UNIT 1- INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

What is Social Psychology?

It is an established fact that humans are social beings. We almost alas seek the company of
others. Even though we value our privacy, yet we wish to stay connected with others. Human
beings in their social context form the subject matter of the study of social psychology. The
basis of human interaction has been explained historically with the help of several
interpretations.
Social psychology is one of the most important branches of human knowledge. No doubt, it
is a new study but its real merit lies in its scope of tackling the multifarious problems with
which the individuals are confronted in their interaction with the society. Society, today, has
become quite complex From the simple group in which individuals were living on the basis
of some natural urges it has assumed very complex shape Today there are large number of
groups interacting with one another. There are various types of societies. There are various
types of social groupings like clubs associations and institutions. An individual can be a
member of more than one group of many societies, of many clubs and institutions or many
associations. This complexity of an individual’s membership to various forms of social
groupings have raised many typical problems for the individual himself and for the social
groupings of which he becomes a member. To understand the man’s conduct in his
interaction with the various forms of groupings it is essential that we study social,
psychology.
Plato (The Republic) views it as arising out of the need to meet our wants. Since one person
is often insufficient to take care of all his wants, collective functioning becomes useful.
According to Hobbes (The Leviathan) without social interaction, man is solitary poor, nasty
and brutish. So, societal interaction was seen as a refinement. Locke (Essay on Human
Understanding) argued that social interaction is necessary for the preservation of society.
Darwin's theory of evolution also has the concept of social adaptation for survival. So social
behavior has been the subject of immense interest all along the ages. At no time is an
individual separate from his/her social context.
Human beings are essentially social beings. We stay with other and our actions, thoughts,
and feelings are affected by the presence of others. At the same time we influence the
behavior of other individuals. This consists of large amount of human behavior. Social
psychology is a discipline that tries to understand the human social behavior. As is the case
with psychology, even social psychology has a past which is less than 100 years.
Social cognition, social perceptions, attitudes, self, stereotype, prejudice and discrimination,
interpersonal attraction, close relations, social influence, pro-social behavior, aggression,
group and individuals, applications of social psychology, and many more are the topics of
social psychology.
It is a truth that human actions do not take place in a vacuum. Every behaviors occur in some
‘physical context’ and most of what we do take place in the presence of others – that is, in an
interpersonal context or social context. Moreover, a considerable portion of the behavior that
individuals perform when alone is based on ‘past encounters’ with other people.
Psychology studies behavior which is a result of individual’s thoughts and feelings, but
individuals thoughts and feelings are inferred from his expressed or overt behavior.
Behaviors which include learning, problem solving, perceiving are the ‘overt behavior’, on
the other hand, behaviors like dreaming, imaging, memorizing represents ‘covert behavior’.
There is another category of behavior. Behavior which is result or caused by or occurs
because of others presence or influence is called social behavior. This social behavior is of
great significance to social psychology. Whenever our psychological processes of perceiving,
learning, motivating, decision making etc. are influenced by or a result of or related to / or
occur in a social context, these processes are called as social perception, social learning,
social motivations, group conformity respectively. These behaviors which have a social
context and occur in social environment and involve social stimuli are the main subject
matter of social psychology
Definitions
In the following definitions of social psychology have been described as
 Social psychology is the discipline that explores deeply the various aspects of this
social interaction.
 Kimball Young says. “Social Psychology is the study of persons in their interactions
with one another and with reference to the effects of this interplay upon the
individual’s thoughts, feelings, emotions and habits.’ According to this definition
social psychology deals with the individuals interrelations with one another and it
also studies the effects of individual interactions with one another upon their own
thoughts, feelings, emotions and habits. Thus we can say that this definition seeks the
roots of social psychology, mainly in Sociology and Psychology.
 Krech and Crutchfield in their book “Social’ Psychology” define Social Psychology
as “The science of behavior of the individual in society.” According to’ this definition
social psychology is put as a science. It is considered as a science of behavior of the
individual in society.
 Another definition of Social Psychology is, “Social Psychology is the study of the
way in which individuals are affected by social situation.” (Stephen Worchel and Ted
Cooper)
 Sherif and Sherif consider that, “Social Psychology is the scientific study of the
experience and behavior of individual in relation to social stimulus situations."
 Feldman says that; “Social Psychology is the discipline that examines how a person’s
thoughts, feelings and actions are affected by others. “
 Social psychology is a discipline that uses scientific methods in “an attempt to
understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are
influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others” (Gordon Allport,
1985, p. 3).
  Social psychology is the scientific study of how individuals think. Feel, and behave
toward other people and how individual’s thoughts, feelings, & behaviors are affected
by other people (Brehm, Kassin, & Fein, 2002, p. 5).
 Social psychology is a branch of psychology which is concerned with the social
aspect of life – how people interaction with and think about others. This branch of
knowledge studies human behavior in all its perspective which further helps in
establishing equal relationships and solving social problems.
 Baron and Byrne (2006) define social psychology as the scientific field that seeks to
understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations. In other
words, social psychologists seek to understand how we think about and interact with
others.
 Social psychology attempts to understand how thoughts, feelings and behaviors of
individual are influenced by actual, imagined and implied presence of others.
 Social psychology is the study of how people influence other people
Main Elements of Definitions
 Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors of individual
 Influence of other people
 How these influences will be studied? It will be done by the use of Scientific Method.
The definitions suggest a cause and effect equation – people influencing individual’s
thoughts, feelings and behavior.
Focus of social psychology
 The prime focus of social psychology is on people and therefore majority of research
studies conducted by social psychologists is on humans.
 Social psychology also studies people's thoughts and therefore employs the cognitive
approach to understand social behavior. The feelings that people experience, their likes,
dislikes, attitudes and emotions are also investigated by social psychologists.
 In addition to this, social psychologists also study the actions or behavior of people.
Another focus of social psychologists is on understanding the impact of social forces on
individuals and also on the way in which they understand the world.
 Social psychologists also study social interaction between and among people. The third
primary focus of social psychologists is on group processes.
 In addition to this, social psychologists study organizations, various social institutions
like the political and legal systems and their influence on human behavior
NATURE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social Psychology in its nature is scientific. This is because it employs scientific techniques in
enhancing its knowledge. As in sciences it makes systematic observations and through direct
experimentations it studies social problems. It is true that in the study of this subject it does not
use the similar type of tools as are used in scientific subjects like physics or chemistry. But the
general techniques used in the study of Social Psychology are similar to those used in other
sciences. Some nature of social psychology can be discussed as below-
1. Social psychology as a science
Science refers to a set of values and methods which may be employed for studying any
phenomena. In order to be considered scientific all fields must adopt certain core values.
Social psychology also adopt the core scientific values to understand human beings. They
are as follows:
a. Accuracy: refers to collecting and interpreting information in a very precise and
careful manner.
b. Objectivity: refers to collecting and interpreting information in a manner which is free
from any kind of bias as much as possible.
c. Skepticism: refers to accepting findings only after they have been verified.
d. Open-mindedness: refers to the willingness to change or modify one’s viewpoint if
evidence shows that they are incorrect.
According to psychologist Gordon Allport, social psychology is a discipline that uses
scientific methods ‘to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of
individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human
beings’ (1985).
Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behavior, social
perception, leadership, non-verbal behavior, conformity, aggression and prejudice etc. in
a scientific way.
2. Social Psychology focus on individual Behavior:
The social thoughts and actions are taken by individuals. They might be influenced by the
society. But the thought and actions are of the individuals, and not groups. The social
psychology has a very strong focus on individuals, and tries to understand the behavior of
individuals. It also tries to understand various environmental influences on social thought
and actions, viz., Culture, social norms, etc. Still the focus of the social psychology
enquiry is individual.
3. Social Psychology Seeks to Understand the Causes of Social Behavior and Thought
Social psychologists are primarily, interested in understanding the many factors and
conditions that shape the social behavior and thought of individuals. Mainly, how
individuals form ideas relating to the actions, feelings, beliefs, memories and inferences
concerning other persons. A huge number of different factors play a role in this regard.
The factors affecting social interaction fall into five major categories. They are, the
actions and characteristics of others, basic cognitive processes, ecological variables,
cultural context and biological factors.
4. Description, prediction, determining causality and explanation of behavior
Since Social Psychology is committed to the above mentioned values, it is scientific in
orientation. The research methods that fall under the scientific method are those that
depend on experimentation and systematic observation to evaluate propositions and
ideas. Thus, to seek an understanding of social psychological phenomena, social
 psychologists, as scientists, are guided by certain core values and rely on scientific
research strategies. In science understanding involves the accomplishment of four goals:
description, prediction, determining causality and explanation. The goal of description is
to identify and report the details and nature of a phenomenon, distinguishing between the
types of phenomenon and recording the frequency of its occurrence. Prediction requires
knowing what factors are systematically related to the phenomenon of interest.
Determining causality between two factors means determining whether or not changes in
one factor produce changes in the other. Understanding also involves explanation, the
fourth goal. Explanation pertains to establishing as to why a phenomenon occurs.
5. Social psychology also studies the experience of person- as already discussed, social
psychology is the scientific study of an individual’s behavior in social settings. The
behavior of an individual is developed with the help of different experience and these
experiences are the product of society. As Kurt Lewin also believes that behavior is a
function of person and environment i.e. B= (P.E). Social psychology studies both overt
and covert behaviors of an individual in a social settings.
6. Studies of culture- the man-made part of an environment is the culture which shapes
one’s knowledge, belief system, and values. Different cultures have different belief
system and values and these all elements determine one’s behavior in a particular society.
Also culture has tremendous energy to change the belief system and values of a particular
society. Social psychology studies human behavior in different cultures and assesses the
change that occurs in culture and human activities.
7. Studies in group- social psychology also studies an individual’s behavior in different
group settings. A group can influence one’s performances in both positive and negative
directions. Social psychologists can assess the cause and effect relationship about
different social interactions and they can develop various principles that can be
generalized and can acts as remedies for social evils.
SCOPE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social psychology attempts to understand the relationship between minds, groups, and behaviors
in three general ways. Taking into consideration the above mentioned problem of social
psychology we may consider the following topics under the scope of social psychology.
1. It tries to see how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced
by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other(s). This includes social
perception, social interaction, and the many kinds of social influence (like trust, power,
and persuasion). It deals with questions like: How do small group dynamics impact
cognition and emotional states? How do social groups control or contribute to behavior,
emotion, or attitudes of the individual members? How does the group impact the
individual? How does the individual operate within the social group? It tries to
understand the influence that individual perceptions and behaviors have upon the
behavior of groups. How does persuasion work to change group behavior, emotion or
attitudes?
2. Second, it tries to understand the influence that individual perceptions and
behaviors have upon the behavior of groups. This includes looking at things like group
productivity in the workplace and group decision making. It looks at questions like: What
are the reasons behind conformity, diversity, and deviance?
3. Third, and finally, social psychology tries to understand groups themselves as
behavioral entities, and the relationships and influences that one group has upon
another group. It asks questions like: What makes some groups hostile to one another,
and others neutral or civil? Do groups behave in a different way than an individual
outside the group? In European textbooks there is also fourth level called the
“ideological” level. It studies the societal forces that influence the human psyche.
4. Socialization of the Child—the study of the process of socialization is an important
topic of social psychology.
5. Social Motivation—what do we mean by social motivation? What are its influences on
individual behavior? These are some of the problems which are included in the scope of
social psychology.
6. Attitudes and their Measurement—in the study of social psychology the attitudes—
their definition socia1-attitudes the development and measurement of attitudes are
included.
7. Social Interaction— to understand social behavior, it is essential to understand the
nature of social interactions. It is because of its importance that social interactions fall
under the scope of social psychology.
8. Social Perception—our perceptions are influenced by the perceptions of others. How
and why we are influenced by the other's perceptions? To understand these and similar
problems the study of social perceptions is made Along with social perception we also
study person perception.
9. Social Learning—the learning of an individual is very greatly influenced by social
environment. Some of the learning takes place on the basis of individuals’ capabilities
and much of it takes place because of the association of the individual with the society.
10. Culture and Personality—every society has its own culture. It influences the members
of the society. The study of these influences provide us much information about’ the
developmental process of the individual.
11. Language and Communication—in the scope of social psychology the topic of
language and communication is also included. We are in contact with others through
language. The language helps us in communication of our thoughts. But communication
can also be non-verbal. Our facial expressions, eye contacts, movements of hands and
feet convey many of our messages to the others. Hence the problems of language and
communication need careful and deep study.
12. Group Structure, Group Morale, Group Decision and Leadership—the
understanding of the formation of groups and the influence of groups on individual
behavior is essential’ for finding the solutions of social problems. Hence the topics like
group structure etc. come under the scope of social psychology.
13. Public Opinion, Propaganda & Rumor—The formation of public opinion, the
influence of propaganda on individual and social behavior and the psychological aspects
of rumor are all very important topics of social psychology.
14. Social Change—in every society there is social change do we mean by social change?
When does it take place? What are the factors and dimensions of social change? Why do
some societies strongly resist any reforms or progressive outlook? These are unique
problems on which social psychologist conduct many of their investigations.
15. Prejudices, Stereotypes and Social Tensions- In every society there are some disruptive
elements. These create social tension. Some such elements are prejudices and stereotypes.
The study of these elements or factors lead us towards an understanding of disruptions in
the society and the social tensions.
16. Altruism, Aggressiveness, Cooperation and Competition—Altruism means helping an
individual without any hope for reciprocity. Aggressiveness refers to that behavior which
harms or injures the others. Cooperation is working together by two or more individuals.
In competitive behavior the individuals try to push ahead of others. These four are social
behaviors which have their own specificity and are adopted in special situations. The
social psychologist want to understand the various aspects of such behaviors so that they
can know the importance of these in social behavior.
17. International Tensions and Industrial Conflicts— Modern social psychologists are
conducting investigations for finding the cause of social tensions. They are concerned
with the problems of war and peace terrorism at national and international levels and the
industrial disputes and disharmony in labor-management relationships. All these are
being studied so that there may be refinement in social life patterns.
18. Applications of Social Psychology in Education Business, Military, National Affairs
etc.—The knowledge of social psychology is now being widely used in various activities.
Its application in Education, Business etc. have benefitted both itself and those branches
of knowledge or the social activities which make use of its knowledge. Hence now under
the scope of social psychology are included its application in various fields.
In a nutshell, the scope of social psychology can be summarized as below
a. One of the most important scope of social psychology is to assess the influence of
other people upon an individual’s thought, feelings, and behaviors. It includes social
perception and social facilitation.
b. Social psychology attempt to comprehend the influence that an individual’s
perceptions and behaviors have upon the behavior of groups. It consists of group
productivity and obedience, etc.
c. Another scope of social psychology is to understand the impact of one group upon
another group. It consists of liking of one group towards other groups, the hostility of
one group towards another. So this includes affiliations, competition and war.
d. It also studies the development and role of pro- social behavior of humanity.
e. It also reveals the causes behind aggression and develops different remedies for its
eradication.
f. By applying different social psychology methods we can eliminate prejudice and
discrimination among individuals and various groups.
 g. The conflict between nations and among individuals can be resolved with the help of
social psychology principles.
h. Marketing and business activities can be enhanced with the assistance of social
psychology skills.
i. One of the important scopes of social psychology is to understand attitude formation
and attitude change.
j. To promote cooperation and groupthink. Social psychologists can play an important
role.
History of Social Psychology
a. Early Influences
Aristotle believed that humans were naturally sociable, a necessity which allows us to
live together (an individual centered approach), whilst Plato felt that the state controlled
the individual and encouraged social responsibility through social context (a socio-
centered approach).

