Social Psychology Essays

WhatВґs Social Psychology? Essay
Social psychology is a scientific–based study which is used to examine and explain how an
individual's thoughts and feelings affect their behaviour within a society; how the members socially
interact, including their motives; and what influences these members have on each other. This essay
will endeavour to introduce the key psychologists, their theories and the idiographic research they
conducted. In particular, it will focus on the features and definition of conformity and the
investigations into the views on conformity. Furthermore, it aims to critically analyse and reveal a
correlation in the results and conclusions in respect to the current comprehension of human social
behaviour. Conformity is a form of social influence and is...show more content...
It is when a smaller portion of a group takes an unpopular stance and they manage to persuade the
mass over to their way of thinking. This is usually a tactical and consistent influence performed
over a longer period of time, with the minority being stubborn in their views, never compromising
and always giving passionate arguments to every dispute or indifference. Christopher Columbus
was in the minority in his belief that the earth was spherical. "Columbus had to fight these foolish
beliefs in order to get men to sail with him. He felt sure the earth was round." It is a normative
social influence when people conform to ideas which bring acceptance and approval from others.
One real account of this is an experience publicised by a lady known as 'Mary–Anne,' whilst
socialising with three friends. She displayed an instance of public compliance, through concurring
with a group norm, even though it conflicted with her inner principles. Mary–Anne explains how she
later regretted this moment of weakness. This particular type of conformity can be defined as a
person allowing an influence from (an)other person(s) to determine their decisions and behaviour,
thus rejecting or ignoring their own true needs and impulses and often going against a better
judgement. Crutchfield (1962) proposed that it is (individuals) "...yielding to group pressures." A
Get more content on HelpWriting.net

Reflective Essay On Social Psychology
Signing up for this general psychology class I didn't expect to learn and inspect my life actions as
much as I have. Before taking this course my attention had always been pulled regarding
psychology as a whole, what I later pinned as social psychology. The way people think and relate
to other in the terms of emotion and relationships pulled my attention. The different experiments
and how everyday actions and decisions can be viewed under a microscope and understood in
completely unique manners, excited my neurons. Having a best friend who was interested in the
same subject as me, we spent many hours discussing different terms and theories. He took online
general psychology in high school and therefore knew much more than me. Now, we both have
psychology as our majors and he has become someone who I can count on if I don't understand
terms or theories completely. Not being this connected from the beginning, our friendship has
grown which lead me to analyze just how I've ended up with my friend. Many may say that things
just happen randomly and this connection is pure luck. Well, through this course I have developed
a few understandings. There are many factors that lead to strong friendship, it's not just pure luck or
correct timing. There's work and unknown tests that we do before we can count on people. I
attended all four years of high school with this guy but it wasn't until senior year that we actually
grew close. Freshman through junior year we knew of each other

Social Psychology, The Social Identity
Within social psychology, the social identity tradition (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971)
argues that individuals possess more than their characteristic personal identities, which are activated
during interpersonal contact with others; in addition, people can engage in intergroup behavior as
informed by their social identities (Gudykunst & Bond, 1980). Such social identities comprise
memberships in any psychologically relevant grouping with which an individual identifies, including
kin, peers, profession, nation, and cultural identity (Galang, QuiГ±ones, Adriano, Portillo, &
Carvajal, 2015). The ingroup identification afforded by social identities then allows individuals to
distinguish between people belonging to and excluded from the ingroup (Brewer & Yuki, 2007), and
to bolster one's self–concept through affiliation with high–status groups and individuals (Gudykunst
& Bond, 1980). In addition, these social identities are created and manifested in different ways
across cultures as a function of the values endorsed by society, the ways in which society's members
construe themselves, and the manners in which their interpersonal relationships are structured
(Feitosa, Salas, & Salazar, 2012).
Moreover, social identity theory (SIT) has been invoked as an explanation for a social
psychological phenomenon introduced in Robert Cialdini and his colleagues' (1976) research:
basking in reflected glory (BIRG). As reflected in the opening quote, individuals are able to
emphasize

