RELATED REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Psychological Effects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
In the Journal of Gabriel Twose and J. Christopher Cohrs, Human rights can be understood as a basic right that protects fundamental freedoms and human dignity regardless of its nationality, gender, ethnicity, religion, language or other status. These rights are indivisible, interdependent, universal and inalienable and cannot be removed. This shows us that human rights are so powerful and this is a universal law that no one in the world must disobey. They also show that human rights and peace are interconnected to each other. Human rights represent a normative framework for how societies could look. They aim for the relevance of psychology and human rights through addressing the attitudes through human rights, Human rights and political contexts and human rights in the practice of psychology. They learn that one of the vital areas in which psychology research can contribute to the study of human rights is through measuring relevant attitudes and behaviors. There is also an international understanding and support for human rights. They also notice equality inconsistency to be associated with individual differences related to prejudice. Self-transcendence values predict attitudes and behaviors supportive of human rights. In the end people support abstract human rights principles but not for bad individuals, social identity and intergroup processes play a major role in shaping human rights attitudes and behavior through psychology, and we need modern models to further improve human rights. [1]
In the book of Robin Bradley Kar, the Psychological Foundations of human rights, he suggested that humans appear to have an innate psychological capacity to identify and respond to rights that is bound in systematic ways with a more primary sense of interpersonal obligation. They work together to understand a deeply planned and high form of human social life. These psychological capacities endows a specific function: to allow humans to resolve social contract problems flexibility. This represent an obligation which defined as any psychological phenomenon that resolves social contract problems and shown to infuse the human sense of rights and obligation. This also helps sustaining certain critical forms of human cooperation, which are animated by perceptions of rights and interpersonal obligations. He discussed human rights as are nevertheless a distinctive class of rights and respect for them. There are ways introduced in better understanding of the psychological capacity to identify and respond to rights might generate valuable insights into the psychological causes and conditions of human rights violation. First, much more attention needs to be able to identify and respond to rights and understand it to produce a more stable and universally shared respect for human rights and its function is solve problems in small groups. Through the history, the circumscribed moral concern always results from an affirmative psychological process of dehumanization. It is common for humans to view and group other humans as having many physical and psychological traits to qualify them as human, without seeing their humanity as a status that grants them any rights. Directly producing perceptions of human rights may help other expand compassion. With these facts, there are limitations to the current dehumanization when trying to understand the psychological causes and conditions of human rights violations and that fundamental question is the factors that is affecting the human capacity to identify and respond to human rights in ways that will stably incline many people. Second, The obligation have been defines functionally and can be multiplied instantly and this means that humans might have more than one set of obligations which animate having more than one sense of obligations and can emerge in different social conditions. Humans can capable of developing distinctive senses of obligations like moral, religious, legal and international and this can help in solving social problems. In the end the book tells us that in creating the social and psychological conditions needed to support a more stable and universal sense of respect to human rights, the human sense of moral obligation must produce a stable and widespread respect for human rights. And the stable emergence of separate sense of international legal obligation must respond to the problems by supporting a more unified and coordinated conception of human rights. There must be special social and psychological conditions needed for the emergence of respect for human rights or international law. And the international law must interact with moral and domestic legal codes. [2]
An article, published by Michael R. Hulsizer and Linda M. Wo, is all about (lecture, topics, activities, and service learning opportunities) as well as suggestions for creating courses which are focused solely on human right. They stated here that the psychology played a big role or part when it comes in human rights. The American Psychological Association (APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS), and the Australian Psychological Society (APS) was concern to the important topic or issue which is the Human Rights. Carolyn Payton, a psychologist, as well as the first African-American, Director of the United States Peace Corps, asked the APA, “Who must do the hard things?†She argued that the psychology has a big role in understanding each other, confronting social issues, social inequalities and especially the human rights. The APA has passed numerous policy resolutions concerning international human rights, such as resolutions supporting political dissent (APA, 1972), the Equal Rights Amendment (APA, 1975), and the humane treatment of prisoners (APA, 1975). The APA has also called for the end of corporal punishment (APA, 1975), an end to discrimination against homosexuals (APA, 1975), and an end to torture (1986). APA’s (1987) resolution on human rights asserted that ‘the discipline of psychology, and the academic and professional activities of psychologists, are relevant for securing and maintaining human rights.’ The APA also provided support for several United Nations-sponsored human rights initiatives, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (APA, 1989, 2001) and the UN Declaration and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (APA, 2006, 2008). Unfortunately, psychology students nowadays are lack of knowledge because human rights education is no longer a luxury aimed at fostering global citizenship, but rather a fundamental feature of ethics training, not only in psychology programs but also in medical and public health schools. [3]
Another article entitled Introduction to the Special Issue: The Intersection of Psychology and Human Rights (Velez, 2016), stated that human rights are based in the universality of humanity and its social bases. Human rights are the basis of the human in order for them to make things right. Others use it to defend their own selves from harming others. It is greatly related to the psychology of an individual for it is deeply and positive to it. Our own psychology supports understandings, constructions, and defense of human rights, particularly in the fields of cultural and social psychology. He included three supports to his claim: first scarcity can widely affect our own thinking that may result to violation of human rights. Next, psychology is the one that is used to uncover the cases in the court which involves human rights abuses and testify at trials. It is used to strengthen the claims inherited to human rights. Lastly, psychology helps an individual to understand the conceptions of human rights that lead to clearer and deeper definitions, it also provide bases for stronger advocacies. [4]
