Social Psychology: What Is It And Why Is It So Important?

In the field of  psychology, we can create a division between practical psychology and basic psychology. Basic psychology studies simple psychological processes such as perception, attention, memory, language and learning. On the other hand,  practical psychology focuses on the study of other psychological characteristics more associated with problem solving. There are different aspects in practical psychology. One is social psychology.

Social psychology can be defined as the study of interaction between people, especially in social groups and situations. It highlights the influence of social situations on human behavior. More specifically,  social psychology focuses on the scientific study of how human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are affected by a real, imagined, or implied presence of other people. ( Allport, 1985).

What does social psychology examine?

Social psychology attempts to study social conditions ( Moscovici and Markova, 2006). It has been suggested that  social psychological processes are different from individual psychological processes. Social psychology tries to understand both group behavior and individual behavior when we react to or think about the social environment.

Social psychology tends to study the  behavior  of people at a group level instead of something else. It tries to describe and explain human behavior by reducing it down to psychological differences. In this way, social psychology tries to establish theories of human behavior that help to predict different patterns of behavior before they occur, and thus intervene. By knowing the causes that promote different behaviors, it tries to intervene and change these patterns in some way.

Courses in social psychology

The topics covered by social psychology are many, wide and varied ( Gergen, 1973). By focusing on some of the issues that are its main focus, we can determine its identity. Social identity  ( Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994)  or the  level at which people identify with me and share different characteristics within a group, is a factor that social psychology often studies. Social identity will often determine how people will behave. For example, when a person identifies a lot with a group, their behavior will correspond to the norms and values ​​of that group.

Another classic theme for social psychology is stereotype ( Amossy and Herschberg Pierrot, 2001). Stereotypes are the image we have of another group. This is usually a simplified and general picture that seeks to categorize all the members of a specific group. For example, a common stereotypical view in Europe is that Spanish people are lazy. People who have this stereotype of the Spanish, when they ever meet one, will think they are lazy before they even get to know them.

Social psychology and prejudice

Prejudice  is associated with stereotypes ( Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick, & Esses, 2010). Prejudices are already certain attitudes that make us make hasty decisions about a person or situation. They are assessments that have been made on the basis of incomplete information, and are usually negative.

Nowadays, many people believe that Muslims are violent and even sympathize with terrorism. Even when presented with clear evidence to disprove this, people insist on believing it. These beliefs affect their feelings and behavior toward people who practice this religion.

Another field of study in social psychology is  values  ( Ginger and Atran, 2014). Values ​​are a set of guidelines that different societies establish in order for them to be fulfilled. Values ​​tend to have a social consensus and vary from culture to culture. Values ​​are so important that for many people they become sacred. Despite how irrational some of the values ​​are, some people will defend them. Some will even make great sacrifices for them.

Given the wide variety of topics studied in social psychology, we can not comment on all of them. Some that have not been discussed are aggression and violence, socialization, group work, leadership, social movements, obedience, adaptation and interpersonal and group processes.

Important people in the world of social psychology

In the field of social psychology, there have been people who have left a great impression. Here are some of them:

• Floyd Allport:  Best known for being the founder of social psychology as a scientific profession.
• Muzafer Sherif:  Known for conducting an experiment called “The Cave of Thieves”. A group of Boy Scouts were divided into two groups to explore prejudices in social groups. The experiment created Realistic Group Conflict Theory .

• Solomon Asch:  Dedicated his life to studying social influences. His studies of conformity are his most famous work. Here he used lines of different sizes to see if his participants would give the wrong answer. They gave the wrong answer. Not because they thought the answer they gave was correct, but  because they agreed with the answer other people gave. 
• Kurt Lewin:  Known as the founder of modern social psychology. He contributed to  Gestalt psychology, studied the  concept of social distance,  and formulated  field theory. The latter shows that it is impossible to become acquainted with real human behavior if they are outside their own society.
• Ignacio Martin-Baro:  In addition to being a psychologist, he was a Jesuit priest. He suggested that psychology should be associated with the social and historical conditions of the area in which they were developed. It should also be associated with the aspirations of the people who live there. He is the creator of the  Social Psychology of Liberation. 

Other important people

• Stanley Milgram:  Performed various experiments on questionable ethics. The most famous is his experiment of  obedience to authority. In it, a participant would give an electric shock to another participant in front of a person with authority. The  Experiment of the Small World  is also his. It is also known as the  Six Levels of Separation. 
• Serge Moskovici:  Studied social representations. This is the way knowledge is reformulated when groups take over, and thus it is distorted. Serge is also known for his studies on the  influences of minorities. 
• Philip Zimbardo:  Best known for performing  The  Stanford Prison Experiment . In this experiment, he divided some students into two groups. One group were prison guards and the other were the inmates. He then put them in a quasi-prison in a basement of the university. They concluded that it was the situation that led to the participants’ behavior, and not their own personalities.

• Albert Bandura:  Demonstrated that violence in the media encourages aggressive behavior in those who see it. He performed an experiment in which a model performed aggressive behavior on a doll, which was then imitated by children. This is known as the Bobo experiment. Bandura is also the creator of The  Theory of Self-Efficacy .  

Summary

As we can see, social psychology focuses on our social behavior. This is somewhat unknown to those on the outside, and is one of the most surprising revelations for people who choose to study psychology. This is because we often underestimate the power other people have over us, either directly or indirectly. That way we like to be completely independent, able to behave as and feel what we want. Without our surroundings affecting us so much.

But these studies in social psychology have shown us that this is not the case at all. That’s why they’re so interesting. And this is why this field of psychology can enrich us with its discoveries.

Bibliography

Allport, GW (1985). The Historical Background of Social Psychology.

G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.). The Handbook of Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill.

Amossy, R., Herschberg Pierrot, A. (2001). Stereotypes and Clichés. Buenos Aires.

Eudeba. Dovidio, JF, Hewstone, M., Glick, P. and Esses, VM (2010) «Prejudice, Stereotyping and Siscrimination: Theoretical and Empirical overview».

Dovidio, JF, Hewstone, M., Glick, P., and Esses, VM (eds.) The SAGE handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Gergen, KJ (1973). Social psychology as history. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26, 309-320.

Ginges, J. and Atran, S. (2014) “Sacred values ​​and Cultural conflict”,

Gelfand, MJ, Chiu, CY, and Hong, YY (eds.) Advances in Culture and Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 273-301.

Moscovici, S. & Markova, I. (2006). The making of modern social psychology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Taylor, D., Moghaddam, F. (1994). “Social Identity Theory”. Theories of Intergroup Relations: International Social Psychological Perspectives (2nd edition). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. pp. 80-91.