Hegel (1770–1831) introduced the concept that society has inevitable links with the
development of the social mind. This led to the idea of a group mind, important in the
study of social psychology.

Lazarus & Steinthal wrote about Anglo-European influences in 1860.

“Volkerpsychologie” emerged, which focused on the idea of a collective mind. It
emphasized the notion that personality develops because of cultural and community
influences, especially through language, which is both a social product of the community
as well as a means of encouraging particular social thought in the individual. Therefore
Wundt (1900–1920) encouraged the methodological study of language and its influence
on the social being.
b. Early Experiments
There is some disagreement about the first true experiment, but the following are
certainly among some of the most important.
 Triplett (1898) applied the experimental method to investigate the performance of
cyclists and school children on how the presence of others influences overall
performance – thus how individuals are affected and behave in the social context.
 By 1935 the study of social norms had developed, looking at how individuals
behave according to the rules of society. This was conducted by Sherif (1935).
Lewin et al.
 Then began experimental research into leadership and group processes by 1939,
looking at effective work ethics under different styles of leadership.
c. Later Developments
Much of the key research in social psychology developed following World War II, when
people became interested in the behavior of individuals when grouped together and in
social situations. Key studies were carried out in several areas.
Some studies focused on how attitudes are formed, changed by the social context and
measured to ascertain whether change has occurred. Amongst some of the most famous
work in social psychology is that on obedience conducted by Milgram in his “electric
shock” study, which looked at the role an authority figure plays in shaping behavior.

Similarly, Zimbardo’s prison simulation notably demonstrated conformity to given roles

in the social world. Wider topics then began to emerge, such as social perception,
aggression, relationships, decision making, pro-social behavior and attribution. Thus the
growth years for social psychology occurred during the decades following the 1940s.

Social Psychology’s Key Figures in the development of social psychology

1. Allport (1920) – Social Facilitation

Allport introduced the notion that the presence of others (the social group) can
facilitate certain behavior. It was found that an audience would improve an actors’
performance in well learned/easy tasks, but lead to a decrease in performance on
newly learned/difficult tasks due to social inhibition.

2. Bandura (1963) – Social Learning Theory

Bandura introduced the notion that behavior in the social world could be modeled.
Three groups of children watched a video where an adult was aggressive towards a
‘bobo doll’, and the adult was either just seen to be doing this, was rewarded by
another adult for their behavior or were punished for it. Children who had seen the
adult rewarded were found to be more likely to copy such behavior.

3. Festinger (1950) – Cognitive Dissonance

Festinger, Schacter and Black brought the idea that when we hold beliefs,
attitudes or cognitions which are different, then we experience dissonance – this is an
inconsistency that causes discomfort. We are motivated to reduce this by either
changing one of our thoughts, beliefs or attitudes or selectively attending to
information which supports one of our beliefs and ignores the other (selective
exposure hypothesis). Dissonance occurs when there are difficult choices or
decisions, or when people participate in behavior that is contrary to their attitude.
Dissonance is thus brought about by effort justification (when aiming to reach a
modest goal), induced compliance (when people are forced to comply contrary to
their attitude) and free choice (when weighing up decisions).

4. Weiner (1986) – Attribution theory

Weiner was interested in the attributions made for experiences of success and
failure and introduced the idea that we look for explanations of behavior in the social
world. He believed that these were made based on three areas: locus, which could be
internal or external; stability, which is whether the cause is stable or changes over
time: and controllability.
 5. Milgram (1963) –Shock Experiment
Participants were told that they were taking part in a study on learning, but always
acted as the teacher when they were then responsible for going over paired associate
learning tasks. When the learner (a stooge) got the answer wrong, they were told by a
scientist that they had to deliver an electric shock. This did not actually happen,
although the participant was unaware of this as they had themselves a sample (real!)
shock at the start of the experiment. They were encouraged to increase the voltage
given after each incorrect answer up to a maximum voltage, and it was found that all
participants gave shocks up to 300v, with 65 per cent reaching the highest level of
450v.
It seems that obedience is most likely to occur in an unfamiliar environment and
in the presence of an authority figure, especially when covert pressure is put upon
people to obey. It is also possible that it occurs because the participant felt that
someone other than themselves was responsible for their actions.

6. Haney, Banks, Zimbardo (1973) – Prison Study

Volunteers took part in a simulation where they were randomly assigned the role
of a prisoner or guard and taken to a converted university basement resembling a
prison environment. There was some basic loss of rights for the prisoners, who were
unexpectedly arrested, given a uniform and an identification number (they were
therefore deindividuated).

The study showed that conformity to social roles occurred as part of the social
interaction, as both groups displayed more negative emotions and hostility and
dehumanization became apparent. Prisoners became passive, whilst the guards
assumed an active, brutal and dominant role. Although normative and informational
social influence had a role to play here, deindividuation/the loss of a sense of identity
seemed most likely to lead to conformity.
Both this and Milgram’s study introduced the notion of social influence, and the
ways in which this could be observed/tested.
RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
There are different scientific methods that are used to conduct research and develop knowledge
in social psychology. Valid knowledge is obtained through scientific investigation. This implies
that methods for obtaining knowledge have to be thorough and systematic. Empirical research
leads to theory building. Theories form the framework for understanding any phenomenon. The
starting point of all research is common sense. In order to establish the truth behind common
sense, the scientific method is used. Every scientific method is based on robust data or evidence,
accurate measurement and description, and controlled observation and repeatable results.
Goals of Research in Social Psychology
Social psychological research has four goals:
  Description: A major goal is to give careful and systematic descriptions of social
behavior that permit social psychologists to create reliable generalizations in relation to
the how people act in several social settings. Instance: Are men more aggressive than
women‘s.
 Causal analysis: Much research in psychology seeks to establish cause and effect
relationship, because scientific inquiry in the research is to establish cause and effect
relations. Instance: Does college education create students more liberal in their social
attitudes.
 Theory building: Third goal is to develop theories in relation to the social behavior
which help social psychologists understand why people behave the method they do. This
can further lead to suggest new predictions that can be tested in further research.
 Application: Knowledge gained through the above three effort can help to solve every
day social problems.
Sources of Research in Social Psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of social behavior. These are a diverse range of
methods accessible to social psychologists. Any research begins with a hunch or hypothesis
(a tentative solution), that the researcher wants to test. There are two methods in which a
researcher chooses the hypothesis.
 People often generate hypothesis from previous theories and research. Several studies
stem from a researcher‘s dissatisfaction with existing theories and explanation.
Instance: Leon Festinger was dissatisfied with “behaviorism “to explain attitude
change. He therefore formulated a new approach described the dissonance theory that
made specific predictions in relation to the when and how people would change their
attitude. In this method new research is continuously accepted out in order to update
the existing theory.
 Theory is not the only method to derive a new hypothesis in social psychology.
Researchers often observe a phenomenon in everyday life that they find curious and
motivating. The researcher then constructs a theory related to that phenomenon,
therefore generating new theory. Instance: The mere attendance of other person that
led to better performance lead to the well-known phenomena of “social facilitation”.
The research methods used through social psychology could be divided into two broad
categories:
1. Experimental method, and
2. Non-experimental method/ descriptive method
Experimental Methods
An experiment involves manipulating one variable – which we call the Independent
Variable (IV) and then seeing whether this has an effect on a second variable, which
we refer to as the Dependent Variable (DV). To explain this, we describe an
experiment mannered through Scheier and Carver (1977) in which the independent
 variable “self-awareness” was manipulated through having participants either watch
themselves in a mirror or not.
These two levels of self-awareness high self-awareness (mirror present) and low self-
awareness (mirror not present) formed the two experimental circumstances. The
prediction was that people in the high self-awareness would show more extreme
emotional responses. Participant‘s self-reported emotions were measured. These
emotions provided the dependent variable in the experiment.
The experimental method could further be divided into two sub-categories
1. Laboratory method,
2. Field method.

