Social Psychology
“Social Psychology” is the study of individuals in relation to the individuals. It is a very broad area that includes such problems as the way in which people perceive others, liking and disliking, helping, obedience, the forming of opinions and attitudes, persuasion, and behavior in group situation.
The area under social psychology includes:
- ATTITUDE:
(a) Attitude is defined as a predisposition involving beliefs, feelings and dispositions to act towards some object.
(b)It is the learned predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner to particular person, behavior, belief, or thing.
- INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION:
(a) Interpersonal attraction refers to an attitude about another person. Attraction involves an evaluation along a dimension that ranges from strong liking to strong disliking.
(b) Factors affecting interpersonal attraction are – Physical proximity, Affective state, Need to affiliate, Observable characteristics (physical attractiveness), Similarity, Mutual liking.
- PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR:
(a) Pro social behavior is a helpful action that benefits other people without necessarily providing any direct benefits to the person performing the act, and may even involve a risk for the person who helps.
(b) Latane & Darley gave 5 essential steps to a pro social response – i) Noticing the emergency -> ii) Interpreting it as an emergency -> iii) assuming the responsibility to help -> iv) knowing what to do to help out -> v) Making the decision to help.
(c) Factors effecting pro social behavior- i) personal factors ii) situational factors.
- AGGRESSION:
(a) Aggression is any form of behavior directed towards the goal of harming or injuring another living being who is motivated to avoid such treatment.
(b) Determinants of aggression- i) Social causes: Frustration, Direct provocation, displaced aggression, Exposure to media violence, heightened arousal, sexual arousal. ii) Personal causes: Type ‘A’ behavior, Perceiving evil intent in others, Narcissism, Ego threat, Gender differences. iii) Situational factors: High temperature, consumption of alcohol etc.
- SOCIAL INFLUENCE:
(a) Social influence is efforts by one or more individuals to change the attitude, belief, perceptions, or behaviors of one
or more others.
(b) Social influence includes- i) Conformity ii) Compliance iii) Obedience iv) Leadership
- SOCIAL COGNITION:
(a) Social cognition is thinking about the social world.
(b) It includes- cognitive strategies, schemas, stereotypes, attribution, self perception
- INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION:
(a) Understanding others.
(b) Factors- non verbal communication, facial expression, body language, touch, Verbal communication.
(c) Function- gaining information, building a context of understanding, establishing identity, interpersonal needs.
- BEHAVIOR IN GROUP:
(a) A group is an organized system of two or more persons who are interrelated to perform a function, has a structured set of role relationship among its member, and has a set of norms that regulate behavior.
(b) Types- Primary and Secondary group, Formal and Informal group, In-group and Out-group, Socio group / nominal and Psyche
group / referent.
(c) Formation- 5 stage process i) Forming -> ii) Storming -> iii) Norming -> iv) Performing v) Adjourning
(d) Performance & Influence i) Social Facilitation ii) Social Loafing
(e) Decision making i) polarization ii) group think
- INTERGROUP RELATION:
(a) A consequence that follows directly from increased cohesiveness and bounded ness of a group is the clear differentiation of members whose part of the structural organization of the group from outsiders and non members.
(b) Group conflict, prejudice and ethnocentrism, bargaining
- COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR:
(a) Crowds and social movements are two fields in a larger area termed as collective behavior.
(b) It refers to group behavior which originates spontaneously, is relatively unorganized, fairly unpredictable and plan less in its course of development, and which depends on inter stimulation among participants.
- ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCE ON BEHAVIOR:
(a) effect of socio cultural and physical environment.
(b) Social – marital discord, parenting style, socio economic status, prejudice and discrimination, etc
(c) Environment- noise, climate and weather, density and crowding, disaster and technological catastrophe, personal space, architecture, etc
INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS: Asch conformity experiments 1950s,Muzafer Sherif’s (1954) Robbers’ Cave Experiment,Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance experiment, Milgram experiment, Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment,Stanford prison experiment, by Philip Zimbardo.