Psychology and Social Concerns

Psychology and Social Concerns
Poverty and Discrimination
Poverty

• In economic terms, poverty is measured in terms of income, nutrition (the daily calorie intake per person), and the amount spent on basic necessities of life such as food, clothing and shelter, physical health and literacy. 
• In socio-psychological terms, poverty is a condition in which there is a lack of necessities of life in the context of unequal distribution of wealth in society. 
• Following are the additional features of poverty:

1. Deprivation
•  It refers to the state in which a person feels that s/he has lost something valuable, and is not getting something what s/he deserves. 
•  On the other hand, poverty refers to an actual shortage of the resources necessary for living, and thus can be somewhat objectively defined. 
•  In deprivation, it is more a question of perceiving or thinking that one has got less than what one should have got. 
•  Thus, a poor person may experience deprivation, but poverty is not a necessary condition for experiencing deprivation. 
•  The situation of the poor is worsened if they also experience deprivation. In reality, usually the poor also feel deprived. 

2. Social disadvantage 
•  Both poverty and deprivation are linked to social disadvantage.
•  It is a condition because of which some sections of society are not allowed to enjoy the same privileges as the rest of society. 
•  Social disadvantage poses an obstacle to the growth of these sections. 
•  In our society, the caste system has been largely the source of social disadvantage, but poverty, irrespective of caste, has also played a role in creating social disadvantage. 

Discrimination

• Social disadvantage because of caste and poverty has created the problem of discrimination. 
• In the context of poverty, discrimination refers to the behaviour that makes a distinction between the rich and the poor, favouring the rich and the advantaged over the poor and the disadvantaged.
• This distinction can be seen in matters of: 

1. social interaction
2. education
3. employment

• Thus, even if the poor or disadvantaged have the capability, they are kept away from opportunities that are enjoyed by the rest of society. 
• The children of the poor do not get a chance to study in good schools, or get good health facilities, and employment. 
• Social disadvantage and discrimination prevent the poor from improving their socio-economic condition through their own efforts, and this makes the poor even poorer. 

Poverty and discrimination are related in such a way that discrimination becomes both a cause and a consequence of poverty. 
Discrimination based on poverty or caste is socially unjust, and has to be removed. 

Psychological Characteristics and Effects of Poverty and Deprivation 
1. Motivation
•  In terms of motivation, the poor have: 
a) low aspirations 
b) low achievement motivation
c) high need for dependence
•  They explain their successes in terms of luck or fate rather than ability or hard work. 
•  They believe that events in their lives are controlled by factors outside them, rather than within them. 

2. Personality
•  With regard to personality, the poor and deprived: 
a) have low self-esteem
b) are high on anxiety and introversion
c) dwell on the immediate present rather than being future-oriented
•   They prefer smaller immediate rewards to larger rewards in the long run, because in their perception, the future is too uncertain. 
•   They live with a sense of hopelessness, powerlessness, felt injustice, and experience a loss of identity. 

3. Social behaviour
•  The poor and deprived sections exhibit an attitude of resentment towards the rest of society. 

4. Cognitive functioning
•  Intellectual functioning and performance on tasks (such as classification, verbal reasoning, time perception, and pictorial depth perception) is lower among the highly deprived compared to those who are less deprived. 
•   The effect of deprivation is because the nature of the environment in which children grow up — whether it is enriched or impoverished — makes a difference in their cognitive development, and this is reflected in cognitive task performance. 

5. Mental health
•  With regard to mental health, there is an unquestionable relationship between mental disorders and poverty or deprivation. 
•  The poor are more likely to suffer from specific mental illnesses compared to the rich, possibly due to: 
a)  constant worriness about basic necessities
b)  feelings of insecurity
c)  inability to get medical facilities, especially for mental illnesses
•   Depression may be a mental disorder largely of the poor. 
•   The poor experience a sense of hopelessness and a loss of identity, as though they do not belong to society. As a result, they also suffer from emotional and adjustment problems. 

