Psychologists are drawn to social issues when the latter directly affect them or when they become reform-minded regarding existing social problems. The study of social issues by psychology has the positive effects of nugging psychologists to make contributions to their field by way of new concepts and/or approaches and of bringing psychologists` interest close to the real problems of the society. The study of social issues are distinct from action research or applied social psychology in approach, and it can emphasize either the description or the prescription aspect or both. The study of social issues can use any of the following: (1) analysis of social phenomena by use of established behavior principles, (2) experimental analysis of social issues, and (3) description of social issues.
In order to find the important social problems in current Korean society, 336 items pertaining to social problems were developed from free responses and the checklist was administered to the stratified national sample of 1182 college srudents and their parents in 5 regional areas. Subjects were asked to check the important social problems based upon their subjective judgment with the number of checked items unlimited. The results showed that the most important social problems are①environmental pollution, ②injustice and corruption of the politicians, ③traffic problems, ④educational problems, ⑤crime, ⑥relative deprivation, ⑦rural problems, ⑧adolescent and nonconformity, among others. It was also found that there were age, sex and regional differences in perceived social problems. The main findings were compared with the previous studies of 1980's and 1990's and the changes in social problems during that period were discussed.
The passage of the political reform act made the righteous consciousness and behavior of people more important for the establishment of clean political climate in the future. The problems of unhealthy and weak citizenship and behavior of people that had been intertwined with the problems of the structural and systemized irrationality in politics are identified as follows: the problems of requesting as well as receiving the monetary and treating offers, abstention from voting, spreading unrooted negative propaganda, voting based on regional relationship with the candidates and finally, the paid political canvassers and the bogus audiences at campaigning places. The psychological mechanisms involved in these problems are diverse: the fact that in our collectivistic culture, the morality judgment of behavior often relies on how the majority thinks and behaves, the confusion of the 「bribery」with「etiquetteㆍsincerityㆍrespect」, the lowing of voting efficacy, the increase in political helplessness, and finally the misled political identification based on regional relationship with the candidates. It is proposed that to further more active and mature citizenship and political behaviors of people, the expansion and activation of civil movement for clean election and politics, the education and the political socialization of children from the early ages through role playing in fair school elections and finally, more support for the research on political behaviors and attitudes are needed.
The terminal goal of an economic behavior is to promote human happiness. The sound consumption not only increases a satisfaction of an individual consumer but(also) the state economy and social welfare. To pychologically recognize the excessive consumption which is recently prevaling as a serious social problems in Korea, we analyze a value of materialism and meaning of money to the Korean people. As per the mistaken purpose and method related to the consumption behavior, we classify them into following 4 types to understand each psychological mechanism. 1. Conspicuous consumption for the purpose of winning public respect and recognition. 2. Prestige consumption for the purpose of social esteem and escalated status. 3 Sympathized consumption for keeping pace with other consumers by purchasing the popular brand used in a majority group. 4. Consumption relying on the advertisement. Consumer prefers to buy the frenqently-advertised goods, nevertherless he/she does not put any faith in them. Finally we present a few subjects to be solved by 3 main-economic agents-government, business and consumer for resettling the healthy culture of consumption.
A pervasive feature of Korean society is nepotism. Blood ties, alumni groups, and territorial ties are major mechanisms of nepotism in Korean society. The purposes of this study were (1) to analyze the negative effects of nepotism on the development of Korean society, (2) to explicate the psycho-social bases for nepotism, and (3) to explore an alternative way of dealing with nepotism. Empirical data regarding nepotism were analyzed. Exclusiveness of nepotic ingroup and sense of deprivation of isolated group were discussed as the negative effects of nepotism. The psycho-social bases of nepotism were explicated from familism and collectivist-individualist perspectives. Task oriented value systems and behavioral norms were suggested as an alternative to the personal realtionship based on nepotic network. Decentralization and empowerment were proposed as an alternative to nepotism. Development of a new and more inclusive community ethos was discussed.
Although actual numbers of school administrators and teachers involved in corruption and misbehaviors in education are few, they exert an important effect on many Korean parents and students directly or indirectly or indirectly. Therefore many researches and symposiums have been held recently to correct these phenomena. But the main theme of these efforts focus on the educational system and teachers. This article dealt with parents` misconceptions about education and the cultural basis which fosters these misconception. The distinctive characteristics of oriental culture might be summarized as collectivism and relation/situation-orientedness. The main features of Korean traditional culture may be characterized as collectivity, emotionality, shamanism and confucious tradition. Therefore in Korea the views, needs and goals of the ingroup are more important than those of oneself. In these cultural climate, Korean parents keep doing misbehavior on education although they themselves know it is not good. They think that other parents also misbehave, that doing differently from other parents may exert bad effect on their children, and that to pass the very competative entrance examination to university, they have to do their best economically. Therefore this article suggested that one of the best way of preventing misbehaviors and corruptions in education is to encourage parents` determination that they do not misbehave, even though others do. And, Korean culture should changed in the direction of putting emphasis upon individual`s needs and opinions so that traditional collectivistic value become harmonious with new individualistic value.
This acticle looks into problems related to women in the patriarchal Korean family. Discussion centers around the status of women in the family in terms of family norms, family structure, the division of domestic labor, and the Family Law. When examining the change in the status of Korean women, it becomes evident that despite certain development such as improved education levels and increased participation in society that have led to a substantial progress in the statue of women in a formal sense, this progress remains to be reflected in the actual conditions surrounding women's daliy life at home. This can be attributed to a certain cultural existing in our society as a whole-namely, the disparity between the formality and practice that spills over into the women's sphers as well. The author suggests a relative deprivation theory can be applied to analyze women's sense of entitlement and their use of comparative referents in interpersonal relations. This analysis would provide insights on the psychological mechanism for reproduction of women's subordination in family.
Conflicts among religious groups are a potential source of social issue, since religious plurarity is prevalent in Korea. Identifying the stereotypes among the three largest religious groups would be helpful to improve religious harmony in Korea. Five hundred and sixty five respondants were sampled and asked to choose stereotypic merits and demerits of Protestants, Buddists, and Catholics from given 32 religious relevant traits. Protestants' merits were chosen as solidarity, devoted, active, sociable, and sincere and their demerits were chosen as demanding, clamorous, exclusive, and weak traditional. Buddist's merits were chosen as quite, generous, picious, and traditional and their demerits were chosen as conservative, weak solidarity, passive, idolatrous. Catholics' merits were chosen as quite, picious, peaceful, devoted, and frugal and their demerits were chosen as conservative, passive, political, and obstinate. Other related questions such as religious consitency between family, forecasting of three religious power in 10 years, and religious activity were also discussed.