The Social psychology It is the discipline that is responsible for scientifically studying the influence that the presence of other people (whether real or imagined) has on the thoughts, behaviors and emotions of an individual. It is one of the most important fields of applied psychology.
The main premise of social psychology is that part of human behavior is regulated by certain social norms. These can be present even when we are alone. Our way of acting, therefore, would arise from the mixture of our mental states with the social situations in which we find ourselves immersed..
Initially, social psychology served as a bridge between sociology and traditional psychology. However, in more recent times the objects of study of the three disciplines have been distancing themselves, and each of them has specialized in a different field of knowledge. Still, they still have some themes in common..
This discipline is responsible for studying many different phenomena, such as the influence of the group on the individual, the factors that influence persuasion, altruism, friendship relationships and even love. All this, from a scientific and experimental perspective that allows us to better understand why we act in a certain way in each context..
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The field of social psychology is gaining more and more importance in our society. However, the origins of the discipline were not simple; and being a science of such recent creation, it is still in full development. Next we will see a brief summary of its history.
The beginnings of social psychology date back to the times when human behavior was first attempted to be scientifically studied. At the end of the 19th century, various schools of experimental psychology began to emerge throughout Europe, although the most important were the German ones..
Even so, the first attempts to understand human behavior were more focused on studying individuals and their inner world than on the influence that groups had on them. This was due to the fact that until now it was not known how to study people in a scientific way, and it was necessary to work with the subjective experience of each one.
It was not until the 1940s and 1950s when several psychologists developed the experimental methodology that would give rise to the true beginning of this discipline as an empirical science..
Researchers like Kurt Lewin and Leon Festinger were some of the main drivers of this development; Lewin is considered, in fact, the father of social psychology.
These two researchers began to study interactions between people and the variables that influence them. In addition, they began to create experimental designs that allowed them to isolate some of these factors in the laboratory, and emphasized the need to better understand what effects our relationships have with others..
However, the true rise of social psychology did not occur until the second half of the 20th century with the end of World War II. The researchers wanted to understand how the rise of an ideology as radical as Nazism had been possible, and why many seemingly normal people had carried out horrendous acts in its name.
Thus, during this time experiments began to be carried out on topics such as aggression, altruism, obedience to the rules, persuasion or authority. The discoveries of this time formed the bases of the discipline, and the development of the results obtained has continued to this day..
Some of the most important experiments carried out at this time were those of Milgram's obedience (in which a volunteer was forced to give an electric "shocks" to another person, in what was later revealed as a montage), those of conformity of Solomon Asch, or the one carried out in Stanford jail by Zimbardo.
Social psychology soon expanded its interests to other areas, such as the influence of the group in our decisions, prejudices and discrimination, or the way in which we learn thanks to the people around us..
The latter part of the century saw a great expansion of social psychology in areas such as attitudes and mental processes. At this time the first persuasion models were developed, which form the basis of current disciplines such as marketing. The idea of cognitive dissonance also emerged, one of the most important in the field.
In the 1980s, an even more important focus was placed on people's cognitive processes, leading to the development of a discipline known as "social cognition." This studies how our thoughts, decisions and beliefs are influenced by those around us and the society in which we live..
One of the most important authors of this time was Daniel Kahneman, an economist and Nobel Prize winner who studied the way we make irrational decisions due to how certain unconscious processes influence us during our day-to-day lives..
The present century has seen a new turn in the fields of study of social psychology. Scientists have begun to study how social situations influence fields such as our health or happiness, or the importance of evolution and culture in our behavior..
Finally, areas such as social neuroscience try to combine our knowledge about the human brain with that collected by traditional psychology for more than a century. As you can see, it is a discipline that is constantly evolving, even today..
According to the psychologist Gordon Allport, social psychology is a discipline that uses scientific methods to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of each individual are influenced by the presence (real, implicit or imagined) of other people.
In essence, this discipline tries to understand how our individual behaviors are modified by the environment in which they take place. This influence can be enormous: depending on who we are with, what our role is in a group or how we perceive ourselves in relation to others, we will behave in one way or another.
In addition to these two aspects, social psychology also tries to understand the way we see other people, and how this can modify our behavior. The idea is not to understand our way of acting at an academic level, but to learn to modify behaviors and mitigate the negative effects of groups on us.
For example, one of the areas in which social psychology has focused the most in recent years is understanding why young people start smoking or drinking despite being aware of the dangers of these behaviors.
If it is possible to understand how the reference group influences these situations, it will be possible to reduce the appearance of this problem.
As we have already seen, social psychology potentially encompasses the study of any field in which the influence of another person or group may exist. Therefore, the amount of subjects that can be examined from this discipline are almost infinite.
However, in practice there are a number of areas in which research in this discipline has focused. Next we will briefly see what the most important of them consist of.
What leads us to act in the same way as our friends or family? Why do some individuals tend to follow social norms all the time, while others rebel against them? What factors influence our decisions about whether we will behave according to what the group expects of us or not??
Conformity is a type of social influence that involves a change of belief or behavior in such a way that it fits better with a reference group. Its study is one of the most important areas of all social psychology.
Obedience is a form of social influence in which an individual acts in response to an order given to him by another person, who is normally an authority figure for him. It is assumed that, for obedience to really exist, the subject would not have acted in the same way had the order not existed.
This field of study had its main boom after the Second World War, when it was tried to understand how the horrors perpetrated in Nazi Germany could have been produced at the hands of people who in other contexts could have led a totally normal life.
Although at first glance it may seem strange, social psychology also studies our self-concept. It is about the way we perceive ourselves, our beliefs about who we really are. The key is that this vision of who we are is highly influenced by our reference groups..
Another of the most studied fields by social psychology is that of discrimination, based on factors such as sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or country of origin.
Almost all forms of discrimination are based on stereotypes and prejudices, which are derived from the way we perceive different groups of people.
Prejudices include cognitive (thoughts), emotional, and behavioral components. Its study is essential to learn to alleviate its worst effects and to understand why they are formed.
What causes us to form a lasting friendship with one person rather than another? Why do we fall in love, and how does this feeling develop? How is the relationship with our parents different from the one we have, for example, with our boss? Social psychology tries to answer all these questions and many more.
The type of relationships we develop and the way they evolve is greatly influenced by the social context in which we live. Therefore, understanding this influence is essential to understand one of the most important aspects of our lives..
Why do some people help strangers even at the risk of their own life, while others assault and attack others without provocation? Understanding why we behave in certain ways with other people is one of the most important fields of study in all of social psychology..
Many have been the scientists and researchers who have contributed to the development of social psychology as a science. Next we will see some of the most important.
Allport is considered one of the founders of experimental social psychology. This is due, in part, to its theoretical rigor and its emphasis on measuring all variables as best as possible..
He is also known for writing the book "Social Psychology," which went on to get 13 reissues over the next 50 years after its publication..
This social psychologist is especially known for his experiments on conformity. In a laboratory setting, he showed that most people would be able to change their opinion to one that they know is wrong as long as they agree with a reference group. It also inspired some research on obedience.
The most important contribution of this psychologist was the theory of cognitive dissonance. It would be a discomfort caused by an inconsistency between our behavior and our beliefs. According to this author, much of what we do is aimed at reducing our cognitive dissonances.
Lewin was an early proponent of dynamic research and is considered by many to be one of the founders of modern social psychology. His main theory was that our behavior is determined by both internal and social factors, which we must learn to separate to understand people.
He is especially known for his experiments on obedience to authority, which have even been depicted in various films and documentaries and made him become one of the most famous social psychologists in history. However, he also made other contributions to the field such as the small world theory.
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