Social psychology is the study of how people act, think and feel in the context of society. From the beginning, Wundt showed interest, not only in the structure and contents of individual consciousness, but also in “social” Psychology. However, although he wrote extensively about social psychology, he did not study these collective aspects of psychology in his laboratory. MIND AND SOCIETY.
Introduction to social psychology
Social psychology: Science of the social aspects of mental life. It cannot be defined as the study of social behavior:
- Psychology studies behavior in relation to mental activity.
- Social psychology rejected behaviorist ideas.
- It is not the study of society or social institutions: For social psychologists, the fundamental object of research is the functioning of the individual mind in society. The individual and the group
Group psychology
Human beings belong to social groups and we live in them. The members of the group will frequently act in a spontaneously unitary and coordinated manner. We perceive groups, talk about them and react to them, as if they were something unitary. The fact that the individual is in the group tells us how he will act in different conditions and before different people.
When talking about groups as unique entities, which show systematic and organized patterns of behavior on a collective level, we attribute psychological processes to them (Groups “feel”, “think”, etc.). The first theorists asked themselves this question.
In his writings the “group” was introduced in the specific form of “crowd”, but by group the social interaction as a whole is implicitly understood, all behavior and all interaction are characterized by regularities and social properties, including thoughts. and actions of physically isolated individuals. Was three types of responses:
- The group mind thesis.
- Individualism.
- Interactionism.
Brief definition of social psychology
Science of mind and society. The distinctive facts of human society imply an underlying psychology that is also distinctively human. There are psychological processes that determine the way society functions and the way social interaction takes place. Social processes determine the characteristics of human psychology. Mutual determination of mind and society.
Social psychology in other areas
Anthropology is the study of human culture. The anthropologists They study the beliefs and traditions of society. Their focus is on society as a whole, while social psychologists want to study the way society affects people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Think of it this way: Anthropologists might study certain religious traditions, such as the way different Christian churches celebrate Easter. But the Social psychologists are interested in interaction of people with society, so they could study how religious people behave differently than non-religious people in certain situations.
The sociology It has a lot in common with social psychology. Sociologists, like anthropologists, study society as a whole. But instead of looking at society’s beliefs and traditions, its focus is on organizations and how those organizations impact people. Like social psychologists, sociologists are interested in the intersection of society and the individual. But sociologists are more focused on society, and social psychologists are more focused on the individual. For example, imagine you want to study why so many marriages end in divorce. If you’re a sociologist, you’ll compile all kinds of data on the number of divorces from year to year. You will then compare that information to things happening in society. For example, you may notice that as the percentage of households where the wife works increases, so do divorce rates. You may also see differences in divorce rates across class, race, or religion. A social psychologist might approach the problem differently. Instead of looking at society as a whole and divorce rates, they could interview many couples who have divorced and many who have not. They could compare the differences in the two types of couples, and after talking to dozens of couples, propose a theory about what increases divorce rates. The social psychologist could arrive at the same answer as the sociologistbut they have approached it from a different angle.
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