Edited by Stephanie Taylor, Friday, 26 Jan 2018, 14:43
This week's blog
for DD317, Advancing social psychology, introduces
a new academic group in the School of Psychology and explains why its members
see society and culture as central concerns for psychology.
Social psychologists in the School of psychology at the
OU have formed a new group to promote their shared interests. The group is to
be called CUSP which stands for 'Culture and Social Psychology'. Culture and
society might seem surprising foci for psychologists – shouldn't they just be
looking at people? But in the group's view, people are always in society – whether
we think of that as the micro- or local level of being with other people,
perhaps interacting one to one, or, alternatively, as referring to a larger
scale context of more complex interconnections. Social situations vary in scale
and kind, and nowadays, of course, they include virtual interactions, for
instance, on social media.
Society is important for the research of CUSP academics
engaged in some very different projects. For example, they examine society in
terms of groups, and particularly the 'us' vs 'them' groups invoked in
discussions of migration, or sectarian tensions. Their research addresses high
profile social issues, like sexual harassment. And recently they have been studying
Brexit, viewing it as an issue for British society, and the societies of other
member-states of the EU, and also an issue for a European society (though of
course some people would question whether that last version of society actually
exists, while others would claim it as an important context of their
experience).
For CUSP academics, culture generally refers to knowledge
and practices which have developed over time, persist into new situations and
also change. Most people have a fairly clear idea of what constitutes a family,
for example, and the roles of family members, like parents and children – but
what cultural change is involved when, say, children in multilingual families
take on the role of interpreting for their parents? Or when a child's peer
interactions take place on social media so that, suddenly, an enormous audience
of strangers may be influencing their self-image and confidence? What 'culture
of silence' is operating in situations when young people who are 'at risk' can
call for help but somehow go unheard? How are work cultures, and working
lives, changing in the era of the gig economy when 'work' can refer to a job
lasting a few hours, made available through an app, rather than a permanent
contract with an employer? And what is the relationship of knowledge and
practices to the things, or artefacts, associated with a particular culture?
CUSP's interest in culture is therefore not a reference
to art, music and literature (sometimes distinguished as 'high culture')
although those can also be of interest, for example, because of their relevance
to the identities of groups in society. Similarly, cultural artefacts like
books, film and photos can be intimately linked to history and our view of what
happened in the past, remotely and recently. For example, if one picture can
tell a story, as the saying goes, there can be questions about WHAT story is
being promoted by a particularly vivid image (like a child in a war zone), and
who has made the decision that we will see it, and what interests are attached
to our acceptance of that story and not a different version. So culture becomes
linked to power and to values, including who or what is (accepted as) good or
right or important. These are all concerns for CUSP academics.
Social psychology as a social and cultural field
This week's blog for DD317, Advancing social psychology, introduces a new academic group in the School of Psychology and explains why its members see society and culture as central concerns for psychology.
Social psychologists in the School of psychology at the OU have formed a new group to promote their shared interests. The group is to be called CUSP which stands for 'Culture and Social Psychology'. Culture and society might seem surprising foci for psychologists – shouldn't they just be looking at people? But in the group's view, people are always in society – whether we think of that as the micro- or local level of being with other people, perhaps interacting one to one, or, alternatively, as referring to a larger scale context of more complex interconnections. Social situations vary in scale and kind, and nowadays, of course, they include virtual interactions, for instance, on social media.
Society is important for the research of CUSP academics engaged in some very different projects. For example, they examine society in terms of groups, and particularly the 'us' vs 'them' groups invoked in discussions of migration, or sectarian tensions. Their research addresses high profile social issues, like sexual harassment. And recently they have been studying Brexit, viewing it as an issue for British society, and the societies of other member-states of the EU, and also an issue for a European society (though of course some people would question whether that last version of society actually exists, while others would claim it as an important context of their experience).
For CUSP academics, culture generally refers to knowledge and practices which have developed over time, persist into new situations and also change. Most people have a fairly clear idea of what constitutes a family, for example, and the roles of family members, like parents and children – but what cultural change is involved when, say, children in multilingual families take on the role of interpreting for their parents? Or when a child's peer interactions take place on social media so that, suddenly, an enormous audience of strangers may be influencing their self-image and confidence? What 'culture of silence' is operating in situations when young people who are 'at risk' can call for help but somehow go unheard? How are work cultures, and working lives, changing in the era of the gig economy when 'work' can refer to a job lasting a few hours, made available through an app, rather than a permanent contract with an employer? And what is the relationship of knowledge and practices to the things, or artefacts, associated with a particular culture?
CUSP's interest in culture is therefore not a reference to art, music and literature (sometimes distinguished as 'high culture') although those can also be of interest, for example, because of their relevance to the identities of groups in society. Similarly, cultural artefacts like books, film and photos can be intimately linked to history and our view of what happened in the past, remotely and recently. For example, if one picture can tell a story, as the saying goes, there can be questions about WHAT story is being promoted by a particularly vivid image (like a child in a war zone), and who has made the decision that we will see it, and what interests are attached to our acceptance of that story and not a different version. So culture becomes linked to power and to values, including who or what is (accepted as) good or right or important. These are all concerns for CUSP academics.
You can read about the work of the School’s social psychologists on our webpage. We teach it in our new Level 3 module DD317 Advancing social psychology. To learn more about the module, you can watch a video here https://youtu.be/dbzF4hBeBkk and you can do this short course available on Open Learn: DD317_1 Social psychology and politics: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/social-psychology-and-politics/content-section-0