Essay on Social Psychology
Social Psychology Social psychology is the study of the individual and the way they behave
according to those around them. Social psychology affects nearly every aspect of our everyday
lives such as the way in which we form, develop and maintain our relationships with people
ranging from our parents to our friends, family and co workers. There has been much research into
social psychology, Such as the factors that contribute to the formation of a relationship. According
to Rubin (1973) one of these factors is proximity. Rubin stated that the closer we are to somebody
physically the more likely we are to form a relationship with him or her. This relates to situations
where we are often in...show more content...
According to Newcomb another key aid to the formation of relationships is similarity because it
becomes easier to form a relationship with someone we have something in common with even if it
is just the way we look. There are also theories of why we form relationships. The first of these is the
social–biological approach, which states that our primary motivation in forming a relationship is to
ensure the ongoing survival of our genes by promoting them to others. Basically this approach
suggests that any behaviour we carry out I selfish because the main reason it is being carried out is
to protect and promote our genes. This theory of why we form a relationship relates to Charles
Darwin's theory of evolution that states that creatures will adapt their behaviour in a way that will
best protect and promote their genes. This is known as Adaptive Behaviour. A criticism of the
socio–biological approach is that it does not explain homosexual behaviour because such behaviour
will not enable an individual to spread their genes. An alternative to the socio–biological approach is
the Reinforcement and need satisfaction theory, which was introduced by Byrne (1971) who based
it on Thorndikes Law of Effect, which states "any act that is rewarded is likely to be repeated" This
means

Strengths And Weaknesses Of Social Psychology
Social Psychology Assignment 1 There are 3 basic research methods that social psychologists
use to describe behaviors. Each of these have both strengths and weaknesses. The observational
method is done by observing and collecting data which is then used to describe the behavior. The
researcher observes the events in a natural setting so none of the variables are manipulated. There
must be interjudge reliability, meaning that when different researchers administer the same test
to the same subject they each must obtain the same measurement. The advantages in this method
is that it is the simplest method, it has greater accuracy, and it is useful for setting up hypothesis.
The weaknesses are that this method is hard to observe because of privacy and secrecy. It is great
for explanation but not as good for prediction and description. The observer might also be biased
being that he has his own opinion on what is right and wrong. The correlation method focuses on
prediction. It is a statistical measure of two or more variables and the relation between them are
assessed. The Correlation coefficient assesses how well you can predict one variable from
another. A positive correlation is when the value of one variable increases it is associated with the
increase of the other variable. For example height and weight, the more one grows the more he will
weigh. A negative correlation is when the value of one variable increases it is associated with the
decrease of the other

Essay about Social Cognition
Term Paper: Social Cognition
Table of Contents:
Social Cognition: A science
The psychological definitions
Breakdown of social psychology
Relations to other corresponding theories
The theory of social cognition
Incorporating stereotypes
Schemata
Cultural social cognition
Holistic thinking
Social cognitive neuroscience
A personality in jeopardy
Social Cognition
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, of information in the brain. It is
a process that is generalized within a species, and relates to members of the same species. At one
time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these
processes were studied according to the methods of cognitive...show more content...
An example would be a student who believes all teachers are intimidating and bossy from past
experiences, but after having a shy and timid teacher, their view may change their internal schema
and stereotype of all teachers being individual. Scientists may want to study the reactions of the
student and how he or she will integrate the new schema. Social cognition researchers are also
interested to study the regulation of activated schemas. It is widely perceived that the situational
activation of schemata is automatic, outside of conscious control. However, the regulation and
activation of social schemas is self–regulatory and independently motivated.
To understand social cognition, a reaction based on internal and automatic thought processes, you
must first understand the deeper function behind the reaction. This practice is called social
psychology. In this field, psychologists typically explain human behavior as being a result of mental
interferences, mental states, and immediate social situations. Human behavior is certainly less
complex than the general population may believe. There are only so many reactions that a human
will typically choose in response to activities and situations, and almost all do. To discover what
these reactions are and what they have been, a scientist or psychologist needs to put the test subject
under existential experiments. In

