Social issues

A society simply refers to a group of people who live together in a group. In psychology, research on these groups takes place to try and understand how groups influence people’s behaviour. For example, much research has taken place since the riots of 2011, which affected many cities in the UK. Findings from studies like these can help us to predict behaviour and therefore avoid potential issues in the future that might be brought about by groups.

What is a social issue?

As you may have guessed by this point, a social issue is a problem or conflict which affects a group of people rather than just an individual. For example, a social issue which currently gets a lot of media attention, is that of gang culture. Whilst this might affect people on an individual level, it also affects society because of the problems that it brings in terms of crime and drug usage. Other examples of social issues include:

• Poverty
• Homelessness
• Substance abuse
• Antisocial behaviour
• Unemployment

Obedience

Milgram’s research enables us to understand why some people may blindly obey those they see as authority figures despite what the consequences of this may be. For example, a young member of a gang may do exactly what the gang ‘leader’ tells them to as they are seen as superior to them and they fear the consequences of not obeying.

Conformity

Conformity has been studied in great detail since the riots of 2011, as some of the people who were involved were those whose behaviour was extremely out of character. People were under the effect of informational influence, where they look to others about how to behave in a situation which may be unfamiliar to them. This is why many took part in looting and the damage of property; the individuals felt a need to fit in with what was happening around them.

Deindividuation

In a group, a person’s identity becomes less important as they take on the identity of the group. As we saw in Zimbardo’s Stamford Prison experiment, this can cause people to behave in ways that they would not normally because they felt anonymous because of the uniforms they wore, in the case of the ‘guards’.

It is thought that the larger a group becomes, the more deindividuation occurs, which is why riots can become more and more aggressive.

Bystander effect

This effect was observed in Nazi Germany during World War II when many German people knew that Jewish people were being persecuted but did not help or intervene.

This is thought to be because the German people did not understand the severity of the acts that were taking place and therefore diffused responsibility onto other people (pluralistic ignorance). German people may also have evaluated the situation and concluded that to intervene was too risky to their own life, as they may have been killed for helping the Jewish people.