Major Causes of Poverty 
1. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and cyclones, or man-made disasters such as poisonous gas leaks, sometimes cause poverty. When such events take place, people suddenly lose all their possessions and have to face poverty. 

2. One generation of the poor may be unable to eradicate their poverty, and the next generation continues to remain in poverty. 

3. The poor themselves are responsible for their poverty. 
According to this view, the poor lack the ability and motivation to put in effort, and make use of available opportunities. In general, such a view about the poor is rather negative, and does not help at all in making them better. 

4. It is not the individual, but a belief system, a way of life, and values, in which she/he is brought up, that is the cause of poverty. 
This belief system, called the ‘culture of poverty’, convinces the person that she/he will continue to remain poor, and the belief is carried over from one generation of the poor to the next.

5. Economic, social and political factors together account for poverty. 
Because of discrimination, certain sections of society are denied the opportunities needed for getting even the basic necessities of life. 
The economic system is made to grow in a disproportionate way, through social and political exploitation, so that the poor are left out of the race. 
All these factors can be summed up in the idea of social disadvantage, because of which the poor experience social injustice, deprivation, discrimination, and exclusion. 
6. The geographic region in which one lives is said to be a significant cause of poverty. For example, people living in regions (such as deserts) that have a shortage of natural resources and a harsh climate (such as extreme heat or cold) end up being poor. 
This factor cannot be controlled by human beings. However, attempts can be made to help people in such regions: 
-    to find alternative means of livelihood
-    to provide special facilities for their education and employment

7. The poverty cycle is another important cause of poverty that explains why poverty tends to continue among the same sections of society. 
‘Poverty begets poverty’: 
Beginning with a low income and lack of resources, the poor go through low health and nutrition, lack of education, and lack of skills. This leads to low employment opportunities, which, in turn, continue their low income condition, and low health and nutrition status. 
The resulting lowered motivational level only makes the situation worse; the cycle starts and continues again. Thus, the poverty cycle involves an interaction between the factors mentioned above, and results in declining individual motivation, hope, and sense of control. 

Measures for Poverty Alleviation
1. Breaking the poverty cycle, and helping the poor to attain self-sufficiency 
Initially, financial relief, medical and other facilities may have to be provided to the poor. 
Care should be taken to see that this financial and other help does not make the poor dependent on these sources for their livelihood. 

2. Creating a context for making the poor take responsibility instead of blame for their poverty 
This step will help them to regain a sense of hope, control and identity. 

3. Providing educational and employment opportunities, following the principles of social justice
This step may help the poor to discover their own abilities and skills, thus enabling them to come up to the level of other sections of society. 
This will also help in reducing crime and violence by reducing frustration, and by encouraging the poor to earn their livelihood through legal rather than illegal means. 

4. Measures for improved mental health 
Many of the poverty reduction measures help to improve the physical health of the poor, but their mental health still remains a problem to be tackled effectively. 
With greater awareness of this problem, it is hoped that more attention will be paid to this aspect of poverty. 

5. Steps for empowering the poor 
Through the measures mentioned above, the poor should be made more powerful, capable of living independently and with dignity, without depending on the help given by the government or other groups. 

6. The concept of ‘Antyodaya’, or the rise of the ‘last person’ in society, i.e. the poorest or the most disadvantaged, has helped a large section of the poor to get uplifted to a better economic condition than they have experienced earlier. 
Under Antyodaya programmes, there is provision for: 
a)  health facilities
b)  nutrition
c)  education 
d)  training for employment — all the areas in which the poor need help
In addition, the poor are encouraged to start their own small-scale businesses. Initial capital for these ventures is provided through small loans or micro-credit facilities. 
Many of these programmes are more active in rural than in urban regions, as the rural poor have even fewer facilities than the urban poor. 

7.  Following the 73rd amendment of the Constitution, the aim is to give more power to people for their development through decentralised planning, and through people’s participation.
ActionAid, an international group dedicated to the cause of the poor, has goals of: 
a)  making the poor more sensitive to their rights, to equality and justice
b)  ensuring for them adequate nutrition, health, and facilities for education and employment 
The Indian branch of this organisation has been working for poverty alleviation in our country. 

