1. Social psychology in justice

Studies of forensic psychology (psychological study of judicial issues) show that participants in a judicial process are inevitably influenced by many factors other than objectivity and an impartial search for truth and justice.

Our perceptions, memories, and interpersonal behavior are influenced by cognition and emotions.

Among the consequences of this influence are biased judgments, reliance on stereotypes.

The same influences manifest themselves both in the courtroom and in the laboratory, their consequences greatly affect the outcome of the trials.

Some aspects of the study of forensic psychology.

The media and the perception of crime.

Criminal information is spread and easily digested. The media daily remind us that crime is a serious problem that threatens anyone; Accessibility heuristics work easily when we make assumptions about the spread of crime and its danger.

Among the reasons for the influence of the media on the perception of crime is a pronounced tendency of people to believe what they read in the newspaper, heard on the radio or saw on TV.

Negative information to a greater extent forms our judgments about morality than positive.

The problem of the accuracy of the testimony of witnesses.

Witnesses are often mistaken.

Strong emotions caused by the situation can interfere with information processing.

Another factor is the hypothesis of "cognitive deficit."

The accuracy of the testimony is influenced by the time period between the event and the trial.

Numerous sources of post-event information contribute to the memory of the additions that are digested as a subjective “truth”, reducing the accuracy of the readings.

Accuracy is reduced if the suspect and the witness belong to different racial or ethnic groups.

The influence of lawyers and judges on the jury's verdict. The outcome of the trial is affected by what the opposing lawyers and judges say or do.

This influence is not limited to clarifying the essence of the evidence and legal subtleties.

They try to select not the most competent citizens as jurors, but those who will support their side, and exclude those who favor the opposite side.

Even experienced lawyers choose jurors that correspond to positive stereotypes (based on factors: type of activity, age, appearance, gender, race).

Influence of the characteristics of the defendant on the jury's verdict.

In the courtroom, the appeal of the defendant is an important factor.

Stereotypes and sympathy influence the outcome of lawsuits.

Attractive defendants, unlike the unattractive, are more likely to be acquitted, get a light sentence or win the sympathy of the jury.

The impact of attractiveness is strongest in cases of serious but not serious crimes.

2. Economic psychology

Political economy studies production relations in close connection with the productive forces, and these relations are regarded as independent of the will and desire of man.

This means that questions about how these relations are represented in the psychology of people, whether human psychology has any influence on economic relations, political economy, are of little interest.

As for psychological science, people's relations have always been the focus of attention of the latter, but they are usually considered outside the economic context.

The natural and close interaction of economics and psychology led to the emergence of a new direction in modern science — economic psychology.

Economics and psychology have a common field for research search - the behavior of individuals and social groups.

Emotions affect the motivations, decisions and actions of economic subjects.

The task of economic psychology is to apply a psychological method to assess economic reality and develop models or systems of psychological influence on the economic world.

Economic psychology, whose “parents” are economics (theoretical and applied) and psychology, includes the following interrelated aspects of the study:

1) the motives, or motives of activity, of an economic person;

2) the economic consciousness of the individual, which is formed on the basis of life experiences, accumulated experience, overcoming difficulties;

3) the unconscious beginning in the psyche of the individual and the masses (illusions, excitement, fears and psychosis), arising from the events fixed in the memory, interconnections, emotions;

4) economic behavior, active volitional actions, purposefully changing the environment.

Economic psychology reveals the process of cognition of economic reality, consisting of perception, representation and thinking, offers appropriate methods of action.

Economic psychology has a lot in common with medicine.

Biomedical research and discoveries create effective means of combating diseases, are a guide for medical practice.

The accumulation of knowledge in the field of economic psychology makes it possible to overcome the difficulties of communication, to solve the problems of raising the standard of living, employment, labor discipline, and to improve economic policy.

Economic psychology is becoming an intensively developing search direction.

It is used both in fundamental theoretical studies, for example, in the development of the concept of marginalism, and in the study of the fields of management and marketing.

Special areas of macroeconomics have become a subject of attention.

A new scientific direction allows us to find explanations of facts and motivations that economics and psychology cannot take, taken separately, for example, rejection of certain seemingly favorable political decisions by the population.

3. Features of social psychology policy

Political psychology is a branch of social psychology that studies psychological phenomena and processes that function in the process of struggle for power in society and are reflected in its political consciousness.

Russian psychology proceeds from the fact that politics is an organizational and regulatory and control sphere of society, one of the most important in the system of other spheres.

Politics is implemented in the struggle for power in society.

In the course of the latter, the political consciousness of the whole society and its individual representatives is formed.

Political consciousness is a system of theoretical and everyday knowledge, assessments, attitudes and feelings, by means of which there is an awareness of the sphere of politics by social subjects (individuals, groups).

The essence of political consciousness is the result and the process of reflecting political reality, taking into account the social interests of people.

Functions of political consciousness:

1) cognitive function - is intended to represent a system of knowledge about the surrounding political activities of people;

2) estimated - contributes to the orientation of people in political life;

3) regulatory - provides them with guidance on their participation in political activities;

4) integrating - contributes to the unification of social groups of society on the basis of common values, ideas, attitudes;

5) predictive - creates a basis for predicting the content and nature of the development of political phenomena and processes;

6) normative function - serves as the basis for the formation of a generally accepted image of the political future.

