SUMMARY APPLYING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (3RD)
CHAPTER 1 – APPLYING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social psychology helps understand what drives people and how they function in everyday life. It tries to build knowledge
primarily through experiments and surveys.
Example of the Application of Social Psychological Theories
Step 1 – Problem: Formulating a Problem Definition
It has become apparent that in recent years fewer and fewer people give donations to reduce HIV / AIDS in high-risk areas
such as Africa. A group of volunteers would like to start a campaign that will make people donate more money. They are
struggling to determine what this campaign should look like. For this, they engaged a social psychologist to gain insight into
what would prompt people to donate more money. The psychologist will start with the first step of the PATH method:
formulating a problem definition. The psychologist defines the problem as follows: many people in Africa suffer from HIV /
AIDS and there is not enough funding to provide them with adequate forms of medical or psychological assistance. What
factors determine the willingness of potential donors to donate for this issue? How can we set up a fundraising campaign to
help people with HIV / AIDS?
Step 2 – Analysis: Finding Explanations for the Problem
To define the factors influencing people's willingness to donate money, the psychologist asks many questions that can be
answered by the social psychological literature. There are two entries in the literature that flash before her. The first is the
literature on altruism and prosocial behavior, which can tell her what motivates people to help others and give money for a
good cause. The second is the literature on social influence, which can tell her what influence strategies are most effective in
getting people to do what you want (donating money).
First, the psychologist looks at the literature on altruism and prosocial behavior and formulates the problem in terms of two
general questions:
- When are people most likely to help others?
- What attributes of victims elicit the most helping responses?
After researching literature that can answer these questions, the psychologist comes to the conclusion that there are three
different types of helping:
- Emergency intervention: helping someone who is the victim of a robbery or accident.
- Organizational helping: offering to take on an administrative task at the request of a manager.
- Sharing and donating resources: donating money to a good cause. The present problem concerns this type of
prosocial behavior.
Although there is much less literature on the latter form of help, the psychologist eventually comes to Shalom Schwartz's
model: the Norm Activation Model (NAM). This is a theoretical model applicable to all forms of helping. In the model there
are several steps that influence people's prosocial behavior. These are the most important steps:
- Awareness of need: there must be awareness that others need help. The perceived need must be prominent, clear
and serious.
- Opportunities to help: people should be aware that there are opportunities to help people with HIV / AIDS.
- Ability to help: people must recognize their own ability to help. For example, it should be emphasized that even
small donations make a difference.
- Ascription of responsibility: people need to have some sense of responsibility for the problem in order to be
involved in providing help. They need to feel the consequences of not responding prosocially. This is an obstacle in
the case of the HIV / AIDS problem.
In addition, it can also be found in literature that people with a disease arouse more sympathy when they are not considered
responsible for their fate. Based on this, the psychologist concludes that one of the main goals of the campaign must be to
suppress the idea that people in Africa with HIV / AIDS are themselves responsible for their illness. The psychologist takes
into account the following theory: the theory of "belief in a just world". This is a theory of Canadian social psychologist
Melvin Lerner, who argues that people have a natural tendency to believe that they live in a fair world where everyone gets
what they deserve. For example, people are especially upset by the unexplained suffering of others, like someone who has
been working hard getting fired or parents losing their child in an accident.
The volunteer team states that people can react differently to victims or disasters abroad than in their own country. The
practitioner has read that helping is more likely when people are able to identify with the victim; for example, because they
are similar in terms of age, surname, or profession and values. People are more likely to help people in need that they
perceive to be members of the same group (in-group) rather than of a very different group (out-group). Similarities between
potential donators and the victims in Africa needs to be stressed, for instance, by emphasizing that we are all humans and
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,members of the planet’s population. Also, the practitioner finds out that people are more generous towards a victim about
whom they have some information (a so-called ‘identified victim’) than towards an anonymous victim. Moreover, a single
victim receives more help than a group of victims. Knowing this, it may be wise to select an identified victim and make that
person the face of the campaign.
Based on all the findings obtained from the social psychological literature, the psychologist creates a process model.
Step 3 – Test: Develop and Test the Process Model
Some relationships in the process model are not yet as evident in the literature and require further testing through research.
For example, encouraging people to identify with the victims may also lead to negative emotions. Identification with the
victim might not lead to more willingness to donate money. The practitioner therefore decides that it would be wise to
conduct further research on the relationship between guilt and helping before incorporating these ideas into the model.
Step 4 – Help: Towards an Intervention Programme
The team of volunteers decides that a number of causal variables, such as the belief in a just world, are difficult to change,
but that a number of causal variables that may increase helping behavior can possibly be influenced by a campaign. The
campaign will look like this:
- A victim is selected who will become the face of the campaign. Personal profiles of people with HIV / AIDS in Africa
are presented who, despite their illness, are trying to make the best of the situation, but apparently need medical
and psychological help that is not available at the moment.
- To further enhance identification with victims, the campaign will stress the similarities between the identified victim
of the human race and potential financial donors, by priming people to view victims as co-members of the human
race, rather than as members of the out-group.
