Social psychology, both as an academic and a professional practice, is extremely useful for elucidating the phenomenon of high rates of suicide within the military, and within the United States in general. The frequency of the occurrence of suicide within the military is explicitly denoted within Brewin's article (2013), in which there are record rates for suicide in the armed services in 2013 and the "number of military suicides has more than doubled since 2001" (p. 1). Sweeping phenomena such as the high incidence of suicide within a specific population setting validates social psychology as a discipline, since it is apparent that such problems are indicative of social concerns. Such problems will not simply go away, and require psychological means to address this issue. This fact is widely alluded to within the aforementioned article. One of the chief reasons for suicide is the general perception that seeking counseling or psychological help is a sign of "weakness" (Brewin, 2013, p. 1) or something reserved for inferior individuals. There is the perception that suicide and mental health has been "stigmatized" (Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al., 2011, p. 600) in the U.S. Air Force. It is interesting to note that one of the proposed ways of counteracting such a perception and...

In such a way social psychology is more accessible and acceptable to military personnel, which will enable this discipline to extend its assistance to this population group, certain members of which are more susceptible to die via suicide than by enemy fire in Afghanistan (Thompson & Gibbs, 2012, p. 22).
There are other ways in which social psychology is utilized to help with this problem. The counseling that social psychologists are able to administer is greatly suggested by the implementation of hotlines that soldiers can call to discuss problems affecting their mental health and performance. This form of counseling is one of the most fundamental practices within the discipline of social psychology.

I have learned a significant amount about both myself and about social psychology by taking and fulfilling the coursework for this class. I understand now that social psychology is used to explicate many of the systemic, repeated occurrences that are prevalent for a particular social group within an identifiable time period. Additionally, it is a valuable means of understanding some of…