Introduction and History of Social Psychology



Introduction and History of Social Psychology

ROOTS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something in nature that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self‑sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god”ARISTOTLE Politics 328 B.C.

Formulated the basic principles of social influence and persuasion

Social Philosophies

HEDONISM

JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832)

Maximize pleasure while minimizing pain

EGOISM OR SELF-INTEREST

THOMAS HOBBES LEVIATHAN (1651)

Egoistic drives for power over others is even more basic than pleasure seeking

IMITATION THEORY - GABRIEL TARDE

THE LAWS OF IMITATION (1903)

Norman Triplett (1898) – first social psychological experiment

Interested in increased ability in the presence of others

Led to the complex body of literature on social facilitation

Other early developments

William McDougall and Edward Ross both publish books titled “Social Psychology” 1908

Floyd Allport wrote the first real social psychology textbook in 1924

He also started the first graduate program at Syracuse Univ.

Key role in bringing about the acceptance of social psychology as a scientific field

Gordon Allport

Wrote a major part of the 1st handbook on Social Psych in 1935

Developed the trait approach to personality

“Nature of Prejudice” in 1954

Defined the field

Definition of the Field

Social psychology is the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (Allport)

Kurt Lewin

Often called the father of experimental social psychology

Came to the U.S. in 1933 from Germany

Trained as a Gestalt psychologist

Conducted early leadership studies in the 1930’s

He stressed the importance of the perception of the social situation or what is called situationalism

Construal is the way in which people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world (Aronson)

1940s - 1960s

Rapid expansion in the field with a number of new topics and major research interests

Attitudes and persuasion

Attribution theory (Fritz Heider)

1960’s - focused on applying social psychology to many of societal problems (prejudice, obedience, conformity, helping and aggression)

1970’s

“Crisis of confidence” – Is social psychology a science or only history (Kenneth Gergen)

More women going into the field

1980s -2007

Social cognition becomes the dominant theoretical approach (study of heuristics, schemas, stereotypes)

Cross-cultural social psychology

Automatic (Implicit) vs Controlled processing of information

Women now are in the majority

Positive Psychology

The influence of emotions

Positive Psychology

Cross-cultural Social Psychology

A growing trend beginning in the late 1980’s has been the addition of a cross-cultural perspective

90% of published studies at that time were from the U.S. with college students

What is Culture?

A culture is the composite of the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next (Brislin)

All cultural groups develop there own social norms for expected and accepted behavior

These social or cultural norms vary in 1000’s of different areas of behavior including times in which you eat, the pace of life, the use of nonverbal gestures, clothes and dress

Cultures also vary in terms of their focus on the individual or the groups

Cultures also vary in terms of their focus on the individual or the groups

Individualism

A philosophy of life stressing the priority of individual needs over group needs, a preference for loosely knit social relationships, and a desire to be relatively autonomous of others’ influence

Collectivism

Collectivism or collective cultures involves giving priority to the goals of the groups and defining one’s identity based on group identification

Sociology vs. Social Psychology

The two fields study similar topics

e.g., close relationships, prejudice, aggression.

However, the approaches taken and the unit of measure tend to be different.

Sociologists tend to study groups and often use demographic data and case studies.

Social psychologists will more frequently focus on the individual and use experimental techniques.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download