Kultur-, sosial- og samfunnspsykologi (KSS)

The Cultural, Social, and Community Psychology Group (KSS)

The research projects of the group involve basic topics within cultural, social and community psychology as well as applied projects, dealing with contemporary cultural, social and community issues. Areas of research are health care systems, social and national identity; community-based health promotion and accident prevention; occupational and transport-related risk and safety research; crime, recidivism, and reactions to crime; cross-cultural studies, for instance on traffic safety and risk perception, self perception, individualism and collectivism; development of relationships and communication in a cultural context; music psychology, evaluation of patient outcomes of substance addiction treatment, and prevention of suicide. Our research is given financial grants from the Norwegian Research Council, the Programme of Mental Health and the Risk and Safety in Transport Programme. Furthermore, our research is given financial support from The Norwegian Programme for Development, Research and Education (NUFU), The Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS), The Norwegian Directorate of Health, and Norad’s Programme for Master Studies (NOMA), and from NTNU’s Globalisation Research Programme. In addition, our studies have also gained financial grants from public administration and industry.

The cultural, social and community psychology group has the responsibility for teaching in social psychology and history of psychology at the bachelor level. The group is also organising the Master of Philosophy in Human Development in Context (international master's programme)as well as the Master of Science in Social and Community Psychology . In addition, we train students in Community Psychology in the Clinical Programme in Psychology. Parts of the academic staff are also involved in research in organisational psychology, developmental psychology and communication psychology. The teaching as well as the research is multidisciplinary oriented. The teaching and research covers the majority of the main areas of social science related psychology. Socio-psychology could be a common designator for these activities.

The group has extensive research contacts and collaborative research at an international as well as a national level. Amongst these are the following:

Middle East Technical University, Risk and Safety Research Unit, Ankara, Turkey
Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palenstinian territories
University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana
Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing, China
Institute of Social Psychology, Hangzhou Normal University, China
The Research Academy in Mental Health, Nordic School of Public Health (NHV), Sweden

At the national level we have collaborative activities with the following institutions:

Nasjonalt Folkehelseinstitutt
Det norske Veritas
SINTEF, Technology and Society
SINTEF, Health Research
St.Olav University Hospital, BUP Tiller
St.Olav University Hospital, Orkanger
Department of Geography, NTNU
Departmen of Social Work and Health Sciences, NTNU
Department of Sociology and Political Science, NTNU
Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art, NTNU

Other relevant information:

10th Conference on Social and Community Psychology