Applied Social Psychology: A Global Perspective

In the past two decades, several books have been written on applied social psychology, the focus primarily being on research and its interpretation in the Western countries, with a clear distinction being made between basic research in social psychology and has applicable, applicability and applied nature of the findings. This latter issue has, however, not always been appreciated by many scholars in non-western parts of the world. As a result, scholars of social psychology in non-Western regions of the world have frequently erred in their judgment of what constitutes the “applied” nature of social psychology. Secondly, applied social psychology depends a great deal on intervention programs that not only invite work beyond the basic, applicable and applicability aspects but also are costly to implement and time consuming. Due to both these reasons, most of the books from the non-Western countries fall short of the true applied aspects of social psychology. In this respect, Applied Social Psychology: a Global Perspective is a pioneering book dealing with applied social psychology from both the Western and the non-Western perspective. The book also points out the limits of non-Western social psychological findings claimed as of Intervention programs. At the same time, the problem, issues and cultural in intervening at the cross-cultural level have been succinctly dealt with. In writing this book, the authors have gone beyond the topics found in traditional textbooks of applied social psychology, for example, applied social psychology of the environment, health, law, education, consumer behavior etc, and have also focused on two extremely important areas of our life, that have otherwise remained neglected in most books on applied social psychology. These are the realms of technology and religion. Another important addition is a chapter on aggression and non-violence. Overall, this book presents a wide range of topics that describe how social psychology can be applied to daily life and its problems. It is expected that this book will not only serve as an ideal textbook for undergraduate and post graduate students but will also prove informative and useful for researchers and professionals from various walks of life.