Mani and colleagues (2013) found that Indian sugarcane farmers scored higher on cognitive tests after the harvest than before it. The finding supports:

The scarcity hypothesis that financial strain taxes cognitive capacity

Berry's marginalisation strategy

The gender similarities hypothesis

The scarcity hypothesis that financial strain taxes cognitive capacity

Osgood's GRIT strategy for reducing international tension involves:

Announced, unilateral conciliatory steps that invite reciprocation

Matching every hostile act with a stronger one

Refusing all negotiation until the other side surrenders

Dehumanising the opponent to build internal unity

The social model of disability holds that disability results mainly from:

Barriers and attitudes in society that exclude people with impairments

The individual's biological impairment alone

Assertion (A): Women's mathematics performance can fall when a negative stereotype about women and mathematics is made salient before a test. Reason (R): Stereotype threat — the fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group — consumes working-memory resources and raises anxiety. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

Walker's (1979) cycle of violence in abusive relationships consists of:

Tension-building, an acute incident, and contrition and reconciliation

Honeymoon, crisis, recovery and adjustment

Tension-building, an acute incident, and contrition and reconciliation

Alarm, resistance and exhaustion

Labelling, stereotyping and separation

Emerging Areas I: Gender, Poverty, Disability and Migration; Cultural Bias and Discrimination; Stigma, Marginalisation and Social Suffering; Child Abuse and Domestic Violence; and Peace Psychology

Unit 10 opens: "Issues of Gender, Poverty, Disability, and Migration: Cultural bias and discrimination. Stigma, Marginalization, and Social Suffering; Child Abuse and Domestic violence. Peace psychology: Violence, non-violence, conflict resolution at macro level, role of media in conflict resolution." These are topics where psychology meets social justice, and this chapter treats them as research areas — the key theories (gender schema, scarcity, the social model of disability, Berry's acculturation strategies, Goffman's stigma, Galtung's structural violence) and the findings that support them — written academically and without graphic detail.

1. Gender, poverty, disability and migration

Gender, poverty, disability and migration
Issue	Key psychological theories and findings
Gender	Sex is biological, gender socially constructed. Sandra Bem's gender schema theory (1981) and her Sex Role Inventory, which introduced psychological androgyny (high on both masculine and feminine traits); Eagly's social role theory traces stereotypes (men agentic, women communal) to the division of labour; Glick and Fiske's ambivalent sexism has hostile and benevolent forms; stereotype threat — first shown by Steele and Aronson (1995) with African American students — lowered women's mathematics scores when the stereotype was made salient (Spencer, Steele and Quinn, 1999); Hyde's gender similarities hypothesis (2005) found most psychological sex differences small.
Poverty	Mullainathan and Shafir's scarcity theory: scarcity captures attention and imposes a "bandwidth tax" on cognition. Mani and colleagues (2013) found that Indian sugarcane farmers performed better on cognitive tests after harvest than before it, when money was short. Durganand Sinha and others studied the cognitive and motivational effects of prolonged deprivation in India; Oscar Lewis's "culture of poverty" has been criticised for blaming the poor.
Disability	The medical model locates disability in the individual's impairment; the social model locates it in barriers and attitudes that exclude people with impairments; the WHO's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF, 2001) combines body functions and structures, activities, participation and contextual factors. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) and India's Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (which recognises 21 conditions) take a rights-based view; ableism is prejudice against disabled people.
Migration	John Berry's acculturation model crosses two questions — is it valuable to maintain one's heritage culture, and to have contact with the larger society? — giving four strategies: integration (yes, yes), assimilation (no, yes), separation (yes, no) and marginalisation (no, no). Integration is usually associated with the least acculturative stress. Oberg described culture shock (honeymoon, crisis, recovery, adjustment); refugees face added trauma, and internal rural–urban migration in India brings its own adjustment stresses.

Cultural bias and discrimination cut across all four. Prejudice is an attitude, a stereotype a belief and discrimination a behaviour. Contemporary bias is often subtle: aversive racism (Gaertner and Dovidio) in people who sincerely endorse equality but discriminate when it can be justified on other grounds, implicit bias measured by the Implicit Association Test, and institutional discrimination built into rules and practices. Psychological tests themselves can carry cultural bias when their content or norms favour one group, which is why culture-fair tests and local norms matter.

2. Stigma, marginalisation and social suffering

Erving Goffman (Stigma, 1963) defined stigma as an attribute that is deeply discrediting, reducing a person "from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one" — a spoiled identity. He distinguished three types: abominations of the body (physical deformities), blemishes of individual character (for example mental illness, addiction, imprisonment) and tribal stigma (race, nation, religion, transmitted through lineage). Link and Phelan (2001) described stigma as the co-occurrence of labelling, stereotyping, separation ("us" versus "them"), status loss and discrimination in a situation of power. Patrick Corrigan distinguished public stigma from self-stigma, in which people internalise the stereotype and lose self-esteem and self-efficacy (the "why try" effect); families experience courtesy stigma by association.