- Personal norms of helping will be activated by showing that people with HIV / AIDS are in desperate need of help by
showing how one can donate and that even small donations matter.
Step 5 – Success: Evaluating the Intervention
Following the intervention, the practitioner conducts a thorough evaluation of the intervention. This evaluation shows how
much money was raised and how many people donated money. The results of this part of the evaluation shows that people
who were exposed to the campaign showed higher levels of identification with people with HIV / AIDS than people who were
not exposed. Also, the more people identified with the victim in the campaign, the more likely they were to donate money
and the more money they donated. Finally, both during and following the implementation the practitioner evaluates the
process of implementation: what problems occur(red), how can they be dealt with/how effective were they dealt with?
Also, a decision must be made regarding the communication channel. Another issue is whether donors receive something in
exchange for their gift; the norm of reciprocity states that individuals feel best when they receive something in return for
what they give.
Applying Social Psychology: The PATHS from Problem to Intervention to Success
The PATHS method helps practitioners to develop a theoretically based intervention program relatively quickly and smoothly.
However, there are some pitfalls. For example, it can take a long time to define a problem, and a lot of deliberation to
identify the most important elements of the problem. In addition, it may be that there is not much relevant literature or too
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, much relevant literature on the subject. Even if interventions have worked in the past, that does not guarantee success next
time.
The PATH method can be explained in five main steps:
- Problem: from a problem to a problem definition; identifying and defining the problem.
- Analysis: from a problem definition to an analysis and explanation; formulating applicable concepts and developing
theory-based explanations.
- Test: from statements to a process model; developing and testing an explanatory process model.
- Help: from a process model to interventions; develop and evaluate a program of intervention.
- Success: from implementing the intervention to evaluating its success.
Step 1 – Problem: From a Problem to a Problem Definition
In step 1, it is very important that it is well described what the problem is. We must assess whether the problem is
sufficiently concrete rather dan it being general. Also, why is it a problem at all and for whom is it a problem? In addition, we
must specify the main causes of the problem. Further, we should specify the population we aim to target with our
intervention (target group). Who do we need to convince that this problem has to be solved? Who must help to solve this
problem: the general public or specific subgroups, private persons or organizations and companies?
Finally, the key aspects of the problem need to be considered. That is, a good problem definition makes clear that the
problem has an applied rather than a basic nature, and is formulated in concrete terms. There must be a feeling that the
problem has social psychological aspects and that it is potentially solvable or relievable.
Step 2 – Analysis: From a Problem Definition to an Analysis and Explanation
When the problem is defined in terms of one or more social psychological constructs, the second step is to come up with a
social psychological explanation of the problem. For this, it must first be determined what the outcome variable is: which
variable must be changed?
Sometimes it is not so obvious what to look for in the literature. Even when this is clear, there can be many different
theories. For example, there are "social exchange" and "reciprocity" theories. These theories emphasize the role of
selfishness in helping. In this way people feel good when they have done something for someone else. In addition, there are
empathy-altruism theories. The basic idea of this theory is that empathy motivates altruistic behaviors aimed at alleviating
the suffering of a victim.
In order to determine the validity of social psychological theories, it is important to determine to what extent the
experiments used for the theory are applicable to the real world. This refers to the external validity of an experiment. It is
possible that the findings of a study, due to the specific research question or limitations in the samples, are applicable to a
limited number of real-life situations.
Step 3 - Test: From Statements to a Process Model
The process model has an outcome variable that is affected. The model must mainly contain variables that can be influenced
and must describe the relationship between the variables in the form of a process model. This process model is the core of
the PATH method. A practitioner may make different choices on the basis of social psychological literature in step 2 and there
are not always clear ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’. Any choice may be acceptable as long as it is backed up by a solid line of reasoning.
In general, the model should be limited in the amount of variables it includes (about 10) and specify just a few possible
relationships between its variables. Any given variable should not affect more than two or three other variables. This forces
researchers to be selective, so that not everything is explained by everything. It is sometimes difficult to find in the literature
how certain variables influence each other. If nothing can be found about a specific variable, it is good to look at the more
general form of the variable concerned.
Step 4 - Help: From a Process Model to an Intervention
This is the most difficult step in the process. It is important that the intervention program mainly contains factors that can be
influenced by intervention. Many social psychological variables, such as attitudes and social norms, can be influenced by
interventions, but factors such as sex, personality or other deeply rooted traits or values cannot. It is very difficult to build an
intervention programme around them. The step from testing to intervention is a very big one. The psychologist must come
up with as many intervention programs as possible, aimed at the most promising and important causal variables in the
model. Especially the shaping of the details takes a lot of work.
Step 5 – Success: From Implementation to Evaluation
Evaluating the intervention is not merely an activity that starts after the intervention has been implemented. Parts of the
evaluation have to be executed even before and/or during the implementation. The practitioner needs to develop an
evaluation plan at the same time as the intervention plan in the Help phase is developed.
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