Social Psychology Overview

Definition of Social Psychology

• Social psychology is the study of how an individual's thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by other people, whether actual, imagined, or symbolically represented.
• It is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the perceived, imagined, or implied presence of others.

Focus of Social Psychology

• Seeks to understand, explain, and predict how the thoughts, feelings, and actions of individuals are influenced by others.
• Views human behavior as resulting from the relationship between mental states and social situations.
• Studies the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.

History of Social Psychology

19th Century

• Emerged from the larger field of psychology in the 19th century.
• Social psychologists attempted to discover concrete cause-and-effect relationships that explained social interactions.
• First published study in the field of social psychology was Norman Triplett's 1898 experiment on the phenomenon of social facilitation.

20th Century

• Influential research program established by Kurt Lewin and his students.
• During World War II, social psychologists focused on studies of persuasion and propaganda for the U.S. military.
• Post-war, researchers became interested in social problems, including gender and racial prejudice.
• Collaborations between psychologists and sociologists were common, but later became increasingly specialized and isolated.

1960s-1970s

• Growing interest in topics such as cognitive dissonance, bystander intervention, and aggression.
• Conceptual challenges emerged, including ethical concerns about laboratory experimentation and the accuracy of attitudes in predicting behavior.

1980s-1990s

• Developed solutions to these issues with regard to theory and methodology.
• Emergence of situationism, which challenges the relevance of self and personality in psychology.

21st Century

• Ethical standards regulate research, and pluralistic and multicultural perspectives have emerged.
• Modern researchers focus on phenomena such as attribution, social cognition, and self-concept.
• Concerned with applied psychology, contributing to applications in health, education, law, and the workplace.

Learn about the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by others. Discover how social psychology explains and predicts individual behavior.