Social Psychology And Social Influence
In social psychology, social influence is a process where someone's beliefs, thoughts and behaviour
change by being exposed to beliefs, thoughts and opinions of others. It manifests in several forms,
such as obedience, compliance and conformity. All these types of social influence have been
studied by numerous researchers who investigated the reasons why people conform to social norms
and obey to authorities, such as Milgram's classic studies on obedience. His experiments support the
popular idea of 'banality of evil' –Hannah Arendt (1963)'s famous phrase referring to the capability
to accomplish dreadful things out of banal reasons–, revealing that people conform submissively and
thoughtlessly to the orders that authorities deliver, no...show more content...
Accordingly, Rotter proposed that people with an internal locus of control, having a confident
personality, are more likely to resist to social influence. There are different studies supporting this
idea. For instance, in their experiment consisting in interviewing the subjects, Oliner and Oliner
(1988) suggested that the 406–non–Jewish participants who lived during the Holocaust in Germany
and protected Jewish people were more inclined to have a higher internal locus of control in
contrast to the 126 individuals who obeyed to commands. This outcome supports Rotter's theory
that internals are not as likely to follow commands in contrast to externals who may be more easily
persuaded, although there may be other aspects that have to be considered in view of the
circumstances people lived in WWII. Additionally, Spector (1983) utilised Rotter's scale on 157
students to evaluate whether conformity is linked with locus of control. He discovered that
participants with a higher internal locus of control weren't as likely to conform only in
circumstances of normative social influence, where people adapt in order to be accepted, whereas
there was no significant difference between the two groups in situations of informational social
influence, where people conform for their need to be right. (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955) This finding
proposes that normative social influence

Sexism And Social Psychology
Sexism in Relation to Social Psychology
People, on many occasions, have preconceived opinions that are not based on any reason or actual
experience, this is known as prejudice. Whereas sexism is a discrimination or prejudice based on
an individual's sex; a preconceived belief that one sex is superior and more valuable than another
sex. In Personality and Social Psychology Factors Explaining Sexism the authors state, "The
personality approach holds factors within the individual as the major causes of prejudice, the social
psychology approach links prejudice to factors like people's social group membership and social
identity, and situational factors" (Akrami, N., et al. 2011).
Within the first study written by Akrami, the participants were non psychology university students,
194 women and 185 men; with the mean age being twenty–four and a half years. Responding to the
Swedish translation of the Big Five Inventory (BFI; 44 items divided among the five personality
dimensions) and the Swedish version of the 16–item Social Dominance Orientation Scale (SDO; a
15–item Right–Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA) and the 8
–item Modern Sexism Scale, the
participants completed the questionnaire on their own and anonymously. Ultimately, the results
revealed notable positive connections of sexism with SDO and RWA (Akrami, N., et al. 2011).
Two studies were conducted to investigate the harm and ubiquity of benevolent sexism and modern
sexist beliefs. The first study consisted of a group

What is Social Psychology?
Essay Title: Social Psychology
Social psychology is a broad concept which has underlying elements of studying on how we
behave, foresee and feel. Myers (2011) agrees that social psychologist investigates these connections
by studying on how we persuade others and how we relate to other humans. Miller (2004) stated that
majority of social psychologist would acknowledge that the perspective of social psychology is one
that emphasises the social changes in the environment from the influence of individual. Kassin, Fein
and Markus (2013) argues that humans are really fascinated about social interaction and personal
relationships, which the social context can have an immense influence on our lives.
Furthermore, social psychology...show more content...
Slee, Campbell, Spears(2012) stated that Charles Darwin developed a significant evidence of
observing the connections between animals and human species; by investigating and analysing
children, therefore he got an better understanding on social impact of human behaviour.
Naturalistic observation is valuable technique utilised as research method which are commonly
employed by psychologist and social scientist. Naturalistic observations were used by Charles
Darwin during his research on chimpanzee; nonetheless, Charles Darwin was so fascinated by
observing how primates and humans are acting in similar ways and having influence to another.
Gomez( 2006)argues naturalistic observations of primates show that how certain objects is intrinsic
part of primate lives, from simple food collecting process as taking certain organic fruits.
Naturalistic observations can be very useful to observe on why people engage in extreme sports in
few different settings, which is all about social psychology, because people that engage in different
extreme sports have been influenced by others or want to be perceived in certain way in a society;
which can stem from peer pressure and wanting to preoccupy their leisure times to enjoy themselves
through adrenaline and risk taking sports.
Some people would prearrange to