Laboratory Method
The majority of experiments are mannered in a laboratory. In some studies, the
laboratory is equipped with television, video cameras, computer monitors,
microphones and other experimental apparatuses. In other cases, the laboratory is a
simple room with a table and chair wherein a participant fills out a questionnaire. The
benefit of conducting a laboratory experiment is that circumstances could be highly
controlled. Putting it in another method, within the confines of the laboratory,
everything (instance: environment, temperament, instructions given through the
researcher) separately from the independent variable can be held constant. This
method if changes in the independent variable are accompanied through changes in
the dependent variable, we can very confidently say that the changes in the dependent
variable are caused through the independent variable. Another benefit of experiments
mannered in such a controlled environment is that they can be replicated, which
would otherwise be more hard to make outside the laboratory. Laboratory
experiments have been used to study a wide range of social phenomena and have
formed the basis for a number of highly influenced theories.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Laboratory method are:
 Although the high degree of control over circumstances allows us to infer
causality from the finding – it also creates the experiment rather artificial i.e.
the experiments lacks external validity.
 Information that participants pickup from the experimental context that leads
them to guess what the experimenter is predicting will happen. When this
happens it will influence the ‘behavior’ which the experimenter is looking for
because the internal mental processes of the participant cannot be controlled.
 Experimenters themselves may also pose a risk to the validity of an
experiment. “Experimenter effects” are subtle cues or signals that is given out
through an experimenter who knows the experimental hypothesis – ex: body
language, eye movements, and tone of voice.
Field Method
Experiments are not only confined to the laboratory. They are also mannered
in naturalistic settings. For instance given a situation; wherein an individual
requires help, how several people come forward to help and why? Field
experiments have greater external validity (not being artificial but genuine)
than laboratory experiment. They are less likely to be influenced through
‘demand characteristics ‘participants typically have no thought that they are
taking part in a study.

The Advantage and Disadvantage of Field Method are:

 The situation is not almost as controlled as in a laboratory situation and so the
impact of external influences cannot be ruled out.
 It is also not possible to randomly assign participants to circumstances.
Non-Experimental Methods/ descriptive method.
It includes an attempts to measure or document behaviors, thoughts, or feelings in their natural
state. When descriptive research methods are employed by psychologists, they hope to record
behaviors without modifying them in any manner. This is the technique used in opinion polling,
TV shows success rating, box scores in the sports section, and the like on the other hand,
Researchers have three options. They can:
 Ask research participants to report on their behavior, thoughts or feeling –
through self-report.
 They can observe questioned participant directly – observation
 They can go to an archive and use data originally composed for other
purposes.
Although experiments are the best method of determining cause and effect,
there are several circumstances where they are practically not feasible. If we
are interested to know how gender, ethnicity, or age affects behavior, we
cannot assign participants to different circumstances of an experimental
method. Moreover, when social psychologists are interested to study
psychological phenomenon on a broad societal level (ex: ethnic prejudice),
experimental method cannot be used. In such instances a number of non-
experimental methods are accessible to a social psychologist. These are:
1. Observation method,
2. Archival method,
3. Case study,
4. Correlational method, and
5. Survey method.
Observational Research
 Observation may be defined as a process in which one or more persons observe some
real-life situation and record pertinent occurrences. It is used to evaluate the overt
behavior of the individuals in controlled and uncontrolled situations.
The term observation derives from Latin, meaning to watch, to attend to. Dictionary
definitions (e.g. Oxford English Dictionary, 1989) tend to concerned it with the accurate
watching and noting of phenomena as they occur in nature, with regard to cause and
effect or mutual relations.

Reber (1985), however, extends the definition that “All psychological methods involve
observation, but stresses a distinction that should be made between research that is
controlled by the manipulation of independent variables and research that is carried out
by the use of naturalistic observation”.

C.A. Moser (1958) expressed that “Observation can fairly be called the classic method of
scientific study.” Observation is one of the oldest and the most fundamental research
method approaches.

From the above definitions, it can be seen that `observation’ is the process of collecting
impressions of the world using all of one’s senses, especially visual and auditory, which
can be used as an independent `classic method’ of scientific study and also as a part of
research, supplementing other methods in an important way. However, in the layman’s
perception, understanding and usage of the term `observation’ is very different from the
one used in the social research processes. Everyone is an observer. However, observation
stops being a part of everyday lives and becomes a research method if it is systematically
planned, recorded and the recordings are checked for their validity and reliability with a
particular intention for such an Endeavour. These factors simply distinguish between
simply observing the world around you and collecting research data through observation.
Observation as a research method, thus, take place when the researcher intentionally,
with a specific purpose in mind, place themselves amidst certain people, locations,
situations and contexts to observe a phenomenon.

For example: Observational studies have been employed by a variety of social

psychologists interested in the subject of bullying to estimate its prevalence among
schoolchildren in many societies around the world. While some studies use self-report
methods to question children and teachers about the extent and severity of bullying,
through spending time in playgrounds and schoolyards closely observing and collecting
notes on the actions of children, some researchers have had a more direct look at the
issue. By spending time in playgrounds and schoolyards carefully watching and taking
notes on the children's interactions, and some have used hidden cameras and microphones
(with the schools and parents’ consent) to document episodes of bullying.
Types of Observation
Observation may be classified into following types:
 1. Participant Observation
2. Non-participant Observation

Participant observation: In the process of ‘participant observation’, the observer

becomes more or less one of the group members and may actually participate in
some or the other activity of the group. The observer may play any one of the
several roles in observation, with varying degrees of participation: as a visitor, an
attentive listener, an eager learner or as a participant observer. It is one type of
data collection method typically done in the qualitative research paradigm. It is a
widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly in behavioral science.
Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals
(such as a religious, occupational, sub cultural group, or a particular community)
and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural
environment, usually over an extended period of time.

Non-participant observation: In the process of ‘nonparticipant observation’, the

observer takes a position where his/her presence is not felt by the group. She/he
may follow closely the behavior of an individual or characteristics of one or more
groups. In this type of observation, a one-way ‘vision screen’ permits the observer
to see the subject but prevents the subject from seeing the observer.

Non participant observation or direct, observation is where data are collected by

observing behavior without interacting with the participants. In this type of
observation, the researcher does not actually participate in the activities of the
group to be studied. He would be simply present in the group to note down the
behavior of the respondents. The researcher makes no attempt to influence or to
create a relationship between him and the group. Though the method implies non-
participation, it should not be construed as complete or total lack of participation.
As a matter of fact, there can be no non-participant observation of a group.

The merit of this method is that the researcher can maintain purely impartial
status and be free from factionalism. He can adopt a scientific attitude and look at
the happenings only from that perspective. But the greatest problem with this
method is that the members of the group (i.e. those under observation) may
become suspicious of the presence of the researcher and hence may not display
their natural behavior.

Further, under non-participant observation, the observer may observe only those
activities that take place before him. He fails to understand them in proper
sequence, unless he has actively participated with the group.

Archival Method
Another method that social psychologist can observe social phenomenon
without conducting an experiment is to re-analyze existing data. The
researcher examines the accumulated document or archives of a culture, for
 instance; diaries, novels, suicide notes, television shows, movies, magazines,
newspaper articles, advertising, sexual violence etc. Archival analysis can tell
us a great deal in relation to the society‘s values and beliefs. It has got two
advantages. It is inexpensive and it can study the change over time frame.
This is particularly useful when researches are interested in the effect of
societal events on behaviors, which have occurred in the past. This research
comes under ‘archival research’ first mannered through Hovland and Sears
(1940).
Case study method

What is a case study?

A case study is a qualitative research method involving an in-depth and detailed

investigation to gather information about one or more individuals or groups. It
lays emphasis on studying few cases in great depth instead of gaining surface
information about many cases. The data is collected not just from one source but
many and the researcher, during the course of the study, employs several research
tools such as interviews, observation, and psychometric tests; Individually or in
combination to comprehensively and exhaustively study the aspect of concern.

For example, a researcher interested in conducting a case study on aggressive

child might observe the child in different settings, interview the parents and
administer psychometric tests to draw inferences about the behavior of interest.
The holistic understanding of the child will thus be gained by putting together and
analyzing the data collected from multiple sources.

Definition of case study method

Different authors define case study in their own distinctive ways

1. Young (1960) in her book Scientific Social Surveys and Research describes case study as
“a comprehensive study of a social unit be that unit a person, a group, a social institution,
a district or a community.” Her definition incorporates drawing inferences about each and
every aspect being studied in minute details.
2. Odum & Jocher (1929) believe “the case study method is a technique by which individual
factor whether be it an institution or just an episode in a life of an individual or a group is
analyzed in its relationship to any other in the group.” Thus a fairly exhaustive study of a
person or group is called or a life or case history. (As cited in Madan, Paliwal &
Bhardwaj, 2011, p.113)
3. According to Goode and Hatt,” it is an approach which views any social unit as a whole.
It is a way of organizing social data so as to preserve the unitary character of the social
object being studied.”
4. In the word of Charles Horfon Coolye,” Case study depends our perception and gives us
a clear insight into life. It gets at behavior directly and not by an indirect approach.”
 By the above definition; it is clear that the case study method is qualitative, inclusive,
intensive, insight stimulating and comprehensive approach. The field study is
comparatively limited but has more of depth in it. It aims at studying everything rather
than something about everything as in case of statistical method. In other words, it is
study of Micro problem at macro level. The approach to a case study research may not be
based on hypothecs is or on any well-established conclusions but the study itself may
help in formulating a well-founded hypothesis for further investigation. This approach to
research is , therefore, an open and objective investigation of a particular unit with a view
to develop a hypothesis in character so the researcher has complete freedom in selecting
problem that be considered as describe and fruit bearing. And it is used not necessary for
proving or disproving a hypothesis. Thus, the case study methods work as a micro scope
in understanding the complex behavior of social problem.

Sources of data for case study: -

Following are the main sources of data for case study research.

1. The personal documents, viz. dairies, autobiographies, memories, letter, etc. of an

individual which contain the description of remarkable events of the life of an individual
as well as his reactions towards them. Although they sufficiently subjective in nature but
are important for social research.
In the words of P.N. Young “personal documents represent continuity of experience
which helps to illuminate the individual personality. Social relations and Philosophy of
life often expressed in objective reality or subjective appreciation.
2. Life history is another course for case study at reveals the respondent life with the
significance of social movements.

Correlation Method
In correlation studies, the researcher cautiously observers and records the
relationship flanked by (or among) two or more factors technically recognized
as variables. For instance: Is physical attractiveness is related to a student‘s
popularity with other students. In a correlation design, the research does not
influence the student‘s behavior in any method but merely records
information. The hallmark of an experimental design is intervention – with
putting people in controlled situation or have confederates. Correlation
research asks if there is an association flanked by the variables and whether
this association is high (+ve) or low (-ve) or neutral (no correlation). Instance:
whether or not watching violence on television is related to aggressive
behavior.
The Advantages and Disadvantage of Correlational method is:
 Correlation designs enable research to study problems in which
intervention is impossible.
  This design is efficient. It allows research to collect more information
and relationship.
 No clear cut proof of cause and effect
Social Survey Method

A survey is defined as a collection tool which is used to collect information about

individuals. They are the most common method especially in case of psychology
research. They are used for gathering information related to self-report data. It may aim at
collecting factual information or the opinion of them regarding the survey which may
have been carried out.

Surveys help researchers to collect a variety of information in a quick way. It can be used
to collect information related to individual’s characteristics such as their age, religion,
ethnicity or income and so on. Surveys can also be used to collect information related to
people’s experience, hypothetical scenarios and opinions. Surveys can also be conducted
in a number of ways through mail, telephone or survey forms can be given to people
while they are in a mall or in a market.

Definition

1. Duncan Mitchell’s Dictionary of sociology defines social survey as follows, “the

social survey is a systematic collection of facts about people living in a specific
geographic, cultural or administrative area”.
2. Bogardus says “A social survey is the collection of data concerning the living and
working conditions, broadly speaking of the people in a given community”.
3. E.W. Burgess defined “A social; survey of a community is the scientific study of
its conditions and needs for the purpose of presenting a constructive program of
social advance”.

Social surveys are useful for dealing with many related aspects of social problem.
They provide the data for administration, rather than for the illustrative or
descriptive material. They are generally quantitative and the history of the social
survey is intimately bound up with the development of statistics.

Surveys vary greatly in their scope, their design and their content. The specific
characteristics of any survey will determined by the basic objectives, which
conducting survey there must be a specific pattern or design to follow to collect
data. The research follows a scientific step by step procedure.

