INSPIRING ACTION: The Role of Psychology in Environmental Campaigning and Activism
Psychologists for Social Responsibility and Friends of the Earth have released a new report of a joint workshop co-sponsored in September 2010. It explores the role that psychology — especially the psychology of human identity — can play in environmental and social campaigns and communications for transformative change. More information is available HERE.
Psychology for Social Change: Strategies That Work–A New PsySR Guide
Psychologists for Social Responsibility has created a new guide — Psychology for Social Change: Strategies That Work. The guide provides important examples of the crucial role that psychological knowledge and best practices can play in addressing today’s urgent social and environmental challenges. It is intended for a broad audience, including policymakers, activists, educators, students, news media, and the general public. More information and a downloadable copy are available HERE.
Books by PsySR Members
PsySR members have written dozens of books covering a wide range of psychological issues. A partial listing of books published since 2001 is available HERE.
The PsySR Herald Archives
For several years through 2008, PsySR published a twice-yearly online newsletter, the PsySR Herald. In more recent years, we have relied instead on regular email updates and our expanded website to communicate about our activities. Past issues of the PsySR Herald are available HERE.
Textbook on Peace, Conflict, and Violence by PsySR Authors
Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century by PsySR members Dan Christie, Richard Wagner, and Deborah DuNann Winter (Prentice-Hall, 2001) is now available for free download in PDF format HERE. This text brings together the key concepts, themes, theories, and practices that are defining peace psychology today.
Social Action: A New E-Journal
Edited by Rebecca Toporek and Tod Sloan, the inaugural issue of the new Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology is now available. The journal aims to bring social action research, practice, and training into the forefront of scholarly discourse in counseling and psychology, and to provide a forum for demonstrating effective social problem interventions.
New “Careers for Greater Good” Brochure
PsySR’s Peace Education Action Committee has created a new “Careers for Greater Good” brochure for high school and college students designed to encourage consideration of the social and environmental consequences of career choices. A PDF version of the trifold brochure is available HERE. A complimentary copy may be requested from the PsySR office, and multiple copies may be ordered for 10 cents each, plus postage. To order, please email info@psysr.org. We welcome donations to PsySR to defray the costs of printing and distributing these brochures.
Torture is for Amateurs
Published by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, in December 2007, this Special Issue of the Journal of Peace Psychology is based on a seminar for psychologists and former military interrogators sponsored by PsySR and Georgetown University. The seminar included four recently retired, senior U.S. Army interrogators–veterans of the first Gulf War and the current war in Iraq, as well as of wars in Vietnam, Grenada, Bosnia and Kosovo–and seven research psychologists from the fields of social, cognitive, forensic, cultural, political and peace psychology.
PsySR’s Handbook on Using Psychology to Help Abolish Nuclear Weapons
This Handbook by Marc Pilisuk and Jamie Rowen, produced upon the auspices of PsySR, is designed to provide information about the potential contribution that psychology can make in our efforts to abolish nuclear weapons.
“Us & Them”: PsySR’s Presenter’s Manual for Moderating Group Conflict
Written by Stephen Fabick and based on a project of the Michigan Chapter of PsySR, this Presenter’s Manual provides tools for intervention before intergroup prejudice and tensions erupt into violence. The program it describes is applicable to an array of problems including religious intolerance, racial tension, ethnic turmoil, and community divisiveness.
Two Important PsySR Manuals: “Dismantling the Mask of Enmity” and “Enemy Images”
These two manuals were prepared by PsySR a decade and a half apart. Both the Cold War era “Dismantling the Mask of Enmity” and the post-9/11 “Enemy Images” (updated in 2004) provide important insights and strategies for dismantling images that limit our thinking about security and that fuel tensions and wars.
PsySR’s Enemy Images Powerpoint Presentation
This powerpoint presentation explores the many psychological aspects of “enemy images” and their relationship to war and peace. It can be a valuable teaching aid and is available HERE.
PsySR Conference Report: Integrating Approaches to Psychosocial Humanitarian Assistance
Psychologists and other mental health professionals are increasingly involved in assisting individuals and communities affected by ethnopolitical warfare and other contemporary forms of violent conflict. This Conference Report explores the many challenges associated with this critical work.
A Graduate Level Curriculum For Trauma Intervention and Conflict Resolution
This Graduate Level Curriculum for trauma intervention and conflict resolution in ethnopolitical warfare was prepared by a joint task force of the American and Canadian Psychological Associations. PsySR served as the secretariat for this important project.
Learn about “Groupthink”
Groupthink occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment” (Janis, 1972, p. 9). Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. PsySR has developed educational materials about Groupthink. An overview is available HERE and a “vaccine” is available HERE.
Books of Special Interest
Working for Peace A Handbook of Practical Psychology and Other Tools
By Rachel M. MacNair and PsySR, Working for Peace is the complete guidebook to the psychology of social activism. It contains expert guidance from 40 active peace workers–psychologists, social workers, and communication specialists. Included are practical tips for every aspect of grassroots peacebuilding.