Evolution of Social Psychology Essay
Introduction
Social Psychology is one of the younger sub disciplines within the field of Psychology. In the short
span in which social psychology has existed, began with the work of the Norman Triplett in the late
1890s. Triplett's work at Indiana University was primarily experimentation with people in
competitive settings. Gordon Allport followed Triplett's experimentation with his observations the
attitudes of individuals and the study of the self. While these contributions to the history of social
psychology were important, the question still remains of what the most significant event in the
history of psychology was. The argument will be given in this paper if a murder was the most
significant event in the history of social...show more content...
Allport's experimentation dealt with observing people's attitudes and were considered to be" the
most useful and important concept of social psychology" (Baumeister and Bushman, 2007 p.6). In
addition to observing people's attitudes, Allport also considered the study of the self to be influential
to the direction social psychology was moving.
Kirk Lewin was a key figure in early social psychology due to developing a formula that behavior
is a function of the person in the situation (Baumeister and Bushman, 2007). In order to know if a
person will complete a task or not, questions about who the person is need to be answered. The next
set of questions to be answered is what type of task the person is completing.
As social psychology moved through the 1950s, two thoughts of social psychology formed. The first
thought was behaviorism which wanted to explain the whole field of psychology in terms of reward
and punishment (Baumeister and Bushman, 2007). Behaviorists relied heavily on using scientific
method and refrained from making inferences about the human mind, thoughts, emotions, or other
thought processes (Baumeister and Bushman, 2007). The second thought was Freudian
psychoanalysis, which were in favor of using elaborate interpretations of an individual's experiences
versus systematic studies that counted behaviors of individuals. Through the 1990s social
psychology created evolutionary psychology which used the field of biology to study behavior.

Social Psychology Essay
Social psychology is a young science, barely a century old (Myers, 2010). Yet already its scientific
explorations have shed light on love and hate, conformity and independence – social behaviors that
we encounter each day (Myers, 2010). Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think
about, influence, and relate to one another. (Myers, 2010). As we mature in life, our social world
molds us as we interact in social thinking, social influences, and social relations. Social psychology
had the potential to illuminate our lives, making it visible to the subtle influences that guide our
thinking and acting. (Myers, 2010). Social psychology has open many avenues for psychologist of
the present to understand how our...show more content...
Kurt Lewin pioneered the use of theory, using experimentation to test hypothesis, which left an
everlasting significance on an entire discipline group dynamics and action research (Harvey, OJ.,
1989). Lewin's group dynamics has been utilized in such areas as educational facilities, industrial
settings, and communities (Harvey, OJ., 1989). With all the different aspects of Lewin's group
dynamics, he has opened many avenues for social psychologist in the field today. Studying the
behavior of groups is one of the largest research areas in social psychology (Cherry, 2005). Group
dynamics expert Marvin Shaw states that all groups have one thing in common: their members
interact (Myers, David G., 2010). Through interaction in group dynamics, social orders and social
norms co–exist. Social orders exist only as a product of human activity (Berger, P., Luckmann, T.,
1966).
Social Psychology4
Nevertheless, just like in the physical world, in order to at in the social world, we need some order
(Boeree, 1999). The social order is based on shared expectations (beliefs, rule, values) known as
social norms
(Boeree, 1999). Social norms are used as standards with which we measure the appropriateness of