OTHER RESEARCH METHODS

As psychology advanced and become global, and started focusing on cross
cultural social phenomena, this method became a very significant method.
Cross Cultural Method
It has two goals
 i. Demonstrates that a scrupulous psychological process or law is
universe and it operates the same method in all human being
crossways several cultures.
ii. Explore the differences among human beings, through examining
how culture influences the basic social psychological process.
Research through Internet
Recently social psychology has started to conduct research using the
internet. The internet offers many advantages to researchers.
 Internet creates it easier to recruit participants who come from
diverse background distant geographic regions or specific group.
 The information composed from the participants is automatically
recorded. This increases efficiency of data collection.
 Internet research is less expensive.
 Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards give a rich sample of
human social behavior, where people discuss current social issues
or hobbies on the online forums and study several topics including
communication, prejudice, and spread of new ideas. In research:
o Same subjects can participate in several studies more than
once
o The identity, responses in a frivolous and malicious
manner.
o Impossible to monitor participant‘s behavior or undesirable
distractions.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND OTHER SOCIAL

SCIENCES
Social Psychology and Sociology
Social psychology and sociology too have much in common and are independent. In fact,
sociology and psychology are social psychology’s parent’s disciplines (Myers, 2005). Sociology
studies society and social psychology studies the individual in the society, and since the
individual and society cannot exist and subsist without each other, the two sciences are said to be
interdependent. Both social psychologists and sociologists tend to share an interest in studying
how people behave in groups.( Myers, 2005)
Despite this, the two disciplines differ from each other as under-
1. The subject matter of sociology and social psychology differs. Sociology is the scientific
study of human society. It studies social institutions such as family, religion, politics,
stratification within society such as class structure, gender roles, race, caste etc. and the
 structure of social units such as groups, networks, formed organizations, bureaucracies,
etc.
Social psychology is the scientific study of nature and causes of human and social
behavior. Human social behavior includes many things such as activities of individuals in
the presence of others, the process of interaction between two or more persons and the
relationships between the individuals and the groups to which they belong. Social
psychologists address not only the nature of social behavior but also seek to discover the
preconditions that may have caused the social behaviors.
2. Although social psychologists and sociologists use some of the same research methods,
they have a clear- cut distinction in their approach. Social psychologists rely heavily on
laboratory experiment methodology, where they tend to manipulate factor such as the
presence or absence of the other in order to examine its impact upon the performance
level.
The primary concern of social psychology is how an individual’s behavior and social
thoughts are affected by social stimuli (often other person’s). Social psychologists tend to
give emphasis upon the topics like self, person’s perception, attribution, attitude change,
social learning, modeling, altruism, aggression, and interpersonal attraction. Sociologists,
on the other hand, rely mainly on a sample survey and observational method for
collecting data. They are mainly interested in the relationship between the individuals and
the groups to which they belong. They tend to study the topics like socialization,
conformity, and deviation, social interaction, leadership, cooperation, competition, self-
presentation, socio- economic status, where manipulation of factor is difficult or
unethical.

Despite these differences, the fields of sociology and social psychology can be best
viewed as complimentary, rather than conflicting. In fact, social psychology is such a
field where both sociologists as well as psychologists can contribute with their different
approaches.

Social psychology and anthropology

Social psychology is close to anthropology, which studies the patterns of culture in

various parts of world, particularly, among primitive, preliterate, and pre-urban people. It
uses concepts like culture, custom, folkways, and moves to explain the differences
between the various cultural groups. Anthropology has a branches of which cultural
anthropology is very close to social psychology. We know, there are three important
segments of socio- cultural behavior- individual, society and culture. The individual is
assigned to psychology, society to sociology, and culture to cultural anthropology. A
close look reveals that the integration among the individual, society and culture is so
close and interaction among them is continuous, and many researchers who wants to
study any one of them by ignoring the other two sides, very soon comes to a meaningless
conclusion. This description shows that social psychology is the meeting point for both
sociology and anthropology.
Cultural anthropology basically studies the civilization of the primitive man because here,
we find the beginning of social organization and social control through rituals, taboos,
and superstitions. Since much of human life and activities are interlinked with the use of
taboos, superstitions, and rituals, anthropologists seek to reconstruct the social pattern
and custom of primitive people from the remains found in the ruins of primitive culture.
The inter-link between social psychology with cultural anthropology becomes more
distinct and obvious when their areas of contact are mentioned. Social psychologists feel
indebted to anthropologists are of immense help in solving many problems of social
psychology. In fact, it is the impact of cultural anthropology that has made social
psychology much conscious of the cultural determinants of personality and human
behavior. Social psychologists feel that the real universal content of human behavior
cannot be properly studied without considering the large amount of data obtained from
real life situations that are made available.
In turn, social psychologists help anthropologists in solving some problems of
anthropology like those of superstitions, beliefs, and taboos, etc. Not only that, methods
of investigation developed by social psychologists are largely being used by
anthropology in studying culture and making a comparative study of different cultures.

Despite these points of interlinking, social psychology and anthropology do differ on

the following points:-
1. Cultural anthropology studies culture and cultural behavior of the person, whereas
social psychology studies the interaction among the individual, society and culture,
rather than any of these three alone.
2. Social psychology aims at discovering some relevant laws concerning the individual
social behavior so that social behavior both at present and in future can be
meaningfully explained. Anthropology, particularly, cultural anthropology, tries to
look into the past of the cultures and make little suggestions for the future.
3. Cultural anthropology generally uses naturalistic observation and participant
observation as the main techniques of its investigation, whereas social psychology
uses several methods such as experimentation, case study, field experiments, sample
survey, projective techniques besides naturalistic observation and participant
observation.
4. The approach of cultural anthropology is largely academic and it make little
contribution in solving the problems of the society. On the other hand the approach of
social psychology is practical based besides being academic. In other words, social
psychologists today have demonstrated keen interest in issues that are considered
important outside the laboratory such as crime and aggression, ethnic conflict, AIDS
or any other epidemic, declining productivity and global interdependence (Rodin,
1985). Thus, the approach of social psychology is both practical and academic.