Aggression, Violence, and Peace

• ‘Aggression’ refers to any behaviour by one person/ persons that is intended to cause harm to another person/persons. 

It can be demonstrated in actual action or through the use of harsh words or criticism, or even hostile feelings against others.

• Violence refers to forceful destructive behaviour towards another person or object.
• Difference between Aggression and Violence:

Aggressive behaviour involves the intention to harm or injure another person, whereas violence may or may not involve such an intention. 

• Difference between Instrumental and Hostile Aggression:

In instrumental aggression, the act of aggression is meant to obtain a certain goal or object. 
Hostile aggression is that which is shown as an expression of anger towards the target, with the intention of harming her/ him, even if the aggressor does not wish to obtain anything from the victim. 

Causes of Aggression 
1.  Inborn tendency
•    Aggressiveness is an inborn tendency among human beings (as it is in animals). 
•    Biologically, this inborn tendency may be meant for self-defence. 

2.  Physiological mechanisms
•    Aggression could also be indirectly triggered by physiological mechanisms, especially by the activation of certain parts of the brain that play a role in emotional experience. 
•    A general physiological state of arousal, or feeling activated, might often be expressed in the form of aggression. 
•    There could be several factors that cause arousal. For example, aggression can result from a sense of crowding, especially in hot and humid weather. 

3.  Child-rearing 
•    The way an individual is brought up often influences her/his aggressiveness. 
•    For example, 
Children whose parents use physical punishment end up becoming more aggressive than children whose parents use other disciplinary techniques. This could be because the parent has set an example of aggressive behaviour, which the child imitates. It could also be because physical punishment makes the child angry and resentful; as the child grows up, s/he expresses this anger through aggressive behaviour. 
4.  Frustration 
•    Aggression is an expression, and consequence of frustration, i.e. an emotional state that arises when a person is prevented from reaching a goal, or attaining an object that s/he wants. 
•    The person may be very close to the goal, and yet does not attain it. 
•    People in frustrated situations show more aggression than those who are not frustrated. 
•    An American psychologist, John Dollard along with his collaborators, conducted research specifically to examine the frustration-aggression theory. 
•    This theory proposes that it is frustration that leads to aggression. 
•    Frustrated persons did demonstrate more aggression than non-frustrated persons. 
•    Moreover, such aggression was often shown towards a weaker person who was unlikely, or unable, to react to the aggression. This phenomenon has been called displacement. 
•    Members of a majority group in society may be prejudiced against members of a minority group, and may show aggressive behaviour towards a minority group member, such as using abusive language, or even physically assaulting the minority group member. 
•    This may be a case of displaced aggression arising out of frustration. 
•    However, frustration is not the only, or even a major cause of aggression, as being frustrated does not necessarily make a person aggressive. 

Situational factors that may lead to Aggression:
1.  Learning 
•    Among human beings, aggression is largely the result of learning rather than an expression of an inborn tendency. 
•    Learning of aggression can take place in more than one mode: 
a)    Individuals may exhibit aggression because they have found it rewarding (for example, hostile aggression allows the aggressive person to get what s/he wants). This would be a case of learning through direct reinforcement. 
b)    Individuals also learn to be aggressive by observing others showing aggression. This is a case of learning through modelling. 

2.  Observing an aggressive model 
•    Psychologists such as Albert Bandura and his collaborators show the role of modelling in learning aggression, in their research studies. 
•    If a child observes aggression and violence on television, s/he may start imitating that behaviour. Without doubt violence and aggression shown on television and the film media have a powerful influence on the viewers, especially the children. 

3.  Anger-provoking action by others 
•    If a person watches a movie that shows violence, and is then made to feel angry (for example, through insults or threats, physical aggression, or dishonesty) by another person, s/he may be more likely to show aggression than if s/he is not made to feel angry. 
•    In studies that tested the frustration-aggression theory, provoking the person and making her/him angry was one way of inducing frustration. 

4.  Availability of weapons of aggression 
•    Observing violence leads to a greater likelihood of aggression on the part of the observer only if weapons of aggression like a stick, pistol or knife are easily available. 

