To be able to facilitate understanding and application of relevant perspectives drawn from social psychology in order to develop practice in working with gangs.

1. Understanding Social Psychological
Approaches/Perspectives in the
Context of Gang Impacted
Environments
Day 4
EUGangs Training the Trainers

2. Learning Outcome:
• To be able to facilitate understanding
and application of relevant
perspectives drawn from social
psychology in order to develop
practice in working with gangs

3. To Begin With…A Quick Exercise…
• What did you do for lunch today?
• Consider the above question in relation to 2 concepts:
• A. the idea of ‘free will’ – ie you did consciously do
exactly what you wanted
• B. the idea of ‘determinism’ – ie that the decisions and
choices you made were strongly influenced by
circumstances including unconscious motives
• So, how much control did you have over your ‘lunch’
today?

4. Free Will v Determinism
• These two dimensions are at the heart of the
different psychological perspectives, research
and approaches
• As Democritus said (in 440BC, cited in Russell
1996):
• “Nothing occurs at random, but everything for
a reason and by necessity”.

5. An Introduction to the ‘Main’
Perspectives/Approaches:
• 1. The Psychodynamic (Psychoanalytical)
(often known as the 1st force in psychology)
• 2. The Behaviourist/Behavioural (known as the
2nd force…)
• 3. The Humanistic (Person-Centred) (known as
the 3rd force…)
• And More Recently…
• 4. The Cognitive/Cognitivist Approach
• And finally…
• 5. The Integrative Approach

6. And here’s some context to each…
• The Psychodynamic…can be traced back to the
work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), founder
of Psychoanalysis…
• Key concepts include:
• Defences, Dreams, Hidden Meaning,
manipulative, The Unconscious,
Symbols, Avoidance

7. And now to Freud, and the
Psychodynamic Approach
• Freud’s approach emphasises:
• The role of the unconscious
• Personality as the result of a dynamic
interplay of conscious and unconscious
factors.
• Psychosexual stages of development

8. Freud, and the Psychodynamic
Approach Continued…
• Freud suggests that personality is made up of and interplay
between 3 elements:
• The ‘Id’ – unconscious psychic energy, basic level instinct,
immediate gratification
• The ‘Ego’ – conscious perceptions, thoughts, judgements
and memory which controls the ‘id’ for socially acceptable
behaviour
• And
• The ‘Super Ego’ – moral values, right and wrong, guilt and
pride and our conscience which demands ideal standards
• This approach is deterministic in the sense that it views
behaviour as controlled by the unconscious

9. Visualising Freud’s ideas…as an
iceberg…

10. • The Behavioural/Behaviourist Approach…
• Is based on the scientific learning theories of
Russian psychologist I. P. Pavlov (1849 – 1946)
and American psychologists J. B. Watson and
B.F. Skinner, the founders of Behaviourism
• Key concepts include…
• Behaviour, Homework, Goals, Step-by-step,
Making Plans

11. And now on to Behaviourism
Behaviourists believe that our
environment determines most of our
behaviours. We repeat behaviour that is
rewarded, and we do not repeat
behaviour that is not rewarded.
Therefore we can be conditioned to behave in
particular ways

12. Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
borrows a lot from this tradition:
Albert Bandura
Basic assumption
we learn not through
reinforcement, but through the
observation of models.
Bandura, Ross (1963) Bobo
Doll study

13. • So in regard to young people
in gangs…
• …Do you think any of these
approaches have anything to
offer?

14. • The Humanistic Approaches…
• Are developed by a group of American
psychologists in the 1950s such as Carl Rogers
(1902 – 1987), founder of the Person-Centred
Approach
• Key concepts include…
• Active listening, Non-judgemental,
Empathy, Genuine, Client-centred, Non-interpretative

15. The Humanistic Perspective
“The forces that direct behaviour reside within
us when social conditions do not block or
distort them” (Gross, 1987, p. 940)
The pure self The conditioned self
The
phenomenal
field
The
phenomenal
field shaped
by social
conditions

16. Carl Roger’s Person-Centred
(Humanistic) Approach:
• “If I can provide a certain type of
relationship, the other person will discover
within {themself} the capacity to use that
relationship for growth, and change and
personal development will occur.”
• (Rogers, 1961, p. 33, On Becoming a Person)

17. • “Humanistic theories of personality maintain
that humans are motivated by the uniquely
human need to expand their frontiers and to
realise as much of their potential as
possible.”
• (Sanders, P. (2002) First Steps in Counselling
PCCS Books, Ross-on-Wye)

18. Roger’s Three Core Conditions:
• - Realness in the facilitator of learning (ie
genuineness)
• - Prizing, acceptance, trust (ie being non-judgemental
– ”a non possessive caring”)
• - Empathic understanding (ie empathy)
• (adapted from Rogers 1983, pp 121-126,
Freedom to Learn for the 80’s)

19. • So, let’s pause to consider whether the
person-centred approach can help in gang-related
environments?
• What about issues of trust?
• What about health and safety…and
boundaries?

20. • The Cognitive Approach…
• Emphasises the role of thoughts in mental
processes. These were developed by Aaron Beck
and Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive
Behaviour Therapy
• Key concepts include…
• Irrational beliefs, Homework, Positive
thinking, Making plans, Logical thinking

21. • Whereas behaviourists classically
ignored thoughts, feelings and other
mental states and processes, those
trying to change behaviour in ‘cognitive’
ways focus on them
• The Cognitive approach encourages us
to change our way of thinking (from
negative to positive or from irrational to
rational).

