Social Psychology

Social Psychology is the systematic study of people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviour in the social context.

Scope of Social Psychology

Social Psychology studies human behaviour in the social context. Social psychology attempts to understand the relationship between an individual’s mind and thought processes in a group as well as in isolation.

According to Delamater, the main concern of social psychology is:

• the impact of one individual on another
• the impact of a group on its members
• the impact of individuals on the group in which they participate and
• the impact of one group on another.

OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

As mentioned earlier social psychology focuses on the analysis of an individual’s behaviour in relation to others as well as with the social environments. The main objectives of social psychology research could be categorized into the following heads:

1. Observation and Description – One of the main objectives of social psychology is to observe and describe social behaviour under different circumstances in a systematic manner so that possible reliable generalizations can be drawn from a large population.
2. Cause and Effect Relationship – All the studies based on scientific methods seek to establish cause and effect relationships between different variables. The social psychologist attempts to analyse the effect of changes in a social institution such as changes in values, culture, and tradition on human behaviour. For example, does the provision of free and compulsory education till the Elementary level have any impact on the attitudes of parents towards girls’ education?
3. Proposing New Theory – One of the objectives of social psychology is to propose a new theory based on the causal analyses of social behaviour to explain and understand why human beings under particular situations behave the way they do.
4. Application – the knowledge gained from the above efforts could be utilized to suggest possible solutions for some of the problems faced by individuals in their everyday lives.

 Inter-disciplinary Approach to Social Psychology 

1. Social psychology combines sociology and psychology, as suggested by Allport. Cook, Fine, and House argue that it involves analyzing and combining key works from both sociology and psychology, making it interdisciplinary.

2. Subject Matter: Social psychology focuses on studying individuals in their social contexts, exploring the interactions between the mind, self, and society. Various sociological and psychological perspectives are used to understand how humans and society influence each other.
3. Division: Social psychology can be further divided into sociological social psychology and psychological social psychology, terms coined by House and Stryker. While these divisions exist, it’s challenging to make clear distinctions as social psychology draws from both sociology and psychology.
4. Cognitive Social Psychology: This approach studies how information is processed and stored. According to Thoits, information is stored as prototypes, schemas, and other forms, and processing involves attending to cues, retrieving from memory, and making judgments about oneself and others. This approach views cognition as social because it originates from social experiences and influences interpersonal behaviour.
5. Sociological Social Psychology: This branch focuses on the mass psyche, the psychology of classes, and group mentality elements such as customs and traditions, emphasizing small group dynamics.