Social Psychology
The principles and theories of Social Psychology are important and useful in assessing behaviors in
situations. These social psychological principles and their applications can be seen in fictional
films which can also be attributed to everyday life. One such film that holds certain social
psychological perspectives is Will Gluck's 2010 production of Easy A. A film about high school
student Olive Penderghast and how a sudden change in popularity and financial status, after an
unintentional rumor about how she supposedly lost her virginity to a college guy spread through the
entire her school. The film draws on the behavioral connections of pronounced hussy Olive
Penderghast and her English class's assigned reading of The Scarlet Letter....show more content...
The forces that led Anson to wrongfully attribute Olive's floozy behavior as her true nature are due
to the social psychological perspective known as the Self–Fulfilling Prophecy. As stated in lecture
the Self–Fulfilling Prophecy can be defined as the expectations people have about another person,
which influences how they act towards that person and thus causing that person to fulfill these
expectations. This prophecy is evident in the film when Olive's reputation is first brought to her
attention by her best friend stating that "everyone and I do mean everyone is calling her a dirty
skank." Once she realizes that others hold a certain expectation of how she should behave in
accordance to her assumed persona. She begins to notice how differently the people act around her.
The expectations which fostered different attitudes towards her are presented through the glares and
the gossip that force Olive to oblige people's expectations. In the scene Olive declares that if "people
thought [she was] a dirty skank [she] would be the dirtiest skank they'd ever seen," confirming and
concluding the last prerequisite in defining the Self–Fulfilling Prophecy, which is changing oneself
to fit expectations. Rosenthal and Jacobson's 1968 experiment is a fine example that helps explains
how Olive fits the Self–Fulfilling Prophecy. This is because in the film and the teacher and
presumed student "bloomers," both evoked

Reflection Paper On Social Psychology
Response to the Class Social psychology is a combination of psychology and some aspects of
sociology to study the effects on people. This class, as well as the field of psychology in general, is
very interesting. There is something about learning how behaviors and thoughts of all natures can
affect everyday life; also, it is amazing how those thoughts and behaviors come from our minds as
they process things throughout the day. By taking this upper level psychology class, I learned a lot
about myself in the mental sense as well as about what I am supposed to do as I go forth in life. I
was a psychology major up until a few weeks ago when I decided that this kind of class, while
intriguing, was not really my plan in life. Last semester, I took General Psychology with you, Dr.
Pivik. I loved it even though it was one of my more difficult to grasp prerequisite classes. There is
nothing about this class that I would change. I just now know that my heart is in theatre and it
always will be. Anytime someone asks who to take for general psychology, I always recommend
you. The classes are always so relatable because you do things like show us memes or silly
commercials instead of dry lecture to us every day. I encourage other people who want to possibly
major in psychology to give it a chance because you will never know the things that you might
miss out on if you decide it is not for you without a clue of how the classes go. We talked once
about what I should take next after

Social psychology is a study which seeks to study and understand social behavior. It tells us more
about the group behavior, how we interact and how it impacts our decision. According to scientist
Gordon Alliport, Social psychology is a discipline that uses scientific method to understand and
explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, implied or
imagined presence of other human beings. Social psychology is not limited to any social topics but
looks at a wide range of social topics such as group behavior, social perception, leadership, non
verbal behavior, conformity, aggression and prejudice. In short social psychology aims at
understanding each and every aspect of the social behavior of the...show more content...
Very few people have the will power or the determination to preserve their originality even in
changing social environments.
Among the various factors that affect human behavior, culture and society are the 2 main factors.
The society is composed of a full range of learned behavioral patterns. These patterns have great
influence on an individual as it shapes their personality from the day they are born. Let us take an
example of situation. Mr. X is a fresher in Orlando Institute of Technology and he is very happy
to have earned a seat in one of the most reputed institutes of Michigan. Mr. X is a very good
student but his problem is that he has a very weak moral character. During his college years he
was not exposed to any kinds of bad habits hence his behavior wasn't affected much but suddenly
he enters into an environment where he is exposed to students who have acquired all kinds of bad
habits such as smoking and drinking. From day 1 he sees students doing all the things he hadn't
seen before, this has a very deep impact in his thinking and his behavior. His parents witness a
sudden behavioral change in him and are astonished to see their little boy smoking tobacco in the
local pub. These kinds of situations are quite normal in the society. Generally youngsters are highly
vulnerable to all kinds of sudden and astonishing behavioral changes. This is seen in

