Module 1: Conceptual Groundwork Flashcards
Describe mainstream approaches to psychology
Focuses on immediate context
Values neutral (with some key caveats)
Aims for universal knowledge
The practitioner is an expert and professional
Evidence-based, professional and shaped by experience
Focus is on clinical setting
More research - less values - stigmatisation happening
Describe community approaches to psychology
Focus on multiple layers of context
Values-based
Aims for situated knowledge
The practitioner is a learner and citizen
Evidence-informed, pragmatic, and shaped by critically reflexive praxis
Focus is on community and policy settings
More clinical work - needs values - no stigmatision (need acceptance of different ideas)
Describe Prilleltensky & Nelson’s model of wellbeing
- Individual, relational and collective networks
- Individual situated within a relational network that’s then situated in a collective network
- Wellbeing
- Achieved by the simultaneous and balanced satisfaction of personal, relational and collective needs
Describe benevolence
Benevolence = relief from suffering
A process, more short term
Address symptoms (curative)
Focus is on individuals and small groups (e.g. families)
Professional role is ‘the expert’
Research is connected to, but distinct from application
Clear, immediate impacts
Describe liberation
Liberation = relief from the conditions which give rise to suffering
A state but also a process, more long term
Promotes solutions (preventative)
Focus is on communities and society
Professional role is ‘scholar-activist’ or ‘co-learner’
Research and application are intertwined
Unclear impacts
Describe the Dunbar number
- Dunbar number is about 150. - amount of people in a group who can get along
- Hypothetical maximum limit to a persons social cognition
- Once you get above the Dunbar number, you see societies that are run by rules, laws, customs, stories, narrative and myths
Explain why the Dunbar number is transdisciplinary
- Points of convergence
- First founded through anthropology
- Social psychology (social cognitive),
- Indigenous knowledges - people live in smaller groups within larger cultural blocks,
- Neuroscience - judge by the thickness of our cerebral cortex compared to different primates
- Community psychology - the neighbourhood (more like USA)
= transdisciplinary
Explain some applications of the Dunbar number
- High school
- Office and work cultures
- Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing
Describe Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
- A change from smaller to communities (gemeinschaft) to a larger society (gesellschaft)
- Still converging evidence for the Dunbar number
- Translate roughly to community and society
- Written in Germany in early 20th century
Seen as a great loss - Part of colonisation (Came with federation)
- Went from multiple cultures into a monoculture society
More care in Gemeinschaft and more laws and rules in Gesellschaft
Describe McMillan and Chavis’ sense of community
- What community feels like - generally up to 150 people (Dunbar’s number)
- Our need for affiliation in times of sorrow, our need for sharing in times of joy, and our need to be with people at all other times (Sarason, 1974)
- Communities help to fill human needs for support and connection
Describe McMillan and Chavis (1986) 4 domains of sense of community
- Membership
- Influence
- Integration and fulfilment of needs - demonstrated by shared values within community
- Shared emotional connection - Positive contact between members
Describe the ‘membership’ domain of McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) sense of community
- In groups and out groups
○ A feeling that one has invested part of oneself to become a member and therefore has a right to belong
- Implies exclusion - not everyone will fit into each group
- We try to be as inclusive as possible but all communities need boundaries, need shared norms and world views. If people can’t hold those same world views for whatever reason (e.g. religion etc.) then it is better to make that explicit
Describe the ‘influence’ domain of McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) sense of community
A bidirectional concept whereby the individual has some influence over the group, and the group has influence over the individual
Describe the ‘integration and fulfilment of needs’ domain of McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) sense of community
Or ‘reinforcement’ the sense that the individual group association is rewarding for members
Demonstrated by shared values within community
Describe the ‘shared emotional connection’ domain of McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) sense of community
A complex, multifactor sense of mattering based on a shared history
E.g. within family
Positive contact between members