5.  Personality factors 
•    Some people seem to be ‘naturally’ more hot-tempered, and show more aggression than others. Aggressiveness is thus a personal quality. 
•    People who have very low self-esteem and feel insecure may behave aggressively in order to ‘boost their ego’. 
•    Likewise, people who have very high self-esteem may also show aggression, because they feel that others do not place them at the high ‘level’ at which they have placed themselves. 
6.  Cultural factors 
•    The culture in which one grows up can teach its members to be aggressive or not by encouraging and praising aggressive behaviour, or discouraging and criticising such behaviour. 
•    Some tribal communities are traditionally peace-loving, whereas others see aggression as necessary for survival. 

Strategies to Reduce Aggression and Violence 
The learning of aggression can be curtailed by creating the appropriate attitude towards the general problem of growing aggression.

 Health

• Various health outcomes are not only a function of disease but the way we think and behave.
• Definition of ‘health’ provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO), includes biological, psychological and social aspects of health. 
• It focuses not only on physical but also on mental and spiritual aspects of health. 
• Health and illness are a matter of degree. 
• One may be suffering from a physically disabling disease but may be quite healthy otherwise.
• People differ across cultures in their thinking about when and how people fall ill and, therefore, in the models which they use in prevention of diseases and promotion of health. 

For example,
-    There are traditional cultures like Chinese, Indian, and Latin American which hold that good health results from the harmonious balance of various elements in the body, and ill-health results when such a balance is lost. 
-    On the contrary, the Western cultures view health as a result of fully functioning machine which has no blockage. 

• The different systems of medicine developed in different cultures are based on these models.
• In developing countries such as in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, more people die due to communicable diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), malaria, respiratory infections, and nutritional deficiencies. 

In the developed countries, the leading causes are various cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and psychiatric disorders. 
These differences are in terms of how these societies are economically and socially structured and their psychological underpinnings. 

• At the individual level, following factors are associated with physical well-being or illness: 

1. Cognitions
•   Some people are quick to seek doctor’s help while others do not if they are suffering from such symptoms as nausea, cold, diarrhoea, smallpox, etc. 
•   The variations in seeking help are due to differences in mental representations people make relating to disease, its severity and the causes of disease. 
•   One may not seek doctor’s help for a cold if one attributes it to eating curd or for leprosy or smallpox if these are attributed to God’s annoyance. 
•   Following factors affect help-seeking behaviour as well as sticking to a doctor’s regimen:
i.  The level of awareness or information about disease
ii.  Beliefs about how it is caused
iii. Beliefs about possible ways of relieving the distress or improving health 
iv. The perception of pain, which is a function of personality, anxiety and social norms

2. Behaviour 
•   Behaviours we engage in and our lifestyles greatly influence health. 
•   People differ greatly in terms of such behavioural risk factors as: 
i.  Smoking or tobacco use
ii. Alcohol and drug abuse
iii. Unsafe sexual behaviour
iv. Diet 
v.  Physical exercise
•   Such behaviours are associated with incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD), cancer, and HIV/AIDS besides many other diseases. 
•   A new discipline called Behaviour Medicine has emerged, which seeks to alleviate stress due to diseases through modification in behaviour. 
3. Social and cultural factors 
•   Social and cultural differences may influence our physiological responses, and may not be the same across all cultures. 
For instance, the relationship between hostility and anger and CHD is not found to be the same in all cultures, (e.g., in India and China). 
•   Social and cultural norms associated with roles, and gender, etc. greatly influence our health behaviour. 
For example, in Indian society, medical advice by or for a female is often delayed because of various reasons:
i.  they are less valued
ii. the belief that they are hardy
iii. the shame associated with the disease

Impact of Television on Behaviour
1. Television is attractive.

2. Television watching may have an effect on children’s (a) ability to concentrate on one target, (b) creativity, (c) ability to understand, and (d) social interactions. 

3. Television viewing on aggressiveness and violence among the viewers, especially children. 

4. Televison has developed a consumerist attitude.