There are many explanations for the origins of modern social psychology. It is therefore important
to consider that social psychology cannot be traced back to one single source of origin (Burr, 2003).
Hence, this is the reason why there are debates of what social psychology is. Allport (1985)
described social psychology as the study an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviours which are
influenced by the actual, imagines, or implied presence of others. As seen from this definition there
is a direct link between social science and the individual psychology (Sewell, 1989). Social
psychology cannot be seen as a linear phenomenon. This is because social psychology has been
derived from a combination of influences. The development of...show more content...
Both critical and experimental social psychology form the modern social psychology, due to their
important historical context. Experimental–social psychology is argued to have been derived from
the American tradition, and a critical–social psychology is argued to have been derived from the
European tradition. Although this has formed two distinct approaches in the use of methodology
within psychology, there are still on–going debates over psychology as a science or not.
An important contribution that has made a great impact on the modern social psychology was from
William McDougall. McDougall proposed for an evolutionary psychology, which was influenced by
Darwin's theory. Especially with the dominant fields of sociology and anthropology, McDougall was
able to link science, sociology and psychology (McDougall, 1919). However, McDougall's
research in social evolution was also interpreted as radical due to the racism involved in the concept
of behaviour gene inheritance. This shows that even though McDougall's work had been a start
point to the origins of social psychology, it also led to misconcepts especially in the Western society.
Another person who contributed to the origins of social psychology was William James which
introduced the theory of 'stream of consciousness'. The reason why James made an influence in social

Social psychology is the scientific attempt to explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of
individuals are influenced with the presence or implied presence of others. This classic definition
of social psychology expresses that people are influenced by other people to do things they would
not normally do if alone. For example, a person may be more encouraged to do strange things if
others are doing it as well. Stage hypnotism is a form of entertainment found in parties and other
social events. In stage hypnotism, a group of people are allegedly under the control of a hypnotist
who has put them in an alleged trance. In this "trance–like" state, this group of people are more
suggestible to perform for the audience. This is due in part of the gradual increase of the
requests, peer pressure, and compliance. During the final weeks of my senior year in High
School, my class was heavily encouraged to participate in a show. This show was going to feature
a stage hypnotist as well as a group of volunteers from the audience who would be influenced by the
hypnotist to behave in an embarrassing manner in front of a large audience of peers and friends.
Upon arriving at the show, the stage hypnotist introduced himself and began to build his credibility
by boasting at the amount of people he has had under his control at one time. The stage hypnotist
joked that he would make the students to incredibly embarrassing things such as tell their deepest
and darkest secrets, but

Social Psychology Reflection
This semester has been filled with informative information when speaking about our own social
skill, but also other people's social psychology as well, thus is why it will be very useful in future.
Throughout the semester we studied everything from the introduction of social psychology, social
influences, aggression in psychology, and interpersonal attraction and close relationships. A lot of
the knowledge that I gained was not only from the "Social Psychology" textbook, but also in the
videos and the reactions that we needed to come up with on a weekly basis. I like the idea of
being able to watch the video to see if the experiment was successful or unsuccessful and
commenting on it by giving my opinion if I agreed or not. For me,...show more content...
That is why I thought the video on this topic was an excellent example of how we act in our
society. The experiment was to see how people will help another person out in a time of need, but
was done with to different characters, one a business man and the other a homeless man. The guy
that was dressed in business attire was immediately helped up by people passing by, however,
when they switched the experiment to a homeless person everyone stood around and watched,
except for a follow homeless person. This was a great example to show us that we not to stop
judging people by their appearance, rather treat everyone the same because everyone is in need
one point in their life. In chapter eight we learned about social influences and a part I found
appealing was the section on the power of social norms, which is the "unspoken but shared rules of
conduct in a formal or informal group." Basically, it means that the social world can impact our
lives by peer pressuring us into acting out in a behavior that is out of our character. However, falling
into that group norm would be a characteristic of conformity. An example would be someone that is
peer pressured into taking drugs, but after time becomes adapted to that behavior and continues to