22. Cognitivism/The Cognitivist
Approach:
• A. T. Beck and the better known Albert Ellis
challenged the behaviourist approach in the
1960’s & 1970’s.and developed the cognitive
approach.
• Cognition is the psychological term for thinking.
• Ellis developed Rational Emotive Behaviour
Therapy (REBT) .

23. Some key principles of the Cognitive
approach:
• If people learn to think more constructively
about their own ideas and feelings, this can be a
step towards learning how to monitor, manage
and change them, and the behaviour that
results.
• We are happiest when the things we do help us
achieve personally meaningful goals.
• The ‘therapist’ helps us identify our irrational
beliefs and challenges them (link with Emotional
Intelligence).

24. • Cognitivist techniques enable people to:
• Think through, for themselves, the reasons
why they behave the way they do
• Make decisions about what they really want
out of life
• Consider whether there are any more
effective ways of achieving those ends

25. • And so, what do you think about Cognitivist
approaches in relation to gang-impacted
environments?
• How can you enable others to change their
way of thinking and therefore their
behaviour?

26. • And finally…
• Integrative Approaches…
• Blend components of different approaches, and have been
particularly ‘popular’ since the mid-1970s, popularised by
Gerard Egan, the founder of Developmental Eclecticism
• Key concepts include…
• The idea that …Different people and different
problems need different sorts of help, Getting it
in perspective, Problem-solving
• .

27. And now finally to the Integrative
Approach
• Egan (1975)is the best known for the
Integrative Approach.
• His well known book “The Skilled Helper”
was published in 1975.
• Egan followed the trend set by Rogers and
developed a set of techniques that could be
used to help people in distress.
• This became known as the ‘3 stage level of
helping’.

28. Some key underlying principles for
this approach:
• People have distress due to a lack of personal
skills and living in a destructive social system.
• No one approach can meet all needs.
• You should pick the best from a number of
approaches to suite the client.
• A ‘Helper’ might apply a set of skills and
techniques according to individual need.

29. Egan’s model:
• STAGE/LEVEL ONE –Building and exploring the
‘helping’ relationship; helping clients identify
and clarify problem situations.
• STAGE/LEVEL TWO –New understanding,
different perspectives; helping clients create a
better future.
• STAGE/LEVEL THREE –Helping the client to
develop/use helping strategies; getting there –
helping clients implement their goals.
• Egan developed a key skills theory to help
people manage their problems better. (Adapted
from Egan’s (1994)The Skilled Helper)

30. Urie Bronfenbrenner
• Bronfenbrenner developed his ecological
systems theory (in the 1970s) to explain how
everything in a child and a child’s
environment affects how a child grows and
develops
• He labelled different aspects or levels of the
environment that influence children’s
development.

31. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

32. • The Micro-system has the most direct impact on the child's
development, i.e. parents, family, peers, school and local
community. Interactions within the Micro-system are bi-directional,
for example parental attitudes and behaviours can impact on upon
the individual and vice versa.
• The Meso-system refers to relationships within the micro-systems.
i.e. connections between family experiences to school experiences
and family experiences to peer experiences. For example, those
individuals whose early caregiver experiences involved rejection
may have difficulty developing later positive relationships with
peers or teachers.
• The Exo-system refers to the wider social systems the individual
does not have active interactions with, but which may influence
them indirectly. For example, an individual’s difficult experience at
home may be influenced by their parent losing their job (as a result
of poor economic climates), resulting in fractured interactions due
to increased familial stress.
• The Macro-system refers to the cultural context in which the
individual lives, compromising socioeconomic status, poverty, and
ethnicity. This system can influence interactions within both the
micro-system and exo-system.

33. Bringing it all together in a scene…
• ‘The Interrupters’:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZJTTWX
3JI
• (26.38mins)

34. And Now to Some Experiential
Groupwork
• Andes Survival Kit Exercise:
We have crashed in the Andes Mountains and there
are 5 of us left.
We have all survived unhurt. However, the plane
caught fire after we landed but we were able to
salvage 10 items from the plane.
Your task is to decide what are the most important
5 items for the survival of the group as we trek
towards the nearest town 50 miles away over
mountainous terrain.

35. Andes/continued
• Please give this list in order of importance,
1 to 5.
Equipment to be salvaged from the plane wreck:
• Torch with battery
• A knife with 6” blade
• First Aid Kit
• A football
• Compass
• 4 litre can of water
• A single volume of the complete works of Shakespeare
• A woollen blanket
• 24 ft length of rope
• A pack of digestive biscuits

36. • Debrief, feedback from group members
and individuals.
• What does this ‘snap shot’ tell you about
groups?

37. Understanding Communication in Groups
(Argyle)
• Dominant Personality
• Resists Leads
• Criticises Initiates
• Judges Suggests
• Attacks verbally Advises
• Low affiliation High affiliation
• Evades Helps
• Withdraws Assists
• Opts Out Co-operates
• Remains silent Obliges
•
• Dependent Personality

38. Leadership Behaviour in Groups
• Dependent Dominant
• Ensures physical proximity Talks loudly and/or fast
• Makes body contact Uses confident tones
• Makes regular affirmations Interrupts others
• Uses friendly tone voice Cuts others off before they
have finished
• Personalises conversation Controls topics of
conversation
Avoids disagreements Gives instructions/allocates
tasks