Likewise, abstract and applied organizing principles are the two dimensions of people’s perception of involvement concerning human rights. These dimensions have already been put forward by Jackman (1987). He showed that although there was a more possibility for educated people to favor to the principle of racial equality, they were not in fact more likely to back efforts by government to promote racial equality. To make it clarify, in Jackman’s view, he put a situation in which when people asked to answer questions about a certain social problem, of course, they knew the answer. But when if this a matter of concrete action, many of them expressed their ‘real’ position towards the object of discussion. [5]
When it talks about war, a very few studies explored the attitudes towards human right agreement and international treaties. “But the result of the studies shows the evidence that 70 to 90 percent of individuals favor in multilateral policies supporting international standard and human rights in general (Oldendick & Bardes, 1982; Tordov & Mandisodza, 2014; Torney-Purta, 2001). However, the support may decrease in response to national security concerns, issue of sovereignty, and belief in double standard toward the commitments of one’s own country versus another.†[6]
The research on individual human rights orientations thus informs both scholars and policy makers. This seek to address this gap in the literature by analyzing a nationally representative survey of human rights conducted in 2011 on the citizens of South Korea. The researchers differentiate several dimensions of human rights orientations and analyze the variables leading to individual differences in human rights knowledge, endorsement, and engagement. These studies emphasize political and cultural globalization as the driving motor of the human rights expansion and attribute. This expansion lead to the greater worldwide integration of nations-states, and extent to which countries that linked to the larger globalization process. Despite the acknowledgment that citizens of South Korea have increasingly developed their orientations toward human rights, it seems evident that they also show substantial differences in their perceptions, attitudes, and behavior regarding human rights. [7]
In addition, according to Staerkle, Clemence and Spini (2015), a social Psychological of Human Rights rooted in Asymmetric Intergroup Relations, they’re trying to increase the importance of Human Rights (HR) in legal theory and social scientific research, psychologists and social scientist to developed a topic. Also the awareness of people by law are not always apply the fundamental of HR principles by exploration the consequential variation toward a concrete implementation of these principles. There methodological approached empirical studies that extending the general review opening the issue which is the awareness to HR. And the research learned the political and the scientific importance of a social psychological analysis of HR, the result of the article is still not success or done because of other people awareness of HR principles, they still trying to illuminate the way of thinking and behavior that shaped by identity and political concern that grow out of asymmetric intergroup relations, the way of HR understood and employed by individual depends by a large extend on the social and political contexture in which they are to make officially become part of the law. [8]
Also, according to European Federation of Psychological Association (EFPA) it intends to develop a policy that will enable it to take action to pursue these aims based on the unique expertise and competence of psychology. This policy shall concentrate on what psychology can add to what other social actors bring to bear. The Task Force was given the mandate to draft a proposal for this policy and action in the area of Human Rights. Although it is the duty of any member of a democratic society to act on Human Rights violations and to prevent their emergence as well as to reduce their negative consequences, psychologists by their knowledge and experience, have a special responsibility. Professional psychologists have to accept and realize Human Rights as a normative standard for their professional behaviour. Professional psychologists and their professional organizations have to take a public position as professionals against the violation of Human Rights. Human Rights and professional responsibilities refer to all fields of psychology. According to their codes of conducts, psychologists have a specific societal responsibility. International codes like the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists (2008) and the EFPA Meta Code (2013) and the new EFPA Model Code, as well as national codes like those of the APA and diverse European codes equally emphasize commitment and action in the society at large in order to promote the well-being of humanity. [9]
References
[1] Cohrs, C., Twose. G. (2015). Psychology and Human Rights: Introduction to the Special Issue. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. Vol. 21, No. 1. pp 3-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000087
[2] Kar, R. B. (2014). The Psychological Foundations of Human Rights. Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights. Retrieve from http://ssrn.com/abstract=2221149
[3] Hulsizer, M., Woolf, L. (2012). Enhancing the Role of International Human Rights in the Psychology Curriculum. Psychology Learning and Teaching. Vol. 11, No. 3. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/plat.2012.11.3.382
[4] Velez, G.(2016).Introduction to the Special Issue: The Intersection of Psychology and Human Rights. Psychology & Society, Vol.8, No 2. pp 1-7.
[5] Spini, D. and Doise, W. (2014). Organizing Principles of Involvement in Human Rights and their Social Anchoring in Values and Proprieties. 10.1002/(SICI)1099-0992(199807/08)28:43.0.CO;2-P
[6] Hashim, K., Morrison, K. (2007). “Peace Psychology.” Attitudes Towards International Treaties and Human Rights Agreements:18-19.WebsterUniversity. https://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www2.webster.edu/~hulsizer/PeacePsyc/PeacePsychNewsletterSpring07.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiairuz7IPVAhVRNbwKHfkJDDkQFggrMAE&usg=AFQjCNFQ7IJtKq7HoE1nsoo34N_tCTrNAg
[7] Koo, J., Cheong, B., Ramirez, F. (2015). Who Thinks and Behaves According to Human Rights?: Evidence from the Korean National Human Rights Survey. Korea Observer. Vol. 46, No. 1. pp 53- 87.
[8] Staerkle, C., Clemence, A., Spini, D. (2015). A Social Psychology of Human Rights Rooted in Asymmetric Intergroup Relations. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. Vol. 21, No.1, 133- 141. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000088
[9] European Federations of Psychological Associations. (2015).Psychology matters in Human Rights- Human Rights matter in Psychology. EFPA policy and action in the area of Human Rights and Psychology. Rooted from www.efpa.eu/download/fe2edd1e246ade4d8d03374fe75511cb
[10] Chung, R., Bemak, F., Grabosky, T. (2010). Multicultural- Social Justice Leadership Strategies: Counseling and Advocacy with Immigrants. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology. Vol. 3, No. 1.