Elucidate the applications of social psychology to the various social problems.

 Application of Social Psychology to Social Problems

Poverty

Poverty has been researched by a variety of disciplines as one of the world's most pressing social issues. Although poverty is a fundamental concept in economics, it has recently emerged as one of the most important research areas in the social sciences. Poverty, like many other social problems, is linked to a variety of psychological processes and causes. The social-psychological approach to poverty is thought to aid in the development of various poverty-fighting road maps.

Poverty is defined as the lack of source in terms of power money or in other resources. In other words, poor people face many consequences of poverty such as their exploitation, dependency, unemployment, health issues, racism, discrimination, numerous crime, less power and lack of voice. From psychological point of view, poverty affects human cognition in many aspects such as lack of confidence, low socioeconomic status (SES) low educational attainment (because of low family income), and low IQ scores, low self-esteem, depressed, stressed or less involvement in social interaction. Additionally, poverty can lead to poor mental health in children and adults due to societal stresses, stigma, and trauma. Mental health issues can also occur due to poverty through job loss or underemployment, as well as the disintegration of social relationships.

As we know that, one of the primary goals of any healthy society is to alleviate poverty. The social sciences have attempted to generate information that can be applied to alleviate poverty. Poverty has been the subject of economic studies. On the other hand, it is a psychological issue as well. Individual and social processes that occur under conditions of poverty are the subject of the social psychology of poverty.

Unemployment

It is a situation in which an individual want to do work (placement and others) but they do not get any work according to their profile. The term ‘profile’ refers to education, qualification, requirement and basic criteria. It may reduce the development or progress of any country. Unemployment is the worst problem in social reforms. It mainly impacts on our youner generation because even if they are searching for job they are unable to get any work. The psychological consequences of unemployment on human being are feeling depressed, emotions, insecure, low confidence, agitation or frustrated. As a result, the risk of poor mental health, financial crisis, passivity in the labour market, increased risk of social exclusion, exploitation of youth and insufficient resources. To overcome from the unemployment it is important to provide social support, help, approach of new unemployment placement in government or private sector, applying new activities or values of qualification and significantly, provide suitable job for suitable candidate according to the requirement. The action should be imposed to protect the unemployed youth. Unemployment is the origin cause of poverty; it is directly or indirectly proportional to poverty.

VIOLENCE

Violence is a from of aggression, a physical threat in the form of abuse, harm, damage, injuries by physical force or power. It is defined as the ‘attack ‘on an intentional behaviour on others physically, sexually, psychologically and emotionally. Violence can be done by any person to harm others including other human being and animals in any place of the world. Social psychological theories helps to understand the aggressive behaviour of an individual or a group and understand its effect on situational factors or consequences in mental health and social functioning. According to WHO (World Health Organization), violence has its three main categories:

1. Self-directed violence: Violence inflicted by an individual on self. For example, self abuse, attempted suicides or suicidal related thoughts.

2. Interpersonal violence: Violence done by others. For example, organized group.

3. Collective violence: Violence inflicted by small or a large group. For example, terrorist acts.

Criminal Behaviour

Criminal behaviour refers to the term ‘crime’. It involves any activity which is an awful, illegal or unlawful and not acceptable by society or other authorities. Criminal behaviour indicates the person’s psychology who are involved in criminal activity such as homicide, hunting, assault, rape, sexual harassment, murder, burglary, larceny, vehicle theft, arson, robbery, and property crime. Both factors can be identified in criminal behaviour, the biological and psychosocial factors among individuals.

The biological factors of individual that forces an individual to indulge in crime are -: temperament, impulsive, lack of empathy and no self respect. For example, a person who is taking substance abuse i.e alcohol, drugs and medication.

The psychosocial factors which may be responsible for crime related activites are -: the feelings of stress, hopelessness, depression and insure.

Generally, this is associated to physhical health issues e.g. heart diseases.

Criminal psychology, another name of criminal psychology is the study by which provides the deeply information about the thoughts, feelings, behaviour, intentions, actions and responses of criminals.

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