Marginalisation is exclusion from full social, economic and political participation. Its psychological effects can be measured: in a study in India by Hoff and Pandey, low-caste boys solved as many puzzles as high-caste boys when caste was not mentioned, but fewer when caste identity was made public — an effect akin to stereotype threat. Social suffering (Kleinman, Das and Lock, 1997) names suffering produced by political, economic and institutional power — poverty, displacement, violence, communal conflict — which psychology misreads if it treats it only as individual pathology; the concept, developed with the anthropologist Veena Das, insists that such distress be understood in its social and historical context.

3. Child abuse and domestic violence

The World Health Organization distinguishes four forms of child maltreatment: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional (psychological) abuse and neglect — the last being the most common in many surveys. Consequences documented by research include post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety, insecure and disorganised attachment, impaired emotion regulation, lower academic achievement and later health problems; the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies found a graded relation between the number of adversities and adult ill-health. Risk factors cluster at several levels — parental stress, substance use, mental illness and a history of being maltreated (though most maltreated children do not become abusive parents), social isolation, poverty and community violence. Protective factors include a supportive adult and community resources; prevention includes home-visiting and parent-training programmes. In India the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 provides the legal framework for child sexual abuse.

Domestic violence, and its main form, intimate partner violence, includes physical, sexual, psychological and economic abuse and coercive control (Stark) — a pattern of domination through isolation, monitoring and intimidation. Lenore Walker (1979) described a cycle of violence of tension-building, an acute incident, and a phase of contrition and reconciliation, and linked victims' difficulty in leaving to learned helplessness; later research stresses concrete barriers such as economic dependence, fear of escalation, social stigma and concern for children. The Duluth "power and control wheel" frames abuse as a system of control rather than isolated anger. Children who witness partner violence show effects similar to direct abuse. India's Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 provides civil remedies, including protection and residence orders.

ℹ️ How these topics are treated here

The syllabus asks for the psychology of abuse and violence — definitions, classifications, research on causes and consequences, and prevention. This chapter stays at that level and does not describe incidents in detail.

4. Peace psychology

Peace psychology studies the prevention of violence and the promotion of peace (Christie, Wagner and Winter, 2001). Johan Galtung distinguished direct violence (physical harm by identifiable actors), structural violence (1969: harm built into social structures — poverty, inequality, lack of access to health and education — that prevents people from meeting their potential) and cultural violence (1990: the beliefs and symbols that legitimise the other two). Correspondingly, negative peace is the absence of direct violence and positive peace the presence of social justice. Christie contrasted episodic peacemaking (reducing direct violence) with structural peacebuilding (reducing structural violence).

Violence, non-violence, macro-level conflict resolution and the media
Topic	Key ideas
Violence and its psychology	Enemy images and mirror-image perception (Bronfenbrenner, 1961: Americans and Soviets described each other in almost identical terms); dehumanisation and Bandura's mechanisms of moral disengagement; group identity and threat.
Non-violence	Gandhi's ahimsa and satyagraha — non-violent resistance that seeks to convert rather than defeat the opponent, through self-suffering and truth; Erikson's Gandhi's Truth (1969) examined its psychology; research finds non-violent campaigns have often succeeded more than violent ones.
Conflict resolution at the macro level	Osgood's GRIT (graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction, 1962): announced, unilateral conciliatory steps invite reciprocation; principled negotiation (Fisher and Ury: separate people from the problem, focus on interests not positions, invent options for mutual gain, use objective criteria); integrative versus distributive bargaining; mediation and Track II diplomacy; interactive problem-solving workshops (Burton, Kelman); superordinate goals and structured contact; truth and reconciliation processes.
Role of the media	Media can incite — the radio broadcasts that dehumanised Tutsis before the 1994 genocide in Rwanda — or build peace. Galtung contrasted war journalism (violence-oriented, "us versus them") with peace journalism (conflict-oriented, giving voice to all parties and exploring solutions). Paluck (2009) found in a field experiment that a Rwandan reconciliation radio soap opera changed listeners' perceived social norms about intermarriage, open dissent and trust, though not their personal beliefs.