Running Head: Social Psychology1
Social Psychology
Rebecca Freeman
PSY 301
Dr. Katrina Hilton
Running Head: Social Psychology2 There are many important components of social psychology, and
they all fit together. For psychology students, social psychology is probably one of the most
important areas in their field of study, because it is the study of human thoughts, feelings, and
behavior as they relate to and are influenced by others (Feenstra, 2011). We learnsocial psychology
so that we can better understand people and why they act the way they do. This is very important,
especially in the counseling and social work fields. One of the focuses of social psychology is on
discovering who we are....show more content...
Attributions are our explanations of the behavior of ourselves and others. When you make an
internal attribution you blame personality, attitudes, or some other dispositional factor for the
action. For example, if you're waiting for a bus, and the bus passes you by, and you blame it on
the possibility that the bus driver doesn't like you, you're making an internal attribution. When you
make an external attribution, you attribute situational factors for the action. Maybe the bus driver
passed you up because he has to go to the gas station to fill up the gas tank of the bus (Feenstra,
2011). Explanatory style consists of three dimensions. They are internal/external, stable/unstable,
and global/specific. Internal/external refers to whether or not a person believes that they have
control over events. Stable/unstable represents whether a repeated event will stay the same or be
subject to change. Global/specific refers to whether or not a person's explanation generalizes the
event to others beyond the specific event in hand. If a person has an explanatory style that tends to
consider bad events as internal, they are said to have a pessimistic explanatory style because they
see the bad experience or event as one that was their fault, will not change in the future, and is
generally problematic rather than specific to that particular event. A person with an optimistic
explanatory style explains the causes of negative events as external,

Sociological Aspects Of Social Psychology
Social Psychology
According to Gordon Allport , "social psychology is an attempt to understand and explain how the
thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals is influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied
presence of others." (Allport, 1954)
There are two differing branches when referring to social psychology:
1. The sociological aspect of social psychology, which was mainly developed in Europe as a
subdivision of sociology.
2. The psychological aspect of social psychology, which was developed in the US
The differences between the two divisions are, that the sociological way of viewing social
psychology focusses more on group interaction, group processes, while the psychological aspects of
social psychology focusses more on the individual and how the individual is influenced and/or
behaves in social settings.
Sociological social psychology is very theory intensive and constructs itself out of
"geisteswissenschaften" (sciences of the spirit) and social sciences. Corresponding approaches are
i.e. critical theories, which also include psychoanalytical ideas. Some of the more notable
sociological psychologists include Sigmund Freud, Erich Fromm and Wilhelm Reich.
Coming back to the psychological branch of social psychology, we see its intentions lies in "an
attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feelings and behavior of individuals are
influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others" (Allport, The Person in
Psychology, 1968) Quantitative

Social psychology is a science that study social thinking (how we perceive ourselves and others,
judgement we make and our attitudes); social influence (such as pressure to conform, group of
people) and social relations such as aggression and helping (David G. Myers, 2008). Social
psychological research methods vary by location: in the laboratory or in the field. Also, it varies by
method: correlational or experimental (David G. Myers, 2008). A field research method is everyday
situations, for example, Piliavin et al. (1969) Good Samaritanism. Laboratory research method is a
controlled situation; for example, Zimbardo (1973) Stanford Prison Experiment. A correlational
method measure relationship between two or more variables:...show more content...
Their finding was that this uncaring deed was caused by diffusion of responsibility. Piliavin et al.
recognised that Lantene and Darley 1970 experiment lacked ecological validity: it did not related
to or reflects everyday, real life (Mark Holah, 2008). As a result, Piliavin et al. (1969) took the
study from the laboratory into the field; a field experiment set up on a subway train in New York.
Their hypothesis was that there must be factors that influence helping behaviour (Class
Handouts). The factors they were interested included Independent variables such as the type of
victim (blind or drunk); the race of the victim (black or white); and the Dependable variable such
as the speed of helping; the frequency of helping and the race of the helper. Piliavin et al. used the
participant observation method (Richard Gross, 2012). It is where researcher, in this case, a
member of the study team is part of the activity being studied (Malim and Birch, 1998). The
participants were the unsuspecting passengers that travelled on the train. The average racial
composition of the passengers was 45% black and 55% white. The average number of people in the
train carriage was 43 (Mark Holah, 2008). They did six to eight trials between 11a.m and 3p.m for
forty–two days. Each trial had a different team of students: two males and two females (Mark
Holah, 2008). The males (three white and one black) aged between 26 and 35,

Social Psychology Essays

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Mehr von Paper Writing Service Reviews

Mehr von Paper Writing Service Reviews (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Social Psychology Essays