How psychosocial locus standi is determined by Socio-cultural and Socio-Economic factors

1. DEBDULAL DUTTA ROY, PH.D
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH UNIT
INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE
KOLKATA
INDIA
E-MAIL: DDROY@ISICAL.AC.IN
Socio-Cultural & Socio-Economic Dimensions
of Psychosocial Locus Standi : Lecture note

2. 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.

3. Effect of Socio-cultural and Socioeconomic factors
on Psychological locus in disaster management
Threat and
opportunity
perception,
Self efficacy,
Need
preference
SOCIOECONOMIC
FACTORS
-Income level
-Occupation
- Religion, caste
- Education
- Housing condition
SOCIO CULTURAL
FACTORS
- Norm
-Customs
-Attitudes
-Values MITIGATION
PREPARED
NESS
EMERGENCY
RECOVERY
Dr. D. Dutta Roy, Indian Statistical Institute,
Kolkata

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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).

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. Attitude change theories
● Classical conditioning
●Operant conditioning
●Cognitive dissonance theory
●Persuasive communication
●Theory of planned behaviour

14. Classical Conditioning

15. Operant Conditioning

16. Cognitive Dissonance Theory

17. Persuasive Communication and Power

18. 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.

19. 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.