PSYC3032 LEC02: Social Cure & Social Curse

Biopsychological Model of Health

• 12 month prevalence: According to data from Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), 20% of Australians experience mental health issues in any given 12-mont period.

• Lifetime prevalence: Estimated at over 40% of Australians experiencing mental health conditions at least once across their lifespan.

Tripartite Level Analysis

• Biological - physiological and genetic substrate - Family history, genetic mutations, brain chemistry

• Individual differences/psychological - micro level and personal characteristics - cognitive style, personality traits, individual life stressors

• Sociocultural/group processes - macro and micro level social structures - macro level structural factors (e.g. nationality, age group, profession), micro level group dynamics, social psychology and group identification

Strategic Advantages of Social Psychological Solutions

• Cost-effectiveness

• reduced stigmatisation

• improved treatment access

• enhanced treatment compliance and relapse prevention

• evidence based efficacy

Social Identity & The Social Cure Framework

The Social cure framework posits that an individual’s social identities derived from meaningful group memberships serve as primary psychological resources that directly influence health, well-being and longevity .

Five Core Functional Pathways of the Social Cure

1. Determinant of Symptom Appraisals and Responses: Social identity determines how physiological sensations are interpreted, whether they are labeled as illness and what action should individuals take.

2. Determinant of Health-Related Norms and Behavior: Group norms dictate health behaviors, including exercise, substance use, diet and treatment-seeking.

3. Basic fro Social Support: Social support is given, received and interpreted as helpful primarily when provider and receiver share a salient social identity

4. Coping Resource: Group identification acts as a psychological buffer against external stressors, trauma and discrimination.

5. Determinant of Clinical Outcomes: social identity directly impacts biological indicators, recovery trajectories, cognitive decline rates and mortality rates.

Social Identity Model of Stress & Transactional Appraisal

Self-categorisation Theory (SCT) explains when individuals view themselves as individual entities (I) versus group members (We)

• Primarily Appraisal (‘‘ Is this stressful’’):

- Personal Identity Salient: Framed as ‘‘Is this stressful for me?”
- Social Identity Salient: Framed as ‘‘Is this stressful for us?” (evaluated based on implications for group survival and group goals)

• Secondary Appraisal (‘‘Can I/we cope?”):
  - Personal identity salient: Framed as “ Can I cope?” (evaluated solely via personal resources).
  - Social Identity Salient: Framed as ‘‘ Can we cope?” (evaluated via group resources, collective efficacy and group capacity for mutual support)

Ingroup Informational Support & Stress Appraisal

• Method: Students performed a challenging mathematics task after receiving a message indicating that the task was highly stressful. Thes message was experimentally manipulated to originate from either an in-group source (fellow student) or an out-group source.

• Key findings: Reported stress and physiological strain were only influenced by informational support when the communication originated from an in-group source. Informational support from an outgroup source failed to alter stress appraisals.

• Takeaway: Social support buffers stress appraisal selectively based on shared identity.

Age-Related Self-Categorisation & Cognitive Performance

• Haslam, Morton, Haslam, Varnes, et al. (2012) tested how age-related self-categorization and group expectations impact cognitive diagnostic performance in older adults.

• Key findings:
  - Cognitive test performance in older adults is not biologically fixed; it fluctuates based on group-related beliefs and stereotype salience.
  - Age-based self-categorization paired with negative group expectations induces acute cognitive underperformance.
  - Clinical warning: standard clinical evaluations for dementia may yield false-positive impairments if age-related stereotype threat and self-categorization dynamics are not controlled.

Pitfalls of Group Membership

While social identification can function as a social cure, it can also act as a social curse

• Exhaustion and Self-Jeopardy: high identity salience and a desire to live up to group norms can cause members to jeopardise their own physical well-being (e.g. overworking, extreme endurance, refusing medical rest).

• Outgroup Bullying: Enforcing rigid in-group norms frequently manifests as hostility or bullying toward outgroup members who do not embody those norms.

• Collective Failure: When a group fails to achieve core in-group goals, highly identified members experience severe psychological distress and heightened stress.

