Poverty is a persistent social issue that policymakers have turned to psychology for help in addressing. This has spurred an upswing in research on the psychology of poverty over the past 15 years, leading to a maturing evidence base on how the conditions of resource scarcity and other forms of socioeconomic adversity shape decision-making and its underlying psychological mechanisms. This paper reviews this work, while arguing for an expansion in focus from the individual to the wider economic, cultural, and political forces that generate and sustain poverty in the first place. Drawing on perspectives from psychology, behavioral ecology, and political economy, it puts forward a socioecological psychology of poverty that articulates how the experience of socioeconomic adversity is shaped by the interplay of welfare institutions and related societal narratives, social policy design and implementation, and proximal material and social conditions.
When and how does people's hope for change drive social transformation? This question has gained urgency amidst the profound sociopolitical crises of the 21st century, including escalating intergroup conflicts, accelerating environmental degradation, and mounting threats to democracy. Our comprehensive synthesis of research on hope's role in social change suggests that in most cases hope is positively associated with attitudinal and behavioral markers of social change, but that this association is stronger when (1) the levels of hope stay in the scope of possibility rather than probability, (2) hope does not function only as regulating mechanism, (3) negative emotions like fear and anger are also activated, (4) the hope appeal is especially strong, and (5) the object of hope (i.e., what people hope for) closely matches the assessed outcomes. We also raise questions about the fit of existing conceptualizations of hope to social change research and offer the bidimensional model of hope as a conceptual framework that we believe is more suitable for exploring hope in social and political contexts. Finally, we explore the implications for advocacy and policymaking, suggesting strategies to harness hope to advance democracy, equality, and peace.
There have been persistent mental health disparities for Black and African American communities in the United States. For instance, Black communities continue to have unmet mental health needs compared to other groups and may not receive adequate support and quality treatment. These discrepancies in treatment and support drive mental health inequities, which have rippling social and economic consequences. To inform research and policy that improves mental health equity among Black communities, there is a need for bottom-up and top-down approaches that are driven by community members and policymakers, respectively. This paper aims to (1) briefly highlight examples of top-down efforts and bottom-up approaches and (2) provide specific, actionable policy recommendations based on empirical scholarship. Proposed strategies include public initiatives, professional development in mental health fields, and future research endeavors, with discussion of the current sociopolitical context.
Many explanations have been offered for the rising prevalence of mental health complaints. I present an account that attributes some of this increase to historical changes in mental health-related concepts that are propelled by broad cultural trends. I argue that rising attention to harm, coupled with the pervasive influence of the mental health industry, has led to concepts of mental health and illness becoming increasingly expansive. This process of "concept creep" promotes the adoption of diagnostic identities and a tendency to over-pathologize experience and behavior. These trends not only increase the number of people who are identified as having mental health problems and seek treatment for them but may also worsen mental health through a range of self-fulfilling and iatrogenic processes. I review research that demonstrates the semantic inflation of mental health-related concepts and the potential adverse implications of broad concepts. I conclude by proposing steps that policymakers should consider in response.
In this paper, I propose a multidimensional model of cultural appropriation, including psychological antecedents of appropriation, policy-level moderators, and implications for racial oppression. In terms of antecedents, I discuss how colorblind racism, aversive racism, and system justification contribute to two dimensions of cultural appropriation: cultural exploitation (high-status actors extracting from minoritized communities) and cultural dominance (low-status actors engaging in dominant cultural practices). Next, I discuss policy-level moderators to counteract these antecedents to reduce acts of cultural appropriation such as placing importance on the role of education and research, introducing legislation that focuses on minoritized groups’ heritage preservation and human rights, and changing institutional norms and organizational climates. This multidimensional framework proposes practical solutions for policy and practice to mitigate implications of racial oppression, including preventing manifestations of intergroup harm, improving hostile intragroup relations, and reducing appropriated racial oppression and stigma internalization.
