Social Psychology: What Is It And Why Is It So Important?

The field of psychology can be divided into two groups: applied psychology and basic psychology. Basic psychology studies simple psychological processes such as perception, attention, memory, language and learning. On the other hand, applied psychology focuses  on studying other psychological characteristics, which have more to do with problem solving.  Within applied psychology, there are various aspects, and social psychology is one of these.

Social psychology can be defined as a study of interactions between people, especially within social groups and situations, and emphasizes how social situations affect human behavior. More specifically, social psychology focuses  on scientific studies of how people think, feel, and how behaviors are affected by the real, imagined, or implied presence of other people. ( Allport, 1985 )

The goal of social psychology is to study social relations ( Moscovici and Markova, 2006 ). It is claimed that  social psychological processes differ from individual psychological processes. Social psychology tries to understand both group and individual behaviors when they react or think about the social environment.

Social psychology tends to study group behaviors first and foremost. It seeks to describe and explain human behaviors by reducing them to psychological variables.  In this way, social psychology tries to establish theories regarding human behaviors that can help to predict behavioral patterns before they occur, and thus be able to intervene. Knowing how certain factors promote certain behaviors, it strives to intervene and change these patterns in some way.

The themes covered by social psychology are broad and broad ( Gergen, 1973 ). By focusing on some of the problems that are its main focus, we can ascertain its identity. Social identity ( Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994 ) or  how much people are identified and share characteristics within groups is a factor that social psychology frequently examines. Social identity often determines how people will behave. For example, when a person strongly identifies with a group, the person’s behavior will be in line with the norms and values ​​that that group has.

Another common theme in social psychology is stereotypes ( Amossy and Herschberg Pierrot, 2001 ). Stereotypes are the image we have of another group. This is usually a simplified and generalized image that tries to categorize all the members of a specific group.

A common image people have of Spaniards in Europe, for example, is that they are lazy. As soon as people who have this image of Spaniards actually meet a Spaniard, the person will think that the person is lazy before he has actually gotten to know him.

Prejudices are closely related to stereotypes ( Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick and Esses, 2010 ). Prejudices are preconceived notions that make us quickly form an opinion about a person or situation. These are perceptions that are based on incomplete information and are usually negative.

At present, many believe that all Muslims are violent and even sympathetic to terrorism, which is not true. Even when they see clear evidence that speaks against their misconception, many insist on continuing to believe so. This belief affects their feelings and behavior towards people who practice this religion.

Another area of ​​study in social psychology is values ​​( Ginges and Atran, 2014 ). Values ​​are established guidelines that society establishes in order for them to be met. Values ​​tend to have a social consensus and differences between cultures. Values ​​are so important that for some people they become sacred. No matter how irrational some of the values ​​are, people will defend them as best they can and even make great sacrifices for them.

Social psychology studies many different subjects, so we will not be able to tell about them all. Some that we have not discussed are aggression and violence, socialization, group work, leadership, social movements, obedience, conformism and interpersonal and group processes.

In the field of social psychology, there have been people who have left a big impression. Here are some of them:

• Floyd Allport:  Best known for being the founder of social psychology as a branch of science.
• Muzafer Sheriff:  Known for leading the “thief cave” – ​​the experiment in which a group of scouts was divided into two groups to investigate prejudices within social groups. The experiment created  The Realistic Group Conflict Theory,  which translated becomes “the realistic theory of group conflict”.
• Solomon Asch:  Dedicated his life to studying social influences. His studies on adaptation are his most famous works. He used different sizes of sentences to see if the participants would answer incorrectly. They actually answered incorrectly, not because they thought the answers they gave were the right ones, but  because they wanted to agree with the answers given by other people. 

• Kurt Lewin:  Known as the founder of modern social psychology. He contributed to gestalt psychology, studied the concept of social distance  and shaped  field theory . The latter shows that it is impossible to get to know fair human behavior if they are not in their own environment.
• Ignacio Martín – Baró:  In addition to being a psychologist, he was a Jesuit priest. He suggested that psychology should be linked to the social and historical conditions in the area where it develops. It should also be linked to the goals of the people who live there. He is the creator of  the Social Psychology of Liberation .

• Stanley Milgram:  Has easy experimentation with questionable ethics. The most well-known experiment was about  obeying authorities. During this experiment, one of the participants gave electric shocks to another participant in the presence of an authoritarian person. He is also responsible for the experiment named T HE Experiment of the Small World  (The experiment of a small world); which is also known as the six degrees of separation  .
• Serge Moskovici:  Studied social representations. This is the way in which knowledge is reformulated when groups take care of it and thus distort it from its original form. Serge is also known for his studies on the  influence of minorities. 
• Philip Zimbardo:  Best known for leading the experiment at Stanford Prison. During this experiment, he took some students and divided them into two groups. One group as prison guards and the other as prisoners. He then sent them down to a fictional prison in the basement of the university. The conclusion was that it was the situation that caused the participants’ behaviors and not their own personalities.

• Albert Bendura:  Showed that the violence in the media called for aggressive behavior among those who watched it. He led an experiment in which a model showed aggressive behavior towards a doll. This was then imitated by children. This is known as the Bobo Doll Experiment. Bandura is also the creator of The Theory of Perceived Self-Esteem .

As we have now, social psychology focuses on our social behavior. This is something that most people are not aware of and a discovery that really surprises those who choose to study psychology. This is because we often underestimate how much other people affect us, whether indirectly or directly. We like to see ourselves as completely independent and independent, that we can act and feel exactly as we want, without our surroundings affecting us very much.

But these studies in social psychology have shown us that this is not the case. Therefore, the discoveries that this field of psychology makes are very interesting and enriching.