Health Consequences of Stigma & Discrimination

• Lowered Self-esteem

• Elevated depression and anxiety

• Increased general psychological distress

• Reduced overall life satisfaction

Self-Protective Properties of Stigma

Crocker and Major (1989, 1991) established that stigmatized group members can employ specific cognitive strategies to protect self-esteem:

1. In-group comparison: comparing outcomes with fellow in-group members rather than advantaged outgroup members.

2. Selective devaluation: Devaluing attributed/demensions on which the in-group performs poorly and overvaluing attributes where the group excels.

3. Attribution to Prejudice: Attributing negative feedback to external outgroup prejudice rather than lack of personal competence.

Empirical Demonstration (Crocker & Major, 1991)

Results: women receiving negative feedback from a male assessor believed to be sexist showed significantly lower depression ratings and preserved self-esteem compared to those receiving negative feedback from non-sexist assessor. Attributing poor outcomes to outgroup prejudice buffered internal self-worth.

The Rejection-Identification Model (RIM)

• Direct Negative Path: Experiencing discrimination directly harms personal self-esteem and well-being (-).

• Indirect protective Path: Experiencing discrimination increases group identification and solidarity with fellow disadvantages members (+).

• Buffering outcome: Heightened group solidarity directly enhances self-esteem (+), partially or completely offsetting the harmful impacts of discrimination.

• Empirical Scope: Validated across diverse stigmatized cohorts, including African Americans, women, international students and individuals with visible body piercings.

Self-Categorisation as "Homeless" (Walter et al., 2015)

• Label Acceptance Distribution:
  - 55% rejected the label ‘‘ homeless ‘‘ (e.g. ‘‘ I have options…I choose to live here because its safest”)
  - 31% Accepted the label (e.g. ‘‘I don’t have stable accommodation…don’t have a place I call home’’)
  - 14% ambivalent about the label (e.g. ‘‘ You’ve still got a roof…sleeping in the gutter is really homeless’’)

• Well-being outcomes: Evaluated on the personal wellbeing index and life satisfaction scale:
  - residents who rejected the stigmatized label displayed the highest personal well-being and life satisfaction.
  - residents who accepted the label displayed the lowest well-being scores.
  - Conclusion: Internalizing a severely stigmatized social identity exacerbates the social curse.

Concealable vs. Non-Concealable Stigma (Frable et al., 1998)

Frable, Platt, and Hoey (1998) differentiated concealable stigmas (e.g., sexual orientation, eating disorders, low SES) from non-concealable stigmas (e.g., racial minority status, obesity, stuttering).

• Non-conceable stigmas produce higher base rates of depression and lower social confidence due to uninterrupted exposure to external social devaluation.

• Concealable stigmas introduce chronic psychological strain associated with concealment anxiety and fear of disclosure.

Social Integration and Cognitive Health (Ertel et al., 2008)

Ertel, Glymour, and Berman (2008) tracked over 16,000 older adults across a 6-year longitudinal study and older adults with the highest social integration experienced 50% less memory decline over 6 years compared to socially isolated peers.

Social Contact vs. Social Identification (Sani et al., 2012)

Sani, Herrera, Wakefield, Boroch, and Gulyas (2012) conducted a landmark empirical study distinguishing physical contact from psychological identification:

• Social Contact - frequency of physical contact/interaction with family members - no significant relationship (contact alone does not predict health)

• Social Identification - subjective psychological sense of belonging and identification with family - statistically significant protection (predicts lower depression/stress and higher life satisfaction)

• Core lesson: Health is not determined by mere physical interaction with other human beings; it is governed by psychological identification with shared social group.

Social Identification in Workplace Settings

Costs of Workplace III-Health

• Individuals: physical/psychological suffering, lost income, medical bills.

• Organizations: Absenteeism, sick leave costs, employee turnover, degraded productivity

• Society: Increased healthcare system expenditure, reduced economic output, degraded social cohesion.

Meta-Analytic Evidence of Social identification in workplace setting

Steffens, Haslam, Schuh, Jetten, and van Dick (2016) conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis examining organizational identification and employee health: