SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY

Social psychological theory and research findings can help to understand and change students' alcohol consumption

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Social psychological theory and research findings can help to understand and change students' alcohol consumption

Introduction

Psychologist's uses psychological theories by first looking at the culture of the society. Once they completely study the culture of any society, then they give the theories accordingly (Miller 2009, pp. 23-56). Culture has been defined as the unique values, symbols, lifestyles, institutions, and other human-made components that distinguish one group from another, and has been shown to influence cognitive and behavioural development. Although it got widely recognized that varying degrees of heterogeneity may exist within racial groups, it is also commonly acknowledged that regularities in values and behaviours may be shaped by individual and group participation in cultural experiences and practices (Irvine 2002, pp. 69-88). One cultural context that greatly influences cognitive development is the European public school. Far from being culture free, instruction in mainstream schools represents specific cultural values and beliefs, particularly individualism and competition.

However, because families are considered to contribute most directly to the early socialization and education of children, these mainstream values may not reflect the ethnic values of many racial, ethnic minority students. For example, the specific cultural themes that have been found to be present and preferred in the home socialization activities of the London students and their parents include collectivism (Burke 2006, pp. 102-154). Finally, the research on culturally relevant pedagogy suggests that many racial, ethnic minority students prefer culturally relevant learning environments which in turn improve their engagement in school. In addition, a very limited number of studies indicate that academic performance enhanced for racial, ethnic minority students who are exposed to their home cultural values at school. However, regardless of these findings, the majority of public school teachers continue to utilize mainstream cultural values in their classrooms. Therefore, in order to increase academic performance, researchers have called for the use of culturally compatible instructional practices for racial, ethnic minority students in schools and for classroom instruction that reflects students' out of school, or home, cultural values and behaviours. Sometime, students during their school times start consuming alcohol because of their company of friends. It is mostly the culture in schools, which indulges these students into the consumption of alcohol. Psychologist has come up with the theories which will help these students to change their minds towards the consuming alcohol.

Discussion

Then psychologists have first studied the reason for students consuming alcohol during their school life. They understood that how alcohol affects the emotion and behaviour of these students. Initially they took out the theory known as “tension reduction hypothesis”, which stated that “alcohol directly affects emotion, reducing tension and thereby disinheriting behaviour.” Psychologists have used alcohol myopic theory as well to reduce the amount of consumption of alcohol among students.

Reasons for consuming alcohol by students

In the last decade in United Kingdom, there has been an increase in the consumption of alcohol among young people aged 15 to 34 ...