Premium
Applied Social and Community Interventions for Crisis in Times of National and International Conflict
Author(s) -
Olson Bradley D.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2002.00032.x
Subject(s) - immediacy , enthusiasm , psychological intervention , psychology , political science , social psychology , prejudice (legal term) , international community , public relations , law , politics , philosophy , epistemology , psychiatry
This article discusses the social, community, national, and international psychological implications of the great energy and movement in our country after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. To determine ways that applied psychologists can have a positive effect on the crisis, Kurt Lewin's (1948; 1951) concept of locomotion at community and national levels is used to discuss the need for interventions that will produce driving factors to continue movement toward positive helping behaviors, and restraining factors when this momentum leads to potentially dangerous responses to the conflict (e.g., group think, an overextended enthusiasm for war, a sense of psychological immediacy or nonimmediacy for victims, and prejudice against Muslim individuals). The author offers ten approaches that applied psychologists could use to drive, restrain, and guide locomotion in this and similar crises both in the United States and abroad.