So, social psychology and anthropology, though interlinked, also display some points of
differences.
Social psychology and social work
During social work practice social workers seek the help of social psychology to
understand and analyses human behavior. When a social worker makes an effort to bring
about a change in personality through functioning or behavior modification he has to look
for help from social psychology. In resolving problems related to adjustment, social
psychology helps social work. The method of social case work of social work profession
is dependent on psychology. Group work derives many social, psychological elements to
be used in practice for group strengthening and betterment, from psychology. Social
psychology studies group morale, leadership qualities and traits, behaviors of crowds and
audiences which are useful in social group work and to some extent, in community
organization of social work practices.
In psychology, social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of
others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The
terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all psychological variables that are
measurable in a human being. The statement that others’ presence may be imagined or
implied suggests that we are prone to social influence even when no other people are
present, such as when watching television, or following internalized cultural norms.
Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of
mental states and immediate social situations. In general, social psychologists have a
preference for laboratory-based, empirical findings. Social psychology theories tend to be
specific and focused, rather than global and general.
Social psychologists therefore deal with the factors that lead us to behave in a given way
in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under which certain behavior/actions
and feelings occur. Social psychology is concerned with the way these feelings, thoughts,
beliefs, intentions and goals are constructed and how such psychological factors, in turn,
influence our interactions with others.
Social psychology is an interdisciplinary domain that bridges the gap between
psychology and sociology. During the years immediately following World War II, there
was frequent collaboration between psychologists and sociologists. However, the two
disciplines have become increasingly specialized and isolated from each other in recent
years, with sociologists focusing on “macro variables” (e.g., social structure) to a much
greater extent. Nevertheless, sociological approaches to social psychology remain an
important counterpart to psychological research in this area.
According to psychologist Gordon Allport, social psychology is a discipline that uses
scientific methods “to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of
individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human
beings” (1985).
Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behavior, social
perception, leadership, nonverbal behavior, conformity, aggression, and prejudice. It is
 important to note that social psychology is not just about looking at social influences.
Social perception and social interaction are also vital to understanding social behavior.
SOCIAL WORK
Social work is a profession concerned with helping individuals, families, groups and
communities to enhance their individual and collective well-being. It aims to help people
develop their skills and their ability to use their own resources and those of the
community to resolve problems. Social work is concerned with individual and personal
problems but also with broader social issues such as poverty, unemployment and
domestic violence.
Human rights and social justice are the philosophical underpinnings of social work
practice. The uniqueness of social work practice is in the blend of some particular values,
knowledge and skills, including the use of relationship as the basis of all interventions
and respect for the client’s choice and involvement.
In a socio-political-economic context which increasingly generates insecurity and social
tensions, social workers play an important and essential role. Social work has its roots in
the social and economic upheaval wrought by the Industrial Revolution, in particular the
societal struggle to deal with poverty and its resultant problems. Because poverty was the
main focus of early social work, it was intricately linked with the idea of charity work.
For instance, it is common for modern social workers to find themselves dealing with
consequences arising from other “social problems” such as racism, sexism, homophobia,
and discrimination based on age or on physical or mental disability. Social work is an
interdisciplinary profession, meaning it draws from a number of areas, such as (but not
limited to) psychology, sociology, criminology, economics, ecology, education, health,
law, philosophy, anthropology and counselling or colloquially known as psychotherapy.
It is not a ‘single model’, such as that of health; followed by medical professional such as
nurses and doctors, thus, social work requires study and continued professional
development to retain knowledge and skills in practice. As an example, here are some of
the social work models (or theories) used within practice:
RELEVNCE OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TO SOCIAL WORK
The discipline of social psychology began in the United States at the dawn of the 20th
century. However, the discipline had already developed a significant foundation.
Following the 18th century, those in the emerging field of social psychology were
concerned with developing concrete explanations for different aspects of human nature.
They desired to discover concrete cause and effect relationships that explained the social
interactions in the world around them. In order to do so, they believed that the scientific
method, an empirically based scientific measure, could be applied to human behavior so
relating it to social work is like a profession and academic discipline that seeks to
improve the quality of life and subjective well-being of individuals, groups, and
communities through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, crisis
intervention, and teaching for the benefit of those affected by social disadvantages such
 as poverty, mental and physical illness or disability, and social injustice, including
violations of their civil liberties and human rights.
A person who practices social work is called a social worker. Social psychology reached
a more mature level in both theories and methods during the 1980s and 1990s. Careful
ethical standards now regulate research. Pluralistic and multicultural perspectives have
emerged. Modern researchers are interested in many phenomena, but attribution, social
cognition, and the self-concept are perhaps the greatest areas of growth in recent years.
Social psychologists have also maintained their applied interests with contributions in
health, environmental, and legal psychology which can be seen as social work or status in
terms of academic preference.
In social psychology, social work are defined as learned, global evaluations of a person,
object, place, or issue that influence thought and action. Put more simply, social work are
basic of expressions for approval or disapproval, favorability or un-favorability, or as
Bem put it, likes and dislikes. Examples would include liking chocolate ice cream, being
against abortion, or endorsing the values of a particular political party.
Social psychologists have studied social work formation, the structure of attitudes and
status in our society, attitude change, the function of attitudes, and the relationship
between attitudes and behavior. Because people are influenced by the situation, general
attitudes are not always good predictors of specific behavior. For a variety of reasons, a
person may value the environment but not recycle a can on a particular day. Attitudes that
are well remembered and central to our self-concept, however, are more likely to lead to
behaviors, and measures of general attitudes do predict patterns of behavior over time.
Application of social psychology
We will in this section discuss the uses of social psychology.
Clinical Setting
A social psychologist plays a significant role within the clinical setting. Social and clinical
psychology share some common points on topics such as behavior, adaptation and adjustment.
This consists of a two-sided approach at the psychopathological as well as the development
levels. Concerns relating to distress, maladjustment, and deviant behavior form a part of the area
just as concerns relating to the improvement of psychological well-being among the
psychologically healthy individuals. Maladjustment among couples may lead to clashes in close
relationships, self-defeating behaviors and even learned helplessness, may arise as a part of
acculturation process. A little deviation in relationships may lead to controllable interpersonal
conflict. However, if interpersonal conflicts become unmanageable then it may lead to bigger
psychological issues requiring clinical attention. On the developmental side, social psychologists
may utilize psychological coping methods such as self-regulation and self-management to be
applied in daily life.
Military Setting
The military personnel have to go through various circumstances and situations that affect the
mental health and well-being of the military people. Social psychologists try to look into these
matters and find the possible problem and solutions associated with it. It can also help to
interview or consult military personnel who might provide information that would help in
enhancing the outcomes of the military operations. The social psychologists in the military
setting have found out that there is a great need for mental health care in the military setting to
help them in coping with the high-stress military environments.
Sociologists, historians, and even psychologists have long studied the when and why of major
wars. Their theories range from economics to demographics to resources to religion to lust for
empire. Psychological stress and disorders have always been a part of military life, especially
during and after wartime, but the mental health section of military psychology has not always
experienced the awareness it does now. Even in the present day there is much more research and
awareness needed concerning this area. Military psychology is the research, design and
application of psychological theories and experimentation data towards understanding, predicting
and countering behaviors either in friendly or enemy forces or civilian population that may be
undesirable, threatening or potentially dangerous to the conduct of military operations.
Military psychology is applied towards counselling and treatment of stress and fatigue of
military personnel or military families as well as treatment of psychological trauma suffered as a
result of military operations. Another use of military psychology is in interrogation of prisoners
who may provide information that would enhance outcomes of friendly military operations or
reduce friendly casualties.
The goals and missions of current military psychologists have been retained over the years,
varying with the focus and strength of intensity of research put forth into each sector. The need
for mental health care is now an expected part of high stress military environments. The
importance and severity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has finally gained more
credibility than those suffering from it received in the past, and is being highlighted in treatment
programs. More extensive post-deployment screenings take place now to home in on problematic
recoveries that used to be passed unnoticed and untreated.
When looking at identity from a perspective of social psychology, one sees the specific role that
identifying the self in relation to an ‘in-group’ and an ‘out-group’ plays in identity formation.
You need to study, in addition to the social and psychological dynamics of impermanent
identities, the contrast between personal identity and social identity, and the multiplicity of
identities of one person, with particular focus on the application of these principles to identity
formation within a military context.
Application of social psychology in education setting/ school setting
Social psychology can be applied in school setting. School Psychology, a general practice of
Health Service Psychology, is concerned with children, youth, families, and the schooling
process. Social psychologists are prepared to intervene at the individual and system levels, and
develop, implement and evaluate programs to promote positive learning environments for
children and youth from diverse backgrounds, and to ensure equal access to effective educational
and psychological services that promote health development.
Social psychologists work within the educational system to help children with emotional, social,
and academic issues. The goal of school psychology is to collaborate with parents, teachers, and
students to promote a healthy learning environment that focuses on the needs of children.
A few of the duties that a social psychologist in school might perform on a regular basis include:
 Helping students with behavioral problems
 Evaluating students experiencing academic difficulties
 Developing academic or behavioral plans for students
 Aiding students with crisis situations.
Social psychologists, in order to help the school children attain their best in school, studies and
life, directly work with students, teachers and parents in order to assess, diagnose and design
various treatment plans for students’ learning and other disabilities. Thus, the school
psychologists have to play a very serious and challenging role in the lives of the school children.
Hence, the school psychologists need to be inevitably well conversant with the psychological
needs of the school children, symptoms of distress, behavioral problems and treatment plans in
order to provide efficient school psychology services
Current trends of social psychology
There has been a tremendous growth and change in the field of social psychology in recent
times. These changes echo the speedy growth found in every area of human life. The primary
focus of research in the field of social psychology since the new millennium has been the
cognitive perspective, application perspective, multicultural perspective and evolutionary
perspective. In terms of the cognitive perspective, social psychologists are trying to apply the
basic knowledge about memory, reasoning, and decision making to different aspects of social
behavior. For example, researchers have tried to ascertain the role between prejudice and basic
cognitive processes. In terms of the multicultural perspective, researchers have tried to observe
how the rate of culture and human diversity affect social behavior and thought. In terms of the
evolutionary perspective, an important trend among social psychologists has been to see how
biological and evolutionary factors influence different aspects of social behavior. In terms of the
application perspective, a growing number of social psychologists nowadays try to apply the
knowledge of social psychology to questions on personal health, behavior in work settings,
environmental issues, and so on.
In overall, social psychologist are centered in four main areas-
a. Improving techniques to solve behavioral problems like alcoholism, smoking, suicidal
problems, conflict, violence, genocide, discrimination, atrocities, terrorism etc.
b. Solving problems like internet addiction, cyber bullying, misuse of digital devices,
climate change
c. Addressing new issues like long-term care, need for equity, people friendly technology,
protection of privacy in social media, and pain less drugs treatment
 d. The new term tele-psychology in social psychology focus to administer new technology
friendly therapies to diagnose illness, to do teaching, to correct behavior etc.
Besides these some recent trends of social psychology can be pointed as below
a. Cognition and Behavior :
Couple of decades back, cognition and behaviorism were considered as two different
kinds of things in psychology. But it no longer exists. Cognition and behavior are
currently considered as intimately linked and related approaches. Present research
findings are clearly indicating that the cognition and behavior need to be considered as
strongly linked with each other.
b. Social Neuroscience:
Social neuroscience is merging of two different fields: social psychology and
neuroscience. In fact, now specialist journals are being published in this area, e.g. Social
Neuroscience. This interdisciplinary field is devoted to understanding how biological
systems execute social processes and behavior. It uses concepts and methods from
biological sciences to understand and purify theories of social thought, behavior and
processes. The MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imagery), fMRI (Functional MRI), PET
(Positron Emission Tomography) are commonly used techniques in this science.
Typically, when people engage in social activities, their biological parameters are
measured.
c. Social Diversity:
If you look at Nepal, you will realize that it is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-
religious country. It has different languages and more dialects. Every part of the world
shows the diversity that exists. Cross-cultural research focuses on this diversity. Recently,
multiculturalism has been promoted as a position to understand this diversity.
Multiculturalism means the acceptance or promotion of multiple ethnic cultures, for
practical reasons and for the sake of accepting and celebrating diversity. It is useful in
many demographic setups. e.g., schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities, etc. It
promote the idea of equitable status to all religious, ethnic groups without encouraging
any specific values as central. This has been used in various psychological practices, for
example, multicultural counselling.
Unit end questions for assignments
1. Define social psychology. Also discuss its nature and scope.
2. Present the historical background of the development/ evolvement of social
psychology
3. Is social psychology a science? Give concrete arguments with concrete examples.
4. “Social psychology is the meeting point for psychology and sociology”. Explain it.
5. Interrelate the relationship between social psychology and anthropology.
6. How social work and social psychology are connected? Explain their relations and
differences.
7. How theories and knowledge in social psychology are developed in social
psychology? Describe these different methods used in social psychology
 8. Describe the current situation and trends of social psychology.
9. Discuss on the application of social psychology in details.
10. What are different theories in social psychology? Describe the roles of theory in
social psychology

UNIT 2- SOCIAL COGNITION

Meaning of cognition and social cognition

Cognition
The term cognition is used in several different loosely related ways. In psychology it is used to
refer to the mental processes of an individual, with particular relation to a view that argues that
the mind has internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and intentions) and can be understood
in terms of information processing, especially when a lot of abstraction or concretization is
involved, or processes such as involving knowledge, expertise or learning for example are at
work. It is also used in a wider sense to mean the act of knowing or knowledge, and may be
interpreted in a social or cultural sense to describe the emergent development of knowledge and
concepts within a group that culminate in both thought and action.
In short, Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge or the process of
knowing and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
Nature of cognition
Cognition thus, has at least following features i.e.
1. Cognition means ‘mental processes’ that people use to gather/ acquire knowledge, and
2. Cognition refers to the knowledge that has been gathered/ acquired subsequently used in
mental processes
3. Cognition is the process of knowing, as well as what is known
4. Cognition refers to the higher mental processes
5. It is through these mental processes that humans understand the world, process
information, make judgments and decisions, and communicate knowledge to others.
6. Cognition is commonly known as Thinking or thoughts that develop knowledge.
Social cognition
All our lives we are interested in knowing about people and the world around us. We use social
information available to judge others and evaluate situations. There are feelings that develop as a
result of these experiences. The use of such information to understand others and the social
world that exists around us is social cognition.
People use mental shortcuts to quickly understand people and situations. Like all shortcuts, they
have their benefits as well as limitations. Other forms of biases may also enter and influence our
judgments. Emotions too play a role in our understanding" All these constitute the study of social
cognition.
Definition
1. Social cognition is the way we analyze, remember, and use information about the social
world (Berkowitz & Devine, 1995).
2. Social cognition is the way in which people think about themselves and the social world,
including how they select, interpret, remember, and use social information (Aronson et al
2010)
3. Social cognition is the process of thinking about oneself and others. (kenrik et al – 2006)
4. Social cognition is the manner in which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use
information about the social world.
For example, if we want to buy a new mobile in a buy-back offer, then we neither meticulously
mathematically calculate the exact price of the old and new mobile nor we do any probability
calculations to maximizing our profits. We simply have a rough estimate of the prices and accept
bargains more or less around that price. We can understand few interesting things about our mind
from this example.
a. One, we have frameworks developed from the past experience (often called as ‘schema’)
regarding selling and buying and we propose a lower price to buy and higher price to sell
than our expectations.
b. Two, the mental processes we carry out are faster, automatic and very quick.
c. Third, at the same time these mental frameworks are prone to systematic errors and
biases in decisions we make.
The following units of this chapter on Social cognition, will deal with on following major
points. They are as follows:
1. Schemas: Mental Framework for Organizing and Using Social Information.
2. Role of schema in Social Cognition
3. Automatic and Controlled Processing
4. Affect and Cognition: how feelings shape thought and thought shape feelings.

SCHEMAS
Schemas are mental frameworks centering on specific theme that help us to organize social
information.
Definition-
1. Schemas are mental frameworks centering on specific theme that help us to organize
social information and that guide our actions and the processing of information relevant
to those contexts( Baron, 2009)
2. Schemas are knowledge structures that represent considerable amount of information
about the concept, its characteristics and its relationship to other concepts. ( Baumeister,
1997)

Types of schemas
There are various types of schemas.
1. “Self –schema” - Self-schemas, then, are beliefs that provide an organizing framework to
help us understand ourselves. Self- schemas summarize the personality traits, attitudes,
values, interests, and other characteristics that we attribute to our-"selves. They also
include actions and interpersonal relationships. They focus on what we know about who
we are now, who we were in the past, and who we could be in the future.
2. Persona/ person schemas- Schemas for other individuals are "person schema" which are
created to help us understand specific people. For instance, one’s schema for their
significant other will include the way the individual looks, the way they act, what they
like and don’t like, and their personality traits.
3. Role schema- Schema for social roles are called "role schemas" which encompass our
expectations of how a person in a specific social role will behave. For example, we
expect a waiter to be warm and welcoming. While not all waiters will act that way, our
schema sets our expectations of each waiter we interact with.
4. Event schema- Schemas for events or situations are called "event schema" (event script)
which encompass the sequence of actions and behaviors one expects during a given
event. For example, when an individual goes to see a movie, they anticipate going to the
theater, buying their ticket, selecting a seat, silencing their mobile phone, watching the
movie, and then exiting the theater.
5. Object schema- object schema is about inanimate objects including what different
objects are and how they work. For example, we have a schema for what a door is and
how to use it. Our door schema may also include subcategories like sliding doors, screen
doors, and revolving doors.
6. Social schema- social schema is about how to behave in different social situations which
help us understand how to behave in different social situations. For example, if an
individual plans to see a movie, their movie schema provides them with a general
understanding of the type of social situation to expect when they go to the movie theater.
Functions of schema
1. Organizing our knowledge about social world into categories
 2. Help us think, plan, learn and decide quickly
3. Simplify our interactions with the world quickly
How Schemas Change (modification of schemas)

In the process of learning and growing up, the child adds new schemas into the mind. They
change or modify the existing schemas with arrival of new information about something they
already know.

The processes through which schemas are adjusted or changed are known as assimilation and
accommodation.

The processes through which schemas are adjusted or changed are known as assimilation and
accommodation.

1. Assimilation- using existing schemas to understand something new we encounter

2. Accommodation- creating new schemas or modifying the existing ones because
assimilation is not enough to understand new information.