The totality of all political and psychological phenomena that make up the subject of political psychology can be viewed in a broad and narrow sense.

In a broad sense, these include:

1) the psyche of a person involved in various types of political activity;

2) changes in the psychology of groups of people and socio-psychological processes arising in the course of their struggle for power and political activity.

In a narrow sense, the subject of political psychology is those psychological phenomena that arise in the process of the functioning of specific political phenomena and processes.

These are psychological features, patterns and mechanisms of political activity, the actual struggle for power, the activity of social and political movements.

The area of ​​the subject of political psychology is outlined in four areas: motivational, intellectual and cognitive, emotional-volitional and communicative-behavioral.

Western psychological science has accumulated more than in our country, the experience of analyzing and understanding political and psychological phenomena.

According to G. Lebon, many people who have embarked on the path of political activity are under its strong influence.

A popular government in the interest of more effectively guiding these people must clearly and clearly represent the psychology of large masses of people against whom a very specific political influence should be directed.

Attached to the study of political phenomena and processes of his theory of psychoanalysis and 3. Freud.

Power - the ability and ability (of an individual, group, class, nation, party, state, etc.) to exercise their will through authority, law, violence, and other means, exerting a directing influence on the behavior of people in society.

Social properties of power: universality; functioning in all spheres of public relations; the ability to penetrate into all activities, connect people, community groups and oppose them.

Power functions :

1) dispositional function is expressed in a variety of prescriptions, instructions, recommendations, imperatives, prohibitions that determine the political activity of people;

2) the psychological function of power is the implementation of leadership relationships;

3) epistemological function is embodied in the combination of knowledge and will.

They define the essence of power.

Knowledge gives power prudence, perseverance, predictability.

Will gives her organized activity;

4) the organizational function of power is realized in building up the order, level of organization;

5) the political function is implemented in the exercise of influence, coercion, motivation of people and their political activity in accordance with the actual balance of power.

The task of the authorities is to directly resist destruction, crisis, neutralize tension, conflicts through direct or indirect influence on people, their unification or separation. strive for the maximum stability of society and its individual parts, contribute to their improvement, consolidation, progress.

Principles of power :

1) the principle of conservation. They don’t part with their own hands, voluntarily, they fight for power;

2) the principle of effectiveness. A person who has power does not bow down to difficulties and circumstances, he copes with them;

3) the principle of legitimacy. The best way to keep power is to rely on the law, lawmaking;

4) the principle of internal non-freedom. A person with authority does not belong to himself. His free will is limited;

5) the principle of forethought ;

6) the principle of "antifortissimo." The power of power is not equivalent to the power of power. The best type of power is legal;

7) the principle of secrecy involves the avoidance of revelations of those in power. Adherence to this principle allows you to distance yourself from the masses.

Political power is a form of social relations, characterized by the ability of a social subject (individual, group, nation, party, etc.) to induce other social subjects to actions that ensure their interests or the interests of society as a whole.

The functions of political power - the formation of the political system of society; the organization of his political life; management of public affairs at different levels.

Political power has a psychological nature, as it exists in the form of perceptions and experiences of an individual (groups of people), from complex, culturally shaped, individual and socio-psychological characteristics of individuals over which power is exercised.

Four spheres of political psychology: motivational, intellectual and cognitive, emotional-volitional and communicative-behavioral.

In the struggle for power in the course of political activity, people can show different activities.

Political motives that incline people to seek power, to participate in its implementation can be egocentric (orient an individual to follow narrowly personal goals in political activity) and sociocentric (aimed at achieving good for some wider group of people: nation, class, specific region).

Political psychology distinguishes between :

1) positive or negative reactions of people to impulses emanating from the political system of society, from its institutions or their representatives, not related to the need for high human activity;

2) the activity associated with the delegation of political powers, i.e. the electoral behavior of people;

3) participation in the activities of various political and social organizations;

4) the performance of political functions within the institutions that are part of the political system of society or acting against it;

5) direct activity in the composition of political movements, directed against the existing political system, having as its main goal its fundamental restructuring.

Of all forms of political activity in the political systems of Western countries, electoral behavior is distinguished.

In our country, in conditions of rapidly changing political relations, such forms of political activity appear as rallies, strikes, hostage-taking, riots, and riots.

Socio-psychological types of people who are distinguished by their attitude to political activity and other forms of power struggle:

1) people active in all areas of life, including politics;

2) people active in any areas, but passive in politics;

3) individuals who have a weak interest in non-political areas of life, but very politically active;

4) people are passive both in politics and outside it.

The attribution of people to the politically active and passive is based on the consideration of individual psychological characteristics of the person.

Political activity is determined by the political attitudes of people, their political behavior, stability of political life, political trust, existing in society.

Classification of people according to their attitude to power :

1) apolitical people who sharply negatively relate to personal participation in the struggle for power, as a rule, are not interested in the latter and know little about it;

2) citizens who passively refer to the authorities perceive it negatively or neutrally; they are not interested in the political problems of society.

From apolitical they differ in that they are well socially informed;

3) competent observers are interested in politics, understand its meaning, they clearly represent all the positive and negative aspects of the struggle for power, are well informed about them.

They do not seek to take part in political life, the struggle;

4) opponents of the struggle for power have a sharply negative attitude towards politics in general and the struggle for power in particular;

5) politically active people take the position of a constant search for power.