Prejudices are usually negative attitudes towards a particular group. Prejudices lead to discrimination. Both prejudices and discrimination go side by side. If any group becomes a target of a negative attitude, all members belonging to that group are assumed to possess that characteristic. They are based on stereotypes. Stereotypes are considered to have such factors, which lead to negative attitudes or prejudices towards group members. This prejudice and discrimination resulted in the deaths of many innocent people in Germany by the Nazi`s genocide who were against Jews.

As mentioned earlier in the above paragraph, prejudices lead to discrimination. Discrimination is mostly a negative action towards an individual, just because he or she belongs to that particular group, for which people hold negative beliefs or thoughts. Due to discrimination, in some scenarios, females cannot have jobs, because they cannot travel far distances on a daily basis. Since Pakistan is known for being a male-dominated society. This thinking is changing with awareness and increasing education. According to research, there is a lot of gender discrimination in undergraduate medical education. Females are the major victims. This discrimination, however, does not affect their academics, but it leads to emotional distress in students. 

On the other hand, psychological behaviors are changed by the psychological mechanisms. Psychological interventions are then used to modify the behaviour or emotions of an individual. Psychological mechanisms and interventions are the most important and interesting topic among other social psychology dissertation topics. If you know prejudice and discrimination, you will not find it difficult to research psychological mechanisms and interventions.

Psychological Mechanisms in Dissertation Topics

If you are worried about your dissertation topic, you can do it easily while going through this article. You do not need to ask anyone to help with my dissertation. Although there are websites available who are giving their services in writing dissertations, they are charging enough. 

The purpose of psychological mechanisms is to prevent the psychological patient from thoughts and emotions which disturb them. Some psychological mechanisms are listed below.

• Emotional Regulation

To control our emotions, is an ability that is taught in emotional regulation technique. Emotion is the feeling we observe from our surroundings. Emotions could be positive emotions like happiness or negative emotions like fear, sadness and anger. Regulating emotions does not mean blocking our emotions. It is completely normal to have emotions. But sometimes we need to regulate them when they start affecting our health. At that time we need to regulate our emotions either by therapies or by consulting a psychologist.

• Social Influence

An individual changes his behavior according to his society to fulfil the demands of society. People think that it is necessary to do what others are doing, whether the doer is wrong or right. They think that they will be unfit if they are doing something different from other people in the society. This is called social influence. There are four types of social influence. Conformity, Obedience, compliance and persuasion.

• Motivation

Motivation is something that energizes our behavior and gives us directions to change ourselves according to the needs and desires that are beneficial for us. 

• Defense Mechanism 

In a defense mechanism, an individual intentionally or unintentionally copes with his stress or anxiety. To deal with our unjustified needs, feelings and desires, we use different types of defense mechanisms such as denial, projection and displacement.

• Cognitive Biases

Cognitive bias means making decisions based on facts you have misinterpreted. Cognitive bias can be defined as a systematic error in human decision-making and information process. In simple words, cognitive biases are loopholes in your mind that do not let you think properly.

Interventions in Social and Health Psychology

Bringing out changes in the life of a person so that he is better adapted to the given situation and thus improving his life or making his life much better in the available resources. A person can bring his life to the betterment by self-knowledge and self-help. Some of the interventions are discussed below. 

• Social Skill Training

Social skill training (SST) is used for people with weak skills of interaction with other people. This social skill training helps adults to interact with the people in their surrounding or with their immediate family members. Social skill training also helps children to remain friendly and nice with their peers in school or family members. 

• Health Promoting Behaviors

An intervention introduced to develop health promoting behaviors is regular physical exercise which includes brisk walking for at least 30 minutes a day. Muscle-strengthening activities may also help psychological patients to improve their health (at least 2 days a week). 

• Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

An intervention in cognitive behavior is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Cognitive behavior therapy is done to change the way of thinking of people and their behavior. Phobia, anxiety, depression and other mental and physical health conditions are considered using this therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a therapy that takes place between the patient and psychologist by communicating with each other.

• Counseling

It is also a talking therapy. In this therapy, a person, a couple or a family meet with a trained psychologist and talk about their ongoing issues. The therapist tries to change the way of thinking or behavior of the person or couple under the given circumstances while remaining non-judgmental and keeping the issues confidential.

• Relaxation Training

It is a common intervention in which a person is trained to remain calm in unpleasant situations. A patient with a variety of mental health issues stays calm and relaxed by this relaxation training. A few methods include deep breathing, meditation and massage.

• Assertiveness Training

It is a training in which a patient is trained to control anger issues. Social anxiety and depression lead to an unexpressed anger. This training also helps people to improve their skills on how to remain calm between two people. 

I hope this article helps you in detail with your dissertation on psychological mechanisms and interventions.