Schemas tend to be easier to change during childhood but can become increasingly rigid and
difficult to modify as people grow older. Schemas will often persist even when people are
presented with evidence that contradicts their beliefs.

In many cases, people will only begin to slowly change their schemas when inundated with a
continual barrage of evidence pointing to the need to modify it.

How Schemas Affect Learning

Schemas also play a role in the learning process. For example:

 Schemas influence what we pay attention to. People are more likely to pay attention to

things that fit in with their current schemas.
 Schemas also impact how quickly people learn. People also learn information more
readily when it fits in with the existing schemas.
 Schemas help simplify the world. Schemas can often make it easier for people to learn
about the world around them. New information could be classified and categorized by
comparing new experiences to existing schemas.
 Schemas allow us to think quickly. Even under conditions when things are rapidly
changing our new information is coming in quickly, people do not usually have to spend
a great deal of time interpreting it. Because of the existing schemas, people are able to
assimilate this new information quickly and automatically.
 Schemas can also change how we interpret incoming information. When learning
new information that does not fit with existing schemas, people sometimes distort or alter
the new information to make it fit with what they already know.
 Schemas can also be remarkably difficult to change. People often cling to their
existing schemas even in the face of contradictory information.
WHILE DISCUSSING THE SOCIAL SCHEMA WE WOULD STUDY THREE
ASPECTS OF SCHEMA:
1. Role/ impact of schema on social cognition;
2. priming; and
3. Schema persistence.

A.THE ROLE OF SCHEMA ON SOCIAL COGNITION

(The Impact of Schemas on Social Cognition: Attention, Encoding, and Retrieval)
Schemas influence social cognition by acting upon three basic cognitive processes. They are
attention, encoding and retrieval. Attention is cognitive process of focusing on specific
information while ignoring other things. Encoding is storing this information in memory.
Retrieval refers to the processes of recalling the information stored in memory and using it.
a. Attention: Schemas work as mechanism that helps individuals to focus attention
on specific aspects of environment. The stimulus that is coherent with schemas is
more easily noticed than the stimulus that is not fitting with the schemas one hold
(unless the information has high strength of attracting information). E.g., while
watching a cricket match we quickly notice happenings on the ground as
compared to the noise in the stadium.
b. Encoding: Information that is consistent with schemas is more likely to be saved
in the long-term memory than the one that is less relevant. We remember easily
the instances when people have agreed with us than when they have disagreed. In
contrast, we also remember some instances, which do not at all fit in the schemas.
For example, if you go to the government office and your work is done in five
minutes, most probably you will not forget the instance, because it was
contradictory to your expectations.
c. Retrieval: The relationship between schemas and retrieval is a complex issue.
Some researchers have shown that information that is consistent with schemas is
better retrieved. Others have shown that the information inconsistent with the
schemas are more easily stored and retrieved.
B. PRIMING
Priming: Events or stimulus that increases the availability of the specific type of
information in the memory or consciousness.

DEFINITION
1. Priming is the non- conscious activation of social knowledge( Bargh- 2006)
2. Priming is the process of activating particular association in memory( Myers -2010)
3. Priming is the temporary consciousness increases in the accessibility of specific schemas(
Sparrow & Wegner, 2006)
We have large number of schemas. Out of them specific schema is used for interpreting social
information. Priming is one of the mechanisms that influence the selection of schema. Priming
refers to the events or stimulus that increases the availability of the specific type of information
in the memory or consciousness as compared to other type of information. Usually stronger
schemas are used for processing. But priming can also have an impact on the activation of
certain schemas.
For example, you had fight with your boss when you came out of the office. While walking on
road, somebody bangs you, and before he says anything you get extremely angry with him. This
is because you have schema of aggressively interpreting social information that is activated.
Studies on the effectiveness of priming have suggested that the effect of priming last for years
together.
Examples-
Often, when we read about description of diseases, we start to identify some of the symptoms in
us as well. Reading a horror story at night when alone could make us believe and see certain
frightening things around us. These are instances of the effect of priming. Certain stimuli
heighten the availability of certain information that is readily brought to mind. Similarly, traits
that are used for describing a person are used as primes for generating impressions about them,
even if they are fictitious characters.
Un-priming of schemas
The effects of priming can decrease. This is called as un-priming. If the priming is expressed in
thinking process or in social action (behavior), then effect of priming decreases. This is un-
priming. If priming is not expressed, then it does not lose its effect.
Prototypes
The personality types that we derive in the case of person perception are organized into schemas
known as prototypes. Prototypes are schemas that organize a group of personality traits into a
meaningful personality type. For example, Nancy cantor and walter Mischel (1979) suggest a
frequently held prototype concerns a person labeled on a general level as committed.
At the most specific level called the subordinate level— the prototype consists of different types
of committed individuals for example monks, nuns and activists. At the middle level of
specificity, there are basic classes of individuals: the religious devotee or social activist. The
subordinate and middle levels of specificity are subsumed under the broader super ordinate level
which encompasses the prototype as a whole.
The importance of prototypes lies in three directions:
i. Prototypes allow people to recall more readily, recognize and categorize information
about others. In a sense then information processing capabilities are enhanced through
the use of prototypes.
 ii. Prototypes help us to organize the social world around us. By observing relatively
few traits or behaviors, we are able to categorize people into certain prototypes and
this in turn allows us to form expectations about others’ behaviors.
iii. Prototypes allow people to plan behavior in social interactions more readily.

AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED PROCESSING: TWO BASIC MODELS OF

SOCIAL THOUGHT:
Social thoughts in human can occur in two different processing; autonomic and controlled.
The distinction between automatic and controlled processing has been well-established.
According to this idea, social thoughts are processed in two distinct ways:
a. Automatic Processing, and
b. Controlled Processing.

Controlled Processing refers to the processing of social information in careful, systematic,

logical, rational, and effortful way. In this kind of processing, individuals think systematically
and logically to reach to a conclusion. E.g., when you want to make a travel plan for your
holidays, you find out most of the information, carefully choose the destinations and then
systematically make the travel plans. Automatic Processing refers to fast, relatively effortless,
and intuitive kind of processing of social information. This not necessarily means that these
processing are entirely independent of each other. Some studies have shown that they work
together.
Automatic Processing refers to fast, relatively effortless, intuitive, automatic and non-conscious
processing of information due to sufficient experience of the cognitive task or social information.
Good amount of correlational as well as experimental research has supported this distinction. In
addition, neurological research has also indicated the support to this distinction. It was found that
there are two kinds of neural systems that process social information; one for automatic and the
other for controlled. The automatic processing of thought is primarily associated with amygdala,
whereas controlled processing primarily occurs in prefrontal cortex. Now, we shall discuss the
effect of automatic processing on automatic social behavior.
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior:
We have already learned about the schemas. In order to demonstrate the effect of automatic
processing on automatic social behavior, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) conducted some
experiments.
In one of the experiments, they wanted to find the impact of rude and polite schema on subject’s
behavior. These schemas were activated by giving scrambled sentences containing words
relevant schema.
There were three groups of subjects. The group one had received scrambled sentences containing
words related to rudeness, group two received words related to politeness and group three
received unrelated words.
After this task, they were supposed to report to the experimenter and ask for the next task. The
experimenter was talking to another person (confederate). Experimenter ignored the subjects.
Whether subject interrupted this conversation or not was the dependent variable.
It was found that group 1 subjects interrupted the conversation more than anybody, confirming
the hypothesis that the behavior has occurred in automatic manner.
Further, it was found that it had no relation with subject’s ratings of experimenter’s politeness. In
another study, they found that when the schema for ‘old age’ is activated, the subjects walked
slowly than when it was not activated.
Obviously confirming that the stereotypes, which are one type of schemas, have an impact on
automatic behavior.
In other studies, they have found that automatic processing have general effects than specific
ones.
They concluded that once automatic processing is activated, people automatically get ready for
the interactions with the people for whom the schema is activated.
Benefits of Automatic Processing:
It is well known that the automatic processing is comparatively effortless, fast and efficient. In
addition, whether it is beneficial than the systematic controlled processing is an interesting
question to answer. Dijksterhuis and van Olden (2006) conducted an experiment showing the
benefits of automatic processing. They investigated effects of immediate, conscious (controlled,
systematic), and unconscious (uncontrolled, automatic) processing on satisfaction with the
decision. They had three groups of subjects. The looked at posters and indicated their liking.
Group 1 (immediate condition) has seen all the posters simultaneously and had to make decision
immediately. Group 2 (Conscious condition) saw each poster for 90 seconds, listed their
thoughts and evaluation systematically. Group 3 (Unconscious condition) worked on anagram
problem after seeing the pictures, giving them no time to think. Later on they indicated their
preferences. Subjects were gifted the posters of their choice. After five week, they were asked
about their satisfaction with the poster and the money that they would want to sell it off.
These finding clearly indicate that the group that processed the information systematically was
most dissatisfied group whereas the one that processed information automatically was most
satisfied group.
This may be due to the different capacity of the two processing style to process the information,
automatic superseding. This and similar studies indicates that automatic processing is not only
effortless but can be useful too.
POTENTIAL SOURCES OF ERRORS IN SOCIAL COGNITION:
Human beings reason thoughtfully on most of the social occasions, does not guarantee us
rationality of thinking. This means that though we try to be correct in our thought process, we are
likely to make errors in our social judgments. We shall explore some errors in cognition.
Negativity Bias:
Take following example: Niranjan is bright, helpful, social, jealous, and friendly person. Which
adjective has attracted your attention the most? Perhaps, jealous…right…! This happens because
of our tendency called as negativity bias. The tendency of Human beings to pay more attention to
negative information than positive information is called as negativity bias. Social psychologists
have recognized this tendency of human beings for a long time. Negativity bias refers to the
tendency to show greater sensitivity to negative information than positive information.
We pay more attention to any negative event, characteristics, etc., of social situation. This is seen
in variety of social situations.
Such a tendency has a strong evolutionary relevance. Negative information reflects potentially
dangerous aspects of the situation which may cause threat to the survival of the individual.
Hence, one need to be sensitive to such an information. Human beings detect negative emotions
very quickly than positive emotions. This does not mean that we are always negative in our
attention. Indeed we also pay attention to positive information, and negativity bias gets
eliminated under positive priming conditions.

The Optimistic Bias:

