1. Social Psychology

2. Learning Outcomes
By the end of the lecture and with some further reading you should be able to:
Define Social Psychology?
Outline how social psychology relates to other similar paradigms
Outline the historical development of social psychology
Discuss the social and cognitive processes associated with social psychology
Discuss theories that explain the development of attitude

3. PSYCHOLOGY
The scientific study of the human mind and its functions, specially those affecting behavior in a given context.
The mental characteristics or attitude of a person or group.
Sociology is the scientific study of society.

4. Social Psychology
The scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave toward other people and how individuals thoughts, feelings, & behaviours are affected by other people (Brehm, Kassin, & Fein 2002 p5).
The scientific investigation of how the thoughts feelings and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined and implied presence of others (Hogg & Vaughan 2005 p4).
Assumption that every thought feeling and behaviour must have physical or neural basis in the brain.
The mind is a product of the brains activity
To link brain to behaviour is a difficult task and we only have an hour so I’m going to outline some of the basics of neuroanatomy (how brain fits together) and neurophysiology (how neurons work). Before talking about some key studies and what we can learn from these.
Not going to talk about who discovered neurons and electrical currents in the brain - Read up on history in their own time! Start with the nervous system...

5. Definitions Aronson Gordon Allport
The influences that people have upon the beliefs or behavior of others.
Gordon Allport
The thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals as shaped by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

6. Historical development
Well before social psychology became a particular area of scientific enquiry, philosophers such as Plato had observed & commented on the phenomenon of the “crowd mind” .
Plato asserted that “crowd mind” was potentially irrational and not representative of the intellect of the individual when outside of the crowd.
Norman Triplett is often credited as the founder of social psychology (Brehm et al 2002).

7. Some key names in Social Psychology

8. Some key names/developments in Social Psychology

9. Insight into social interaction

10. Social Side Of life
The social side of life is perhaps the most central aspect of our daily lives.
How many times each day do you interact with other people- Family, friends, partners, neighbors, professors, sales staff in stores? And how many times do you think about other people? The correct answer is uncountable or a no. which is difficult to recollect.
The social side of life which is core of social psychology is a key aspect of our lives and our existence.
(Example Movie Legally Blonde, A girl shopping with her friends, thinking that her friend is going to propose her today but when they meet he throws her a curve as he had got admission in Harvard Law School, girl tries to win him again by taking admission in same school which was very difficult for her as law was not her cup of tea, she likes shopping, parties, not studying etc……..).

11. Social Psychology
Social psychology is a scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situation.
Social psychology investigates the way in which our thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the social environments in which we live- by other people or even by our thoughts about them.
Social psychology is “the scientific studies of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another.”
How the individual mind works in the actual presence of others, implied presence of others, and the imagined presence of others.
It Studies attitude formation, self-concept, forming relationships, social influence, social thinking, motivations for helping and harming others.

12. Cont….
Social psychology is the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior and thought in social situation.
What is science?
Chemistry, physics & biology…….. So how can we link a field that seeks to study the nature of love, the causes of aggression, etc.
Answer to this is very simple:- In reality, the term science does not refer to a special group of highly advanced fields. Rather, it refers to 2 things:
(i) A set of values and (ii) Several methods hat can be used to study a wide range of topics.

13. Following Values must be adopted to be considered scientific in nature:
Accuracy: gathering & evaluating information about the world including social behavior & thought in a careful, precise, and error-free manner.
Objectivity: Obtain & evaluate such information in a manner that is free from bias.
Skepticism: Accepting findings as accurate only to the extent they have been verified.(Verifiability)
Open-mindedness: commitment to change views if the existing views are inaccurate.

14. Concisely
Social psychology, is deeply committed to these values and applies them in efforts to understand the nature of social behavior and social thoughts. For this reason , it makes sense to describe social psychology as scientific in orientation.

15. “ But why adopt the scientific approach
“ But why adopt the scientific approach? Isn’t social psychology just common sense?”
We as an amateur social psychologists think …Why not rely on our own experience and intuition ??
For Instance, consider the following statement, suggested by common sense: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Do you agree? Is it true that when people are separated from those they love, they miss them and so, experience increased longing for them?
“ Out of sight, out of mind.” How about this one? When people are separated from those they love, do they quickly find another romantic interest?
Many songs even suggest that “ if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”.

