Social psychology is the branch of psychology that seeks to explore how an individual’s psychological makeup is influenced and formed by others. It further encompasses imagined, factual, and real interactions that individuals have with society at large. A key question for the social psychologist is how do we obtain knowledge of the outside world? For the social psychologist, the answer is largely to do with interactions. Each interaction that we engage in causes a ‘disruption’ to our environment, and this disruption can be used to learn and grow in the best case scenarios, or it may lead to an individuals demise in the worst case (Moskowitz, 2005, p. 2). Perceptions of the other are important areas of exploration in social psychology. The goal is to obtain a better understanding of why people behave as they do in a group.
The social psychology movement began to take root at the start of the twentieth century. Following the rise of Nazism in Germany, many practitioners of Gestalt psychology fled to Britain or America. This Berlin school of psychology saw things as holistic and integrated with a tendency for autopoietic development. By the early 1940s this area of psychology was used in efforts to create wartime propaganda. The years after the war saw social psychology become obsessed with its own methodology. The inquiry claimed to be scientific in nature, whereas some began to view it as simply a reflection of contemporary history (Gergen, 1973). However, it is undeniable that humans demand to be seen in a social context. Both normal and pathological human behavioral patterns must be seen within the norms of a society. Self-perception is shaped by how we perceive others and in how others see us. Social influences and interactions are a part of the human experience and certain conformity is necessary to secure a tranquil existence.
The zenith of social psychology is arguably the Milgram expirement. In this experiment, Stanley Milgram was able to show that everyday people would be willing to administer deadly shocks of electricity at the behest of an authority figure. A common critique of social psychology is that the science is largely irreproducible, rendering the research method suspect. However this experiment has been repeated many times and always the same devastating results are shown. People are willing to behave savagely towards other people when commanded to (Slater et al, 2006). Indeed the general thesis of social psychology was also advanced by the Stanford prison experiments where individuals were placed into a make-shift prison as either a guard or a prisoner. The experiment was called off soon after its commencement when it was made very obvious that the roles that the subjects were playing became too real and the psychological impact too great (Haney, Banks, Zimbardo, 1973). These studies show that ordinary people have an extraordinary ability to be bad. The guards knew that the prisoners were test subjects, but relished in the authoritarian role given to them. It didn’t matter that they knew that the prisoners hadn’t committed any crimes; they were still punished, insulted, and otherwise dehumanized because of an unfortunate coin toss that rendered them prisoners instead of guards. In sum, this study will help inform about societal functions and institutional effects on the individual and the latent potential of someone to conform to the status that society imputes on him. The ultimate achievement of social psychology is thus proving mans capacity for horrific acts against man.
In contrast to social psychology, other fields of psychology tend to deal more with an individual and his personal psychological difficulties or short comings. Clinical psychology is regulated as a health care profession and rather than studying how groups think as a whole, focuses on the well-being of a particular patient. Various famous schools of thought were developed and championed by such luminaries as Freud, Jung, Skinner, Maslow, and Rogers. In essence though they all relied on a dynamic that seeks to ‘heal’ a patient. Social psychology seeks to perform experiments using individuals to test how they will behave in a group. Sociology is a similar area as social psychology but is not the same. Sociology seeks to discover the origins of social behavior. Social psychology on the other hand still has a broad interest into matters of personality and self-awareness. Sociology commonly focuses on particular stratifications in society and the biggest early proponents of sociological methods happened to be politically inclined.
The differences aside, all these fields purport to be members of the social sciences. Being members of the social sciences they each seek to use empirical research that uses the proper scientific method to reach conclusions. Conclusions in general or clinical psychology tend to prove something related to an individual patient, whereas a conclusion in social psychology will seek to show that the behavior of groups is predictable regardless of the individual makeup of the group. Conclusions within social psychology or sociology must be integrated into mainstream clinical thought when appropriate because oftentimes the groups behavior will illuminate our understanding of the individual.
In sum, social psychology is a multi-disciplinary field of psychology that seeks to explain how groups think and behave. Beyond that, it also seeks to discover how influence can be won within a group and methods of persuasion to be used across a broad swath of people. Utilizing what we learn from social psychology we are able to draw conclusions about individuals and their motivations for certain behaviors.
Works Cited:
Gergen, K.J. (May 1973). Social Psychology as History. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 26(2). 309-320 doi: 10.1037/h0034436
Haney, C., Banks, C., Zimbardo, P. (1973). Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated
Prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97.
Moskowitz, G.B. (2005). Social Cognition. New York: The Guilford Press.
Slater M., Antley A., Davison A., Swapp D., Guger C., et al. (2006) A Virtual Reprise of
the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments. PLoS ONE, 1(1): e39. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000039
