DEBDULAL DUTTA ROY, PH.DASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH UNITINDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE

KOLKATAINDIA

E-MAIL: DDROY@ISICAL.AC.IN

Socio-Cultural & Socio-Economic Dimensions of Psychosocial Locus

Standi : Lecture note

Disaster Management Cycle

Mitigation involves identification of areas exposed to natural hazards with help of specialists for example, priority hospitals and critical health facilities. Suitable measures are to be taken to inform & sensitize & train those personnel involved in planning, administration, operation, maintenance through curricula.

Preparedness focuses on preparing equipment and procedures for use when a disaster occurs. This equipment and these procedures can be used to reduce vulnerability to disaster, to mitigate the impacts of a disaster or to respond more efficiently in an emergency.

The aim of emergency response is to provide immediate assistance to maintain life, improve health and support the morale of the affected population. Such assistance may range from providing specific but limited aid, such as assisting refugees with transport, temporary shelter, and food, to establishing semi-permanent settlement in camps and other locations. It also may involve initial repairs to damaged infrastructure.

The recovery phase starts after the immediate threat to human life has subsided. The immediate goal of the recovery phase is to bring the affected area back to normalcy as quickly as possible.

Effect of Socio-cultural and Socioeconomic factors on Psychological locus in disaster management

Threat and opportunityperception, Self efficacy,

Need preference

SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS-Income level -Occupation- Religion, caste- Education- Housing condition

SOCIO CULTURAL FACTORS- Norm-Customs-Attitudes-Values MITIGATION

PREPARED NESSEMERGENCYRECOVERY

Dr. D. Dutta Roy, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Conflict types

PSYCHOLOGICAL(Inter/intra individual)●Double approach●Double avoidance●Approach-Avoidance●Double approach-avoidance

SOCIOLOGICAL•Intergroup•Intragroup•Inter institution•Intra institution•Individual and group/institution

D. Dutta Roy, isi, Kolkata

What is socio-cultural environment ?

●A socio-cultural environment is a population, and it is described with special attention paid to social and cultural factors.

●It includes cultural norms, demographic information and religious information. This is sum total of a set of beliefs, customs, practices and behavior that exists within a population.

●One of the difficult jobs in disaster management is to control community fear, panic and conflict.

●Therefore, understanding of socio-cultural environment of affected people is important.

What is culture ?

●The term 'culture' refers to attitudes and patterns of behavior in a given group.

●Culture is a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors.

What is cultural norm ?

●From a sociological perspective, social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society.Social psychology recognizes smaller group units, such as a team or an office, may also endorse norms separate or in addition to cultural or societal expectations.In other words, norms are regarded to exist as collective representations of acceptable group conduct as well as individual perceptions of particular group conduct.They can be viewed as cultural products (including values, customs, and traditions) which represent individuals' basic knowledge of what others do and think that they should do.

●Norm' refers to attitudes and behaviors that are considered normal, typical or average within that group. All societies have cultural norms.

How can we explore the cultural norm ?

●Observation●Informal interview●Case study●Survey report analysis●Studying the poetries, songs, music●Studying their heritage●Studying their geographic location and life

styles

Psychological norm

●Norms is the "mental representations of appropriate behavior". It guides to promote pro-social behavior, including decreasing alcohol use, and increasing voter turnout, and sustainability.

●According to the psychological definition of social norms' behavioral component, norms have two dimensions: ○ how much a behaviour is exhibited, and ○ how much the group approves of that behavior.

●Both of these dimensions can be used in normative messages to alter norms and subsequently alter behaviors; for example, a message can target the former dimension by describing high levels of voter turnout in order to encourage more turnout. At the same time, norms also can be changed contingent on the observed behavior of others (how much behavior is exhibited).

What is Attitude ?

●Attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related.

Attitude Components

There are three components of attitude - cognitive, affective and behavioural.  

The cognitive component consists of the person’s thought process, perceptions and beliefs, and evaluations about the attitude object. For example, students may think that emergency team  provides adequate space to stay in the common room.

The affective component gives an emotional or feeling aspect to the attitude which, results in an object being liked or disliked. In the example of adequate space in above, affected people may feel warmth or liking for the community room.

The behavioural component refers to the tendency to act towards the object in a consistent and characteristic way. Again, following the above example, affected people student may want to move to the community hall.

Characteristics of attitude

●Valence: It is the degree of positive or negative feeling about an attitude object that predicts what attitude scales normally measure.●Centrality: It is the extent to which an attitude is a part of a person’s self-concept and reflects the individual’s identity.●Interrelatedness: It is the extent to which an attitude is related to a person’s other attitudes.●Stability: It is simply an attitude’s resistance to change.●Salience: It is a person’s conscious awareness of the attitude.

Attitude change theories

● Classical conditioning●Operant conditioning●Cognitive dissonance theory●Persuasive communication●Theory of planned behaviour

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Persuasive Communication and Power

Theory of Planned Behaviour

●When people have time to contemplate how they are going to behave, the best predictor of their behavior is their intention, which is determined by three things: their attitudes toward the specific behavior, their subjective norms, and their perceived behavioral control.

Summary

Formulation of Social policy and its dissemination requires understanding of the psychological locus standi of the user. Psychological locus standi is determined by socio-cultural and socio-economic factors.Attitude, value and change in belief system can be made following five theories namely, Classical, Operant, Cognitive dissonance, Persuasive and theory of planned behaviour.