We also have an exactly opposite bias called as ‘optimistic biases’. The optimistic bias refers to
the tendency to expect the overall outcomes as positive. Generally, most people believe that they
are more likely to experience positive events than others.
The optimistic bias refers to the tendency to expect the overall outcomes as positive.
The effect of optimistic bias is seen on many of our actions and behaviors. Two examples are
overconfidence barrier and planning fallacy.
Overconfidence barrier refers to tendency to be more confident about the accuracy of our
judgments than sensible.
We believe that we are more likely to be successful in studies, relations, marriage, jobs, and live
longer life than what seems reasonable. This bias is called as overconfidence barrier.
Another result of the optimism is planning fallacy. Planning fallacy is a tendency to make
optimistic bias regarding the time estimations for a given task. We tend to believe that we will
finish a task much earlier than what it would actually take. Think of your time-tables for
examination studies. We typically never finish our studies in the planned time. Because we tend
to be unrealistically optimistic in our estimations of time.
Planning fallacy is a tendency to believe that we can do more work in given period of time
than actually or realistically is possible.
The planning fallacy occurs because we tend to ignore how much time a particular task has taken
in past. We tend to focus on future and make a narrative account. Even when we focus on past
we believe that we took more time because of the external factors outside our control which may
not affect us now. So if we pay careful attention to potential obstacles, then we can correctly
estimate the time required and avoid the planning fallacy.
Counterfactual Thinking:
Suppose your friend applies for a specific college and fail to get admission because of less merit.
You quickly think that ‘he should have studied more’. If you know that somebody met with an
accident and you think ‘what if he wouldn’t have started at that time. This is typically known as
counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thinking is thinking about a past that did not happen. It is
tendency to imagine other outcomes in the situation than the once that have occurred.
Counterfactual thinking is not just limited to the negative events. It is wide range of automatic
thinking that influences our social cognition. Counterfactual thinking is thinking about a past that
did not happen. It is tendency to imagine other outcomes in the situation than the ones that have
occurred.
Counterfactual literally means ‘contrary to the facts’. The term counterfactual thinking refers to a
set of cognitions involving the simulation of alternatives to past or present factual events or
circumstances. Suppose, two of your friends failed in unit test because they did not study well.
Since the outcome is similar, you should feel similar sympathy for them. Now, imagine that A
otherwise studies regularly, and B rarely studies. Now for whom you will have more sympathy..?
You think of alternatives for the behavior of A than B and feel more sympathetic for him.
Counterfactual thinking is a very strong bias in thinking. In order to get rid of counterfactual
thinking one need to suppress counterfactual thoughts or discount them.
Counterfactual thinking can be beneficial or costly for the user depending on how it is used.
Suppose you have missed a top position in your class by one point. You think that ‘you could
have done better’ or ‘least you retained second position in class’, you are engaging in two
different types of counterfactual thoughts: upward and downward. This is one useful
classification of counterfactuals is based on their direction of comparison (Roese, 1994).
Counterfactuals may result in alternative circumstances that are evaluative better than actual (i.e.,
upward counterfactuals) or evaluative worse than actual (i.e., downward counterfactuals).
Often, regret can be confused with counterfactual thinking. Regret is an emotion whereas
counterfactual thinking is thought.
Thought Suppression:
Human beings can manage to keep some thought out of their consciousness. This is called as
thought suppression. If certain thoughts are disturbing, we can stay mentally healthy by keeping
them out of mind. Thought suppression can be achieved in two stages:
i. Monitoring Process: this is an automatic monitoring process, which identifies an
unwanted interrupting thought.
 ii. Operating Process: this is an effortful, controlled process to find other important
thought to distract from the disturbing thought. Individuals engage in thought
suppression by influencing their feeling or behaviors.
Magical Thinking:
Suppose your friend offers you chocolates that have shape of insect, or cockroach. Will you eat
that chocolate..? Most probably no. if you think rationally, the shape of the chocolate does not
decide the contents. But still you will not, this is because of magical thinking.
Magical thinking involves assumption that does not hold under rational scrutiny, but still
individuals believe in them. One of the examples of it is, if two things resemble in external
appearance, then they share similar fundamental properties. The plastic or rubber model of
snakes or lizard can also create panic among the people.
Magical thinking involves assumption that does not hold under rational scrutiny
Positive view of Social Cognition:
From the earlier discussion it appears that we are making only errors in thinking. Look at various
kinds of heuristics that human beings use and various kinds of errors we make in social thinking.
This provides a very grim view of social cognition. As if we are making all judgments and
decision irrationally. But in reality, we are processing huge amount of social information. And
still, most of the time, in our social interactions, we are making useful and efficient judgments. It
is also true that we are cognitive misers, and lazy about using rationality, but these rules of
thumb often give us useful judgments. So we need not feel that this is making our life worse. It is
certainly bringing some limitation to human thinking, and hence we are not becoming machines
that process information, computers. This is what gives humanness to human thinking.
AFFECT AND COGNITION:
In this section we shall discuss the complex relationship between affect and cognition. Cognition
involves thinking, decision making, etc., whereas affect is expression of mood, a feeling state.
Thought these two are independent systems of mind, their interplay has been a matter of
extensive research. Affect influences cognition and cognition also influences affect. We shall
discuss both in detail.
Influence of Affect on Cognition:
Our mood influences perceptions of the world around. When we are in sad mood, everything just
looks gloomy to us, whereas when we are in cheerful mood, everything seems to be brighter than
usual. Mood influences our memory, judgments, perceptions and many other aspects of
cognition. Researchers have found that even experienced interviewers are influenced by their
mood while evaluating the candidates. Mood in general is seen as a mediatory mechanism that
influences cognition.
The impact of mood on memory is very well researched. There are two important effects that
have been found in this connection. They are mood congruent memory and mood dependent
memory. Mood dependent memory refers to the idea that the material can be better recalled in
the mood in which the material is learned. (Earlier it was also known as state dependent
hypothesis). If we learn (i.e., store in memory) something in positive mood, then we are more
likely to recall it in positive mood. The mood in which the material was stored serves as a tag
and the current mood serves as a retrieval cue. This is called as a mood dependent memory.
The mood congruent memory refers to the phenomenon that the present mood determines what
would be recalled. If you are in positive mood then the positive information would be entered in
the memory and recalled form the memory. If you are in the negative mood then the negative
information will be easily recalled. So the information consistent (congruent) with the present
mood is recalled. Here mood serves as a filter.

Mood in which the Mood is positive: Happy

information is learned:
Information learned in
Positive
positive mood is recalled
E.g. Happy

Mood in which the Mood is negative:

information is learned:
SAD Information learned in
Negative
negative mood is recalled
E.g. SAD

FIG- MOOD DEPENDENT MEMORY

REMEMBER POSITIVE
PRESENT MOOD:
INFORMATION
Positive –e.g. happy
E.g. – HAPPY MEMORIES

REMEMBER NEGATIVE
PRESENT MOOD:
INFORMATION
NEGATIVE – e.g. SAD
E.g. – SAD MEMOTIES

FIG- MOOD CONGRUENT MEMORY

Among these two effects, the mood dependent is comparatively inconsistent in research
literature. The findings regarding the mood congruent memory are more consistent. In addition,
an asymmetry has also been reported in mood congruent memory. Mood congruent memory for
positive mood is far more common than for negative mood. This can be attributed to the
motivational mechanism to maintain the mood.
Mood also influences other cognitive functions than memory. Several research studies on
creativity indicate that positive mood influences creativity positively. Mood helps in creating
new associations that are required in creativity. People who are in positive mood are more likely
to use heuristics as compared to those who are in negative mood. This may be beneficial for
tasks with experience. But it may not be similarly beneficial for novel tasks wherein systematic
problem solving is required.
Mood also influences the way we attribute motives to people’s behavior. When we are in
positive mood we tend to attribute positive motives to people’s behavior than when we are in
negative mood.
The Influence of Cognition on Affect:
As affect influences cognition, cognition can also influences mood. One of the sources to
understand this influence is to understand Schachter’s Two-Stage model of emotions. This
theory suggests that initial physiological arousal is general and people look out for cues to
attribute that arousal. Depending on the cue they find out, they label the emotion. This process of
identifying the cue and attribution is cognitive in nature. The second source is through the
activation of schemas. If the schema contains affective information, and if that schema gets
activated, then the related affect is also experienced.
Cognition and Regulation of Affective States:
We need to control our emotional reactions in almost all social circumstances. We also need to
manage our own negative feelings in order to function effectively. We employ various
techniques to do so. One of them is that we engage in behaviors that give pleasure but are
potentially unhealthy. We deliberately give in to our temptations in order to lift our mood. Tice
and others (2000) have conducted an experiment where they put the participants in good and bad
mood. They were provided 15 minutes break to prepare for IQ test. The bad mood subjects
procrastinated and their mood has got lifted because of that. Another strategy people use to cope
with negative events is ‘not to generate counterfactual thoughts’. So, one thinks that the negative
outcome was completely unavoidable. This reduces the negativity of the emotional reaction.
Affect and Cognition: Social Neuroscience Evidence:
It was stated earlier that there is an interplay of affect and cognition, essentially they are two
separate systems. Several factor analytic studies have clearly demonstrated that cognition and
mood are independent dimensions. In addition, the neuroscience research has also confirmed the
view that there exist two distinct systems in the brain for these two dimensions. The brain region
that is associated with cognition is prefrontal cortex whereas the limbic system is associated with
emotions. Some experimental research on game theory highlight this fact. One of the games is
‘ultimatum game’. In this first subject is provided with some money. He had to offer some part
of it to other individual, if the other individual agrees, the money is shared, and if the other
individual doesn’t agree then no one gets anything. Classic economics theory would predict that
the other person would accept any non-zero amount, whereas in reality the offers below 40% are
rejected. The MRI studies indicated that when people make such judgments, both, the prefrontal
cortex and limbic system were active. In addition, the research on delayed and immediate
gratification through rewards also supports this distinction. Increased activity is observed in
limbic system for immediate reward than for delayed reward.

UNIT 3- SOCIAL PERCEPTION

Introduction:
It is a well-documented fact that human beings are social animals whose survival is contingent
on their ability to interact with others. Naturally, human beings are predisposed to knowing about
others’ personalities which enables them to deal with them amicably. Social psychology is the
discipline that deals with a scientific analysis of human behavior. It tries to explain how the
thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by presence of others. It examines
how our experience is understood in terms of the social influences and relationships vis-à-vis the
cultural groups to which we belong.
When humans meander through the social milieu, they are constantly bombarded with variety of
information through the various senses. Social perception is, that part of perception that allows
us to understand the individuals and groups of our social world, and thus is an element of social
cognition.
DEFINITION OF SOCIAL PERCEPTION:
Social perception and cognition are mental processes that help us to collect and remember
information about others, and to make inferences and judgments based on that information.
Social perception is defined as the study of how we form impressions of and make inferences
about other people. In order to know about other people, we depend on information gained from
their physical appearance, and verbal and nonverbal communication. Missing information are
filled in by using an implicit personality theory: If a person is observed to have one particular
trait, we assume that he or she has other traits related to this observed one. These assumptions
help us to categorize people and then infer additional facts and predict behavior.
An implicit personality theory is a type of schema people use to group various kinds of
personality traits together. Like other schemas, using these theories help us form well-developed
impressions of other people quickly.
Social perceptions are also interlinked with self-perceptions. Both are influenced by self-
motives. Society has the desire to achieve beneficial outcomes for the self and to maintain a
positive self-image. Just as you prejudge the people you come across in society, you are being
judged by them. As it is natural for humans to want to make a good impression on people, your
self- perceptions almost mirror other's social perceptions.
According to David Krech and Richard S. Crutchfield there are two major determinants of
perception, structural factors and functional factors.
By structural factors we mean those factors driving solely from the nature of the physical stimuli
and the natural effects they evoke in the nervous system of the individual. Thus, for the Gestalt
psychologist, perceptual organizations are determined primarily by the psychological events
occurring in the nervous system of the individual in direct reaction to the stimulation by the
physical objects. Sensory factors are independent of the perceiving individual’s needs and
personality.
The functional factors of perceptual organization are those, which derive primarily from the
needs, moods, past experience and memory of the individual. All functional factors in perception
are social in the usual sense of the term.
Social perception is one important component of social competence and successful social life.
Being competent in social perception includes three domains of competence:
1. knowing that other people have thoughts, beliefs, emotions, intentions, desires, and the
like,
2. being able to “read” other people’s inner states based on their words, behavior, facial
expression and the like, and
3. Adjusting one’s actions based on those “readings”. That is, a socially competent person
can make note of other people’s facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, gestures,
words, and the like, and on the basis of these clues, make reasonably accurate judgments
about that person’s state of mind, emotions, and intentions. Socially competent people
then use these inferences about other people’s inner states to make good decisions about
how to behave socially.
Thus socially competent people must have knowledge of social rules, roles, routines, and scripts
in their social lives. Furthermore, they must make use of this knowledge and of these scripts in
their decision making and acting. They also have a concern for other people and make it a habit
to adjust their behavior based on the needs of others. Finally, they have the confidence needed to
interact socially and accept the vulnerability associated with potential rejection.
Researchers have confirmed the fact that first impressions are important. Studies show that first
impressions are easily formed, difficult to change, and have a long-lasting influence. Rather than
absorbing each piece of new information about an individual in a vacuum, it is common for
people to invoke a preexisting prototype or schema based on some aspect of the person,
modifying it with specific information about the particular individual to arrive at an overall first
impression. One term for this process is schema-plus-correction. It can be dangerous because it
allows people to infer many things from a very limited amount of information, which partially
explains why first impressions are often wrong.
If there is no special reason to think negatively about a person, one's first impression of that
person will normally be positive, as people tend to give others the benefit of doubt. However,
people are especially attentive to negative factors, and if these are present, they will outweigh the
positive ones in generating impressions. One reason first impressions are so indelible is that
people have a tendency to interpret new information about a person in a light that will reinforce
their first impression. They also tend to remember the first impression, or overall schema, better
than any subsequent corrections. Thus if a person whom one thinks of as competent makes a
mistake, it will tend to be overlooked and eventually forgotten, and the original impression is the
one that will prevail. Conversely, one will tend to forget or undervalue good work performed by
someone initially judged to be incompetent. In addition, people often treat each other in ways
that tend to elicit behavior that conforms to their impressions of each other.

