Human beings are essentially social beings. We stay with other and our actions, thoughts, and feelings are affected by the presence of others. At the same time we influence the behaviour of other individuals. This consists of large amount of human behaviour. Social psychology is a discipline that tries to understand the human social behaviour. As is the case with psychology, even social psychology has a past which is less than 100 years. This course will help you to learn and answer many questions. You will learn theoretical perspectives in various areas of social psychology. You will understand that the scope of social psychology is wide and it is ever widening. Social cognition, social perceptions, attitudes, self, stereotype, prejudice and discrimination, interpersonal attraction, close relations, social influence, pro-social behaviour, aggression, group and individuals, applications of social psychology, and many more are the topics of social psychology. Most of the important topics are covered in this course. This course will equip you to understand social behaviour and will also motivate you to work in the area of social psychology and to become social psychologist.
Social Psychology : A Definition :
Defining any field is a very difficult task. So is the case with social psychology. Here are some examples: According to Gordon Allport (1954) social psychology is best defined as the discipline that uses scientific methods in “an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings”. Myers and Spencer (2006) define social psychology as the “scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another”. Barron and Byrne (2007) defined social psychology as “the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and cause of individual behaviour and thought in social situations”.
Social Psychology: It’s Scientific Nature :
For many students, the word science means physics, chemistry biology, genetics, etc. They and many others would wonder whether social psychology is science. To understand the scientific nature of social psychology, we need to understand what we mean by science. In reality science is not a label for certain fields of advanced studies in natural sciences. It has set of values and methodology. Accuracy, objectivity, scepticism, and open-mindedness are the values of science.