Key takeaways

Gender research covers gender schema and androgyny (Bem), social role theory, ambivalent sexism and stereotype threat; poverty imposes a cognitive "bandwidth tax" (scarcity); disability is framed by medical, social and ICF models; Berry's acculturation strategies are integration, assimilation, separation and marginalisation.
Discrimination is often subtle — aversive racism, implicit bias and institutional discrimination — and tests can carry cultural bias.
Goffman's stigma is a spoiled identity of three types; Link and Phelan list labelling, stereotyping, separation, status loss and discrimination under power; self-stigma produces the "why try" effect; social suffering locates distress in social forces.
Child maltreatment comprises physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect; intimate partner violence includes coercive control and Walker's cycle of violence; both are addressed in India by the POCSO Act, 2012 and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
Peace psychology uses Galtung's direct, structural and cultural violence and negative versus positive peace; non-violence draws on Gandhi; macro-level resolution uses GRIT, principled negotiation, Track II diplomacy and superordinate goals; media can practise war or peace journalism.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

In Berry's model, an immigrant who maintains her heritage culture while also participating actively in the wider society is adopting which acculturation strategy?
1. Separation
2. Integration
3. Marginalisation
4. Assimilation
Show answer
Answer: B — Integration
Maintaining the heritage culture and seeking contact with the larger society is integration. Assimilation gives up the heritage culture, separation avoids the larger society, and marginalisation has little interest in either.
Galtung's term for harm built into social structures — such as poverty and unequal access to health care — that prevents people from meeting their potential is:
1. Negative peace
2. Direct violence
3. Structural violence
4. Coercive control
Show answer
Answer: C — Structural violence
Structural violence (1969) has no single identifiable perpetrator; it is built into institutions. Direct violence has an actor, negative peace is merely the absence of direct violence, and coercive control is a pattern in intimate partner abuse.
Which of the following are the three types of stigma distinguished by Goffman (1963)? Select all that apply.
1. Blemishes of individual character
2. Tribal stigma
3. Abominations of the body
4. Stereotype threat
Show answer
Answer: A — Blemishes of individual character; B — Tribal stigma; C — Abominations of the body
Goffman's three types are abominations of the body, blemishes of individual character and tribal stigma of race, nation or religion. Stereotype threat is Steele and Aronson's later concept.
Mani and colleagues (2013) found that Indian sugarcane farmers scored higher on cognitive tests after the harvest than before it. The finding supports:
1. Berry's marginalisation strategy
2. The gender similarities hypothesis
3. The culture-of-poverty thesis
4. The scarcity hypothesis that financial strain taxes cognitive capacity
Show answer
Answer: D — The scarcity hypothesis that financial strain taxes cognitive capacity
The same farmers performed worse when money was short and better once it was not, so the difference reflects the cognitive load of scarcity rather than any stable trait — the "bandwidth tax" of Mullainathan and Shafir.
Osgood's GRIT strategy for reducing international tension involves:
1. Announced, unilateral conciliatory steps that invite reciprocation
2. Matching every hostile act with a stronger one
3. Refusing all negotiation until the other side surrenders
4. Dehumanising the opponent to build internal unity
Show answer
Answer: A — Announced, unilateral conciliatory steps that invite reciprocation
Graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction: one side announces and carries out small concessions, inviting the other to reciprocate, while keeping the capacity to retaliate — de-escalating a conflict spiral step by step.
Which of the following are components of stigma in Link and Phelan's (2001) conceptualisation? Select all that apply.
1. Peace journalism
2. Superordinate goals
3. Status loss and discrimination
4. Labelling
Show answer
Answer: C — Status loss and discrimination; D — Labelling
Link and Phelan list labelling, stereotyping, separation, and status loss and discrimination, all occurring within a power situation. Superordinate goals and peace journalism are tools for reducing conflict.
The social model of disability holds that disability results mainly from:
1. Personal lack of motivation
2. Genetic inheritance
3. Barriers and attitudes in society that exclude people with impairments
4. The individual's biological impairment alone
Show answer
Answer: C — Barriers and attitudes in society that exclude people with impairments
The social model shifts attention from the impairment to the environmental, attitudinal and institutional barriers that create disability; the medical model locates it in the individual. The ICF integrates both.
Assertion (A): Women's mathematics performance can fall when a negative stereotype about women and mathematics is made salient before a test. Reason (R): Stereotype threat — the fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group — consumes working-memory resources and raises anxiety. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A: making the stereotype salient induces stereotype threat, whose cognitive and emotional costs lower performance — which is why the effect disappears when the test is described as showing no gender differences.
Walker's (1979) cycle of violence in abusive relationships consists of:
1. Honeymoon, crisis, recovery and adjustment
2. Tension-building, an acute incident, and contrition and reconciliation
3. Alarm, resistance and exhaustion
4. Labelling, stereotyping and separation
Show answer
Answer: B — Tension-building, an acute incident, and contrition and reconciliation
Walker described a recurring cycle of tension building, an acute episode and a remorseful, loving phase that encourages the victim to stay. The other sets are Selye's GAS, Oberg's culture shock and Link and Phelan's stigma components.
Journalism that frames a conflict as a contest of "us versus them" and focuses on violence and victory is what Galtung called:
1. Track II diplomacy
2. Peace journalism
3. Principled negotiation
4. War journalism
Show answer
Answer: D — War journalism
Galtung contrasted war journalism — violence- and elite-oriented, dichotomising — with peace journalism, which explores the conflict's causes, gives voice to all sides and highlights solutions.