Unit 1: Social Psychology

as a Science
Week Week 1

Date @June 14, 2023

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Notes tested on quiz

Unit/mod M1 U1

💡 Psychology
➥ science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes
change the behavior of human and animals.

Gordon Alport
➥ The scientific study of how an individual’s thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are influenced by other people

Four Key Aspects

Influenced by other people

➝ Social psychology is the study of how other people
affect us
➝ Social aspect is one of the most important in social
psychology

Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

➝ How other people affect every aspect of individual’s

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 life, including thoughts (cognitions), feelings
(affect), and behaviors

Thoughts (cognitions) – how individuals process

information about other people
and how they store the information in their memory.

Feelings (affect) – how people form a prejudice

against out groups and their
affection for friends and lovers.

Behavior – to understand why various kinds of actions

toward other people occur
or do not occur.

Individual’s perspective
➝ Take the perspective of individuals in a social
setting, rather than focusing only on objective features
of the situation.

Scientific study - Social psychologists rely on direct

tests of their ideas
➝ Rely on direct tests of their ideas

➝ Scientific evidence is necessary before a proposal

will be taken seriously; it is not enough merely to
speculate about an event and generate a plausible
explanation.

Herman Melville
➥ Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads
➥ Social Psychology aims to illuminate those threads, and
it does so by asking
questions that have intrigued us all:

How much of our social world is just in our heads?

Would you be cruel if ordered?

To help, or to help oneself?

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 ➣ The Power of the Situation

We are creatures of our cultures and contexts

Evil situations sometimes overwhelm good intentions,

inducing people to follow falsehoods or comply with
cruelty

➣ The Power of the Person

We are also the creators of our social worlds

If a group is evil, its members contribute to (or

resist) its being so. Facing the same situation,
different people may react differently

➣ The Importance of Cognition

People react differently partly because they think

differently

Social reality is something we construct subjectively.

Our beliefs about ourselves also matter

➣ The Applicability of Social Psychological Principles

Social psychologists are more and more applying their

concepts and methods to current social concerns, such as
emotional well-being, health, courtroom decision-making,
prejudice reduction, environmental design and
conservation, and the quest for peace

SOCIOLOGY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY

Provides general Studies the Studies the

laws and theories psychological characteristics that

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 about societies, not processes people make individuals
individuals have in common with unique and different
one another that from one another.
make them
susceptible to
social influence.

Historical Background of Social Psychology

Emerged as a field distinct from other disciplines and from
other areas of psychology sometime in the middle 20th
century, perhaps most clearly during the 1950s

“Modern” social psychology has existed for only 50 or 60

years

Ancient Greek
Plato

Father of Western Philosophy

Suggested that people experience the world in three

distinct ways: in thought, in emotion, and in action.
Thus, the triumvirate of cognitive (thoughts),
affective(feelings), and behavioral aspects of experience
is very old.

Elements of the Self – Appetitive, Spirited, Mind

Allegory of the Cave

True Lie

Plato’s “crowd mind” speculations: “even when the wisest

individuals when assembled into a crowd might be
transformed into an irrational mob.”

Aristotle

Argued forcefully that living a good life and achieving

personal happiness are both dependent on providing

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 benefits to other people in addition to the self.

Aristotle’s view was that the connection with others forms

an essential part of who we are.

This idea is consistent with social psychological work on

the self-concept, which has shown that our social
relationships are important components of how we define
ourselves.

The concept of social norms can be traced back to one of

the greatest ideas of philosophy:

“Social Contract” – the idea that to survive and

prosper, human groups had to develop some basic
rules of social and moral conduct.

Middle 19th Century

➥ field of psychology separated from philosophy and became a
distinct discipline

1898 –An American psychologist,

NORMAN TRIPLETT,

American psychologist

conducted the first American empirical study that could

be classified as social psychological in nature.

Triplett was curious about a pattern he noticed in

bicycle racing times. His topic became known as “social
facilitation.”

1908

WILLIAM McDOUGAL(English Psychologist) & EDWARD ROSS

(American sociologist)

Publication of the first two textbooks bearing the name

Social Psychology

Early Decades in the 20th Century

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 ➥ view on BEHAVIORISM strengthened

1930’s to 1940’s

Two critical events occurred that had the most important

impact on the development of Social Psychology:

Great Depression in the U.S.

World War II

Kurt Lewin
➥ The father of modern social psychology

➥ Was instrumental in establishing social psychology as a

respected field of scientific inquiry

1950’s to 1960’s – Social Psychology flourished.

1970’s – scientific maturity.

1970 to present – recognition of gender and racial bias;

culture specificity.

Major Theoretical Perspective in Social

Psychology
Socio-Cultural Perspective
➥ Social behavior resides in the social group that we find
ourselves going along ‘’social currents.’’

“CRAZES” - products of the ‘’mob mind.’’

➥ an irrational unanimity of interest, feeling, opinion,

or deed in a body of communicating individuals, which
results from suggestion and imitation.

‘’Social Norms’’ – rules about appropriate behavior.

‘’Culture’’ – is a set of beliefs, customs, habits, and

language shared by people living in a particular time

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 and place.

Evolutionary Perspective

➥ Human social behaviors are rooted in physical and

psychological predispositions that helped our ancestors
survive and reproduce.

‘’Natural Selection’’ – process by which characters help

animals survive are passed on to their offspring.

Social Learning Perspective

➥ Social behavior is driven by each individual’s past
learning experiences with reward and punishment.

➥ Emphasize unique experiences in a particular family,

school, or peer group.

Social Cognitive Perspective

➥ Social behavior is driven by each person’s subjective
interpretations of events in the social world.

Kurt Lewin – a person’s interpretation of a situation is

related to his goals at the time.

Interaction between inner experience and the outside

world.

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