereotypical ideas about the group,
which lead to prejudice (specific form of attitude) against its
members.
o It is negative and is characterised by hatefulness and
irrational beliefs.
o Stereotypical ideas about a group are based on ignorance
and faulty or incomplete knowledge about it.
• Discrimination happens when these beliefs are translated into
practices that result in privilege, status and power for one group at
the expense of another.
• Discrimination based on the gender of a person is called sexism or
gender bias.
o Usually occurs against women rather than men because of
the ideology of patriarchy.
o Womanhood is viewed in relation to the basic standard of
manhood and not in relation to a neutral and overarching
concept of personhood.
, o A discursive practice is a way of talk that constructs the thing
that is being talked in a particular way.
Discursive practices that perpetuate patriarchal
stereotypes unwittingly legitimise discriminatory
practices against women.
• The notion that discursive practices play a cardinal role in
discrimination has shifted the focus from ideology to ideological
practice.
o Following this trend, contemporary studies about racism
emphasise the role of racist discourse in the way that we
understand race.
o An example of overt (traditional) racism:
In liberal newspaper articles about violence, black
people have been depicted as innately violent and
untrustworthy sub-humans that should be tamed;
racially biased against whites; child-like in the sense of
not acting responsibly; and unreasonable.
o Modern (symbolic) racism is more subtle.
When, in 1991, a group of black people formed a new
township in a former white area.
Township was depicted as ‘alien’, ‘foreign’ or ‘out of
place’.
• In modern racism, there is no direct denigration (the action of
unfairly criticising someone or something) of black people.
• Modern racism occurs in races remarks and jokes that groups of
all colour make among themselves about other groups.
• It manifests itself in the following ways:
o Unwittingly perpetuating negative stereotypes through highly
selective perceptions of situations (such as driving).
o Apparently supporting the principle of equality, while resisting
its implementation through some kind of rationalisation.
o Implementing non-racial policies, yet withholding vital
enablers of performance (such as opportunities for
promotion).
o Maintaining distance in interpersonal situations.
o Passively resisting support for another person by withholding
supportive actions.
