Social psychology focuses on three main areas:
social thinking, social influence, and social behavior
.
Social psychologists focus on
societal concerns that have a powerful influence on individual well-being
as well as the health of society as a whole, including problems such as substance use, crime, prejudice, domestic abuse, public health, bullying, and aggression.
What are the three main focuses of social psychology? The three main focuses of social psychology are
to study how we think about, influence, and relate to one another
. You just studied 76 terms!
- Social Cognition.
- Attitudes.
- Violence and Aggression.
- Prosocial Behavior.
- Prejudice and Discrimination.
- Social Identity.
- Group Behavior.
- Social Influence.
Sociological Social Psychology Definition
Sociological social psychology, however, tend to focus on
the relationship between the individual and larger social systems (e.g., society)
. Beyond this general orientation, however, sociological social psychology consists of a diverse set of perspectives and theories.
What is scapegoating in psychology?
Scapegoat theory refers to
the tendency to blame someone else for one’s own problems
, a process that often results in feelings of prejudice toward the person or group that one is blaming. Scapegoating serves as an opportunity to explain failure or misdeeds, while maintaining one’s positive self-image.
Social psychology is based on the ABCs of
affect, behavior, and cognition
. In order to effectively maintain and enhance our own lives through successful interaction with others, we rely on these three basic and interrelated human capacities: … Behavior (interactions) Cognition (thought)
- Social cognition and perception.
- The self in a social context.
- Attitudes and persuasion.
- Group decisions.
- Attraction and close relationships.
- Prosocial behavior.
- Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.
- We Construct Our Social Reality.
- Social Influences Shape Behavior.
- Personal Attitudes and Dispositions Shape Behavior.
- ethics.
- Experiments.
- Hypothesis.
- Laboratory environments.
- Naturalistic observation.
- research.
- Research designs.
- Scientific Method.
Floyd Allport
is considered a founder of experimental social psychology, in part for his theoretical rigor and emphasis on measurement, and in part for his popular 1924 textbook Social Psychology, which went through 13 editions over the ensuing 50 years.
Normative social influence is usually associated with compliance, where a person changes their public behaviour but not their private beliefs. For example, a
person may feel pressurised to smoke because
the rest of their friends are. … This means any change of behavior is temporary.
There are different social psychology approaches to explain human behavior. Explore the four major perspectives of social psychology –
social cognition, the sociocultural perspective, social learning, and the evolutionary perspective
– and learn how each perspective views human behavior.
Researchers might prefer using
observational methods
in a lab in order to gain greater control over possible extraneous variables, while they might prefer using naturalistic observation in order to obtain greater ecological validity.
Social psychology is
the study of how individual or group behavior is influenced by the presence and behavior of others
. The major question social psychologists ponder is this: How and why are people’s perceptions and actions influenced by environmental factors, such as social interaction?
Sociologists focus on society as a whole or large groups within society. They study patterns of behavior and how they shape the world around us. … In contrast, social psychologists
focus on individuals and how social factors impact behavior
.
