12. Applied social psychology Flashcards
Organisational psychology
The disciplines of organisational behaviour and social psychology are brought together to constitute what is known as ‘organisational psychology’.
Insight offered by organisational psychology
▫ What motivates people to work and how is it related to performance?
▫ How can we identify and tackle stress and maintain well-being in the workplace?
▫ What makes someone a good leader at work, and what effect does it have on employee performance, relationships, and well-being?
▫ How effective is team-work?
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943)
Physiological, safety, love/belonging, self-esteem, self-actualisation.
Motivation can be defined as a choice into how much effort you put into the task.
Application of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to the workplace
▪ Working to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. Physical working conditions should be optimal to maximise performance.
▪ The working environment should protect us from risk or harm. Feeling safety and security in the workplace is crucial for well-being, relationships, and performance.
▪ The workplace should foster social cohesiveness, encouraging a shared sense of belonging and providing a meaningful workplace identity.
▪ Our work performance should be recognised and rewarded by others.
▪ Employees should feel fulfilled, achieving, and empowered.
Modern critiques of Maslow’s need theory
→ Inapplicable to modern workplaces
→ Needs are complex and interrelated, therefore, the boundaries between levels are vague.
→ Employees do no work through the hierarchy of needs in the same order.
→ There are more needs than these five levels (e.g. finding the work stimulating or feeling unstressed).
→ It ignores the social influence on people’s own perceptions and construction of what they need.
Vroom’s VIE theory (1964)
Motivation is a combination of valence, instrumentality, and expectancy.
- Valence -> attractive aspects of workplace and working life (e.g. being paid)/less attractive aspects (e.g. long hours).
- Instrumentality -> the relationship between performance, reward, and cost.
- Expectancy -> the belief that increasing effort will result in successful performance to obtain the reward.
- Organisational behaviour results from conscious choices, which are shaped by expectations of various outcomes.
Adam’s equity theory
▪ We are concerned with what investments we’ve made (e.g. time, effort, money) and what we get out as a result (e.g. friendship, pay, affection). People are motivated to work when they feel they are being treated fairly in terms of inputs and outputs; and in comparison with others.
▪ Perceptions of being treated fairly increase the motivation to engage in the task.
Distributive justice
Where the distribution of rewards are fair and perceived to be based on merit.
Procedural justice
Where the processes by which decisions are made are perceived to be fair.
Transactional leadership
The quality of the interaction between leader and follower in achieving a common desired goal and a successful relationship.
Transformational leadership
Leadership, that enabled by a leader’s inspiration and vision, exert significant influence.
Glass cliff in leadership
Women who do make it to leadership levels, but are appointed when the organisation over which they preside is in trouble. In other words, women leaders can be set up to fail.
Loneliness
Loneliness is an awareness that our social relationships are less numerous or meaningful than we desire. It coexisted with a decrease in the protective influences of social networks on health.
Social isolation and health
Social isolation is closely related to poor mental and physical health.
The poor quantity and quality of social networks led to feelings of social isolation and loneliness, which in turn led to depression.
Social psychology approaches to treatment and therapy
Our actions affect our attitudes. Consistent with this attitudes-follow-behaviour principle, several psychotherapy techniques prescribe action.
Behaviour therapists
Assertiveness training
Self-help groups
Behavioural therapy
Behaviour therapists try to shape behaviour on the theory that the client’s inner disposition will also change after the behaviour changes.
Assertiveness training
In assertiveness training, the individual may first role-play assertiveness in a supportive context, then gradually implement assertive behaviours into everyday life.
Self-help groups
Self-help groups subtly induce participants to behave in new ways in front of the group - to express anger, cry, act with high self-esteem, express positive feelings.
The 6-step framework of intervention mapping
- Needs assessment
- State change objectives
- Design the program
- Produce the program
- Plan the implementation of the program
- Evaluation
Nudge theory
A desired behaviour can be achieved by making small but significant changes to someone’s environment. Cannot solve all problems but can make good changes.
Motivational factors influencing environmental behaviour
Costs and benefits -> Theory of planned behaviour
Moral and normative concerns - values, moral obligation, environmental concerns, social norms
Contextual factors influencing environmental behaviour
Context may directly affect behaviour
The relationship between context and behaviour may be mediated by motivational factors such as attitudes or norms.
Context may moderate the relationship between motivational factors.
Social psychology studies on plant-based diets and reduction of animal products focuses on four main themes
- Vegans as a disadvantaged/stigmatised group.
- The role of ideology in negative attitudes toward vegans.
- The role of moral and ethical beliefs in changing or sustaining dietary preferences.
- Veganism as a social movement and vegan activism
Disaster myths
Mass panic
Helplessness
Civil disorder
Mass panic
People show panic responses. Based on impulsivity, irrationality and selfishness.
Helplessness
Freese and can’t act based on this. Most people freeze.
Civil disorder
Crowds bring out the worst in people and disaster exaggerates this. People show a lot of negative and collective behaviours.
Recent scientific evidence challenges these disaster myths
▪ Panic is a rare response in disaster emergencies. Some communities are more prone to panic responses.
▪ Overwhelming individual competitiveness is also found to be a myth; most survivors show cooperation and help -> the emergence of mutual aid as a result of a sense of common fate and shared social identity. All experiencing the same awful thing - common fate. Leads to mutual aid.
Social identity model of collective psychosocial resilience in emergent groups (Drury et al., 2019)
This model is based on common fate, shared social identity, and community resilience.
Start to show social support due to shared social identity. Also start to expect social support. Creates a mutuality in that identity. Creates coordination in the group. Allowing for resilience.
Growing from shared trauma.