16. ** As we come to know others better, we tend to like them less.
What you observed?
Both the suggested statements by common sense and popular culture are contradictory. The same is true for many other informal observations about human behavior.
How about these two:……….
(i) “ Two heads are better than one,” and
(ii) “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
One suggest that when they work together, they perform better, make better decisions. The other suggest that when they work together, they may get in each other’s way resulting in reduced performance.
** As we come to know others better, we tend to like them more- we feel more comfortable with them. OR
** As we come to know others better, we tend to like them less.

17. Common Sense
Common sense suggest that more is more when liking is concerned. On the other hand, recent findings indicate that the more we know about others, the less we like them. Because as we learn more about others, we recognize more ways in which we are dissimilar to them.

18. Conclusion
Common sense often suggest a confusing and inconsistent picture of human behavior. This is one important reason why social psychologists put their faith in the scientific method, it yields more conclusive evidence.
In fact, it is designed to help us determine not only which of the opposite sets of predictions discussed is correct, but also when and why one of the other might apply.

19. Social Psychology & other disciplines
Hogg & Vaughan 2005
Personality Psychology
Social
Psychology
Cognitive
Psychology
Sociology
Clinical
Psychology

20. Social Psychology & other disciplines

21. Social Psychology focuses on the behavior of individuals
Societies differ greatly in terms of their views concerning courtship and marriage; yet it is still individuals who fall in love.
Similarly, societies vary greatly in terms of their overall levels of violence; yet it is still individuals who perform aggressive actions.
The actions are performed by, and the thoughts occur in, the minds of individuals. Because of this basic fact, the focus in social psychology is strongly on individuals.
Social psychologist realize, of course, that we do not exist in isolation from social & cultural influences.
The field’s major interest lies in understanding the factors that shape the actions and thoughts of individuals in social settings.

22. Social Psychology seeks to understand the causes of social behavior and thoughts
Social psychologists are primarily interested in understanding the many factors and conditions that shape the social behavior and thought of individual----their actions, feelings, memories, and inferences concerning other people.
A huge no. of variables play a role in this regard:-
Social Interaction (Action & interaction of other people):
Cognitive Processes:
Environmental variables (Impact of the physical world):
Cultural Context:
Biological Factors:

23. Actions and Characteristics of Other Persons :
We are affected by various actions of others.
For example, you are standing in the queue for a local train ticket and somebody tries to break the queue. In no time, you would get upset with the person and shout at him. This and many other instances would help you to understand that your behavior is affected by the actions of other individuals. Similarly, certain characteristics of people also change your behavior.
For example, you are waiting at bus-stop, and you realize that a blind man wants to cross a road. You would quickly move ahead and help him. These and many other physical psychological and social characteristics of people are responsible for our actions.

24. Cognitive Process
Our thinking determines what we do in social circumstances.
This is studied in the area of social cognitions.
Cognition is our thinking process.
Our behaviour is determined by what we think. That is one reason why two people do not respond to the same situation identically.
Since two different people think differently about the situations and social realities, they respond differently.

25. Social & cognitive processes
Ways in which our emotions influence our thinking
Ways in which our motives justify our means
Ways in which significant others, e.g. family, society, influence our attitudes, values and beliefs.
Ways in which our perceptions influence our reality

26. Cognitive processes

27. Cognitive processes

28. Environment
The physical world around us to a great extend determines our behavior.
Researchers have shown that the temperature is negatively related with individual aggression and irritability.
Similar types of questions are also asked in social psychology.

29. Cultural Context
The culture in which we stay or are born and brought up determines our behavior.
Culture is sum of values, beliefs, practices, art, language, etc.
Every culture has a different belief and value system.
For example, our decisions would depend on whether we belong to individualistic culture or collectivistic culture.
For instance, marriage would be decided by individual in individualistic cultures and they are decided by a process of mutual agreement among the family members in collectivistic cultures.

30. Biological Factors
The biological factors influence our social behavior.
They can be understood as physiological factors and neurological factors, genetic factors, and evolutionary factors.
The physiological factors contain hormones, functions of various glands, immune system, motor system, etc.
The neurological factors include the brain structures, the neural cells (neurons), the neurotransmitters, etc.
The genetic factor would contain the study of influence of genes on human behaviour.
The evolutionary psychology focuses on explaining the social behaviour as a function of process of evolution.

31. 8 Principles of Social Behaviour
Two fundamental principles:
People construct their own reality
People are influenced & influence others
Three motivational principles:
Strive for mastery
Strive for connectedness
Value “me & mine”
Three processing principles:
Conservatism
Accessibility
Superficiality Vs Depth

32. END