Example for social cognition

“We had one girl in our college, she was very popular among boys but was a subject of jealously
of girls, because boys use to always follow her and she was constantly interacting with them.
One day when I asked the other girls ‘what is that this girl has got? The girls unanimously
expressed that, she has the knack of talking to boys – the way she looks at them, smiles, her
posture, her mannerisms give boys a clue that she is ready for friendship”.
This example brings us to a very important concept in social psychology, Social Perception that
is the processes through which we seek to understand other persons. Because other people play
such important roles in our life, we engage in this process very often and devote a lot of effort in
trying to figure out what makes people tick? Why some people is socially popular and others are
not? Sometimes their efforts to impress others work but also we often make errors in our efforts
to understand them.
Factors of social perception/ mechanisms of social perceptions
Social perceptions depends on several factors or mechanisms – people use various techniques,
methods, and ways to know about others in order to get superficial or a deeper understanding of
them. Mechanisms or factors of social perception include –
1. nonverbal channels of communications,
2. internal and external attributions,
3. impressions and implicit theories about people
1. Nonverbal channels of communication
Nonverbal communication is one of the many interesting topics studied by social
psychology. Social psychologists view it as an essential element of social perception.
Although there are many other forms of nonverbal communication, the term usually
means conveying thoughts and/or feelings without words using body language or sounds
as the medium. Nonverbal communication can be defined as the way in which people
communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words.

All of us are aware that we act differently when we are happy or when we are sad. People
tend to behave differently when experiencing different emotional states. Let us
understand how precisely our inner states show up in our behavior. This brings us to the
basic channels through which such communications take place and there are five
basic channels:
i. facial expressions,
ii. eye contact,
iii. body language,
iv. body movements, and
v. Touching and proxemics.

i. Facial expressions: More than two thousand years ago, the Roman Orator Cicero
stated “The face is the image of the soul” by this he meant that human feelings
and emotions are often reflected in the face and modern research asserts these
findings. But are these facial expressions universal? Early research suggest that
 facial expressions are universal (Ekman and Friesen 1975) but the result of more
recent study, (Russell 1994, Carroll 1996) indicate that although facial
expressions are indeed universal, our judgments of these emotions may also be
affected by the context and various situational cues.
This makes up the largest proportion of nonverbal communication. Large amounts
of information can be conveyed through a smile or frown. The facial expressions
for happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are similar across cultures throughout the
world.

ii. Eye contact:

As in the case of face, it is also said that “our eyes are windows of soul”. If
someone is talking to you and is staring at you constantly, you will feel
uncomfortable. Also when someone does not maintain ‘eye contact’, you may feel
that the person is hiding something. Similarly, have you ever had a conversation
with someone wearing very dark glasses, if so, you may be in an uncomfortable
position and would wonder ‘what the other person is hiding from you’? Human
eyes are indeed a very powerful ‘cue’ in reflecting our feelings and we do often
learn much about others feelings from their eyes. While a high level of eye
contact with others is usually interpreted as a sign of liking or positive feelings, a
stare is often interpreted as a sign of anger or hostility and many people find this
non-verbal cues very disturbing.

Looking, staring, and blinking are all considered types of eye gaze. Looking at
another person can indicate a range of emotions including hostility, interest, or
attraction. - Eye behaviors- plays a role in several important types of relational
interaction.

iii. Body language (Gestures, postures and movement):

Our emotions are always accompanied by physiological arousal and changes.
Every emotion has a relatively same set of physiological reactions which have
come to us by evolution. For example: when you are angry, your face becomes
red, your fists are drawn together and you are ready to attack. When you are
afraid, your legs start shivering but you are ready to run or faint. When you are
sad, your face becomes pale, and you have a drained down feelings. These
postures, gestures and body movements together are termed as body language.
Body language often reveals other’s emotional states. Do you have a pet (cat or
dog)? If yes, when happy, how a pet does behaves - rubbing, its body, sitting
close to you, licking you, clearly indicating its happiness. Straight body position
is usually taken to indicate ‘rigidity’, whereas a ‘leaning forward’ body position
indicates ‘warmness’ and ‘interest in the other person’. Related finding indicate
that large scale body movements or postures can sometimes provide important
information about others emotions and even about their apparent traits. Common
 gestures include pointing, waving, and using fingers, etc. You can tell a person's
attitude by the way they walk or by the way they stand.
iv. Body movement:
More specific information is also provided by gestures. Gestures fall into several
categories; the most important are emblems – body movements carrying specific
meaning in a given culture. These movements have clear and definite meaning in
one culture but in other culture it may not have any meaning. People have to be
careful with their gestures while traveling in different cultures as you might
offend others without meaning to do so.

A person’s posture and movement can also convey a great deal of information.
Arm crossing or leg-crossing conveys different meanings depending on the
context and the person interpreting them.
v. Touching and Proxemics:
A lot depends on the meaning you assign to the nature of this physical contact and
the context in which it occurs. Existing evidence indicates that when touching is
considered appropriate, it often produces positive reactions in the person being
touched. One acceptable may in which people in many different cultures touch
strangers is through handshake. Many books on etiquette suggest that handshake
reveal much about other. Person’s personality traits – assertiveness, humbleness,
submissiveness etc. A practical applicability of these non-verbal cues is
recognizing deception or lie detection. When people lie, subtle changes often
occur in their facial expressions, body posture or movements and certain non-
verbal aspects of speech.

Proxemics refers to personal space. The amount of space a person requires

depends on each individual’s preference, but also depends on the situation and
other people involved in the situation. -The Use of Space- The only time you
really notice this one is when we particularly need the space. For instance, being
in a crowded elevator or being in an overly crowded house party. A lot of times
when a person is upset they just need their space to calm down.
Besides these basic common nonverbal communication, we can include some other types.
They are –
a. Paralinguistic
This includes factors such as tone of voice, loudness, inflection, and pitch. Tone of voice
can be powerful. The same sentence said in different tones can convey different
messages. A strong tone of voice may indicate approval or enthusiasm, whereas the same
sentence said with a hesitant tone of voice may convey disapproval or lack of interest.
Vocal Behaviors such as pitch, inflection, volume, rate, filler words, pronunciation,
articulation, accent, and silence, often reveal considerable information about others.
b. Appearance
 Our choice of color, clothing, hairstyles, and other factors affecting our appearance are
considered a means of nonverbal communication. Even Chronemics which implies the
way we use time or the way we give time to others makes for a nonverbal behavior. It is
indicative of two important relational messages, one concerning value and the other
concerning power.

Culture and the Channels of Nonverbal Communication

Paul Ekman and his colleagues have studied the influence of culture on the facial display of
emotions. They have concluded that display rules are particular to each culture and dictate what
kinds of emotional expressions people are supposed to show. Eye contact and gaze are also
powerful nonverbal cues. The use of personal space is a nonverbal behavior with wide cultural
variations. Emblems are nonverbal gestures of the hands and arms that have well-understood
definitions within a given culture.
Multichannel Nonverbal Communication:
In everyday life, we usually receive information from multiple channels simultaneously. The
Social Interpretation Task (SIT), which uses videotaped naturally occurring interactions as
stimuli, reveals that people are able to interpret such cues fairly accurately by making use of
multiple cues. Research with the SIT indicates that extroverts may be better decoders than
introverts.
Gender and Nonverbal Communication:
People vary in how effectively they use nonverbal communication. Girls and women tend to be
more expressive, more involved in their interpersonal interactions, and more open in the
expression of emotion (DePaulo, 1992).
Women also tend to use more nonverbal behavior in interacting with others, such as touching,
eye contact, expressive body movements, smiling, and gazing. Women are also more accurate
interpreters of nonverbal cues than are men (Hall, 1978).
There are also gender differences in the communication of different emotions. Women are better
able to communicate happiness, whereas men are better able to communicate anger (Coats &
Feldman, 1996).
Roles of non-verbal communication in social psychology
1. Detecting Deception in the Self-Presentations of Others
Let us say that you are invited over to the home of a new acquaintance for dinner, and
your host serves lentil burgers as the main course. Being a proud meat and potatoes
person, you are not eager to eat the lentil burger and fill up the stomach. However, you
have no intention to hurt your host and so you say that lentil burgers are excellent and
thus you get served more of the same. At the same time the host is also looking at your
facial expressions and comes to know that you do not very much relish the lentil burger.
 No matter what praise you lavish upon your host, if you look as if you’re being tortured
as you eat, your words are likely to be disregarded.

This tendency to tune into the silent language of nonverbal behavior when we believe
others are attempting to deceive us is a common strategy employed in judging social
reality. Under such circumstances, people pay more attention to others’ facial expression,
than body posture, and least of all words.

Apparently we assume that nonverbal information is more likely to reveal one’s true
feelings because it’s less likely to be consciously controlled than is verbal nformation. In
an analysis of accurate and inaccurate judge of deception, Ekman and Maureen
O’Sullivan (1991) found that the inaccurate judges (30 percent accuracy or worse)
focused on verbal cues, whereas the accurate judges (80 percent accuracy or better)
attended more to nonverbal clues. Although attending to nonverbal behaviour can
improve one’s ability to reveal the “lie” in the selfpresentations of others, not all
nonverbal cues are equally instructive in this regard. Smiling is a case in point. People
tend to believe that others do not smile when they lie. In fact, smiling is a common device
used by deceivers to hide their true feelings.

Despite these attempts at self-control, the face can reveal the lie for the acutely attentive
perceiver. Before people can monitor and mask their facial expressions following an
emotion provoking event, they emit micro expressions. These expressions are fleeting
facial signals lasting only a few tenths of a second, and are difficult to suppress. Due to
the difficulty in masking this observable expression of emotion, micro expressions can be
quite revealing about one’s actual state of mind. The eyes can also reveal the lie. When
individuals avoid the gaze of others, or blink frequently, this may be a signal of
deception.

Besides the face, we also rely on the sound of another’s voice and the subtle movements
of the body. When people deceive, the pitch in their voice often rises slightly, and their
speech is filled with many pauses and other sentence hesitations. Deception is also
signaled by fidgety movements of the hands and feet, and restless shifts in body posture.

The effects of deception on social relations

1. Distrust
2. Dislike
3. Influence others to lie/deceive
4. Decline in mutual trust and faith
Nonverbal cues to detect lies- there are few nonverbal cues that are revealing of deception/
lies are shown as-

Microexpression

Interchannel
Discrepancies

Nonverbal Cues to
Eye Contact
detect Lies

Exaggerated Facial
Expressions

Linguistic Style
Micro expression
 Fleeting facial expressions that last only few tenth of seconds
 Appears very quickly after an emotion- triggering event and are difficult to hide.
Inter channel discrepancies
 They are Inconsistencies between nonverbal cues from different basic channels
(e.g., facial expression, body movement/language, eye contact, posture, touching)
 People who are lying often find it difficult to control all these channels at once.
For instance, they may manage their facial expressions well, but may have
difficulty looking you in the eye as they tell their lie.

Exaggerated facial expressions

 People may show an exaggerated facial expressions than a normal in a given

situation.
 They may show smile more broadly or show greater grin than usual.
Linguistic style
 When people are lying, the pitch of their voices often rises—especially when they
are highly motivated to lie.
 Similarly, they often take longer to begin—to respond to a question or describe
events.
 Greater tendency to start sentences, stop them, and begin again.
Eye contact
 Efforts at deception are often revealed by certain aspects of eye contact.
 People who are lying often blink more often and show pupils that are more dilated than
people who are telling the truth. They may also show an unusually low level of eye
contact or—surprisingly—an unusually high one as they attempt to fake being honest by
looking others right in the eye.