Module Overview

Social Psychology Lecture Notes Pdf Citation
Social Psychology Lecture Notes Pdf Sample

In our first module we will examine the field of social psychology and how it relates to personality psychology and differs from sociology by clarifying the level of analysis and differences in methods used. We will then embark upon a historical journey to see where the field has come from and where it is going. Finally, we will examine professional societies and journals as they relate to social psychology and share links to blogs and newsfeeds on current research in this subfield.

Module Outline

The postmodern therapies adopt a social constructionist viewpoint, assuming that how people process and construct information about themselves and their world is central to their existence. Rather than conceptualizing progress as a departure from and rejection of the past, postmodernism draws on the past to serve the present. Lecture Thesises. Theme Psychological features of teaching foreign languages. Social psychology is, however, not only a basic social science that studies the nature and determinants of human social behaviour; it is also an applied discipline of relevance for all kinds of. An Introduction to Social Psychology/7 statements: of his earlier publications, and had read into them my own meaning. Although I still recognise that Mr. Shand has the merit of having first clearly shown the need of psychology for some such con-ception, I must in the interests of truth point out that my conception of.

1.1. What is Social Psychology?
1.2. Social Psychology…Then
1.3. Social Psychology…Now
1.4. Connecting with Other Social Psychologists

Module Learning Outcomes

Clarify similarities and differences between social psychology, personality psychology, and sociology.
Outline the history of social psychology.
Describe the status of the subfield today….and in the future.
Identify ways in which social psychologists can connect with one another.

1.1. What is Social Psychology?

Section Learning Objectives

Define psychology and deconstruct the definition.
Define social.
Contrast social psychology and sociology.
Clarify how social and personality psychology intersect.
Describe general methods used by social psychologists.
Distinguish between basic and applied science.
Compare and contrast how social psychology, sociology, and personality psychology tackle the same general issue by evaluating empirical articles from a journal in each field.

1.1.1. Defining Terms

Our discussion of social psychology will start by defining a few key terms, or what social and psychology mean separately. We will tackle the latter, then the former, and then put it all together. First up, the latter. Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Yes, that is correct. Psychology is scientific. Psychology utilizes the same scientific process and methods used by disciplines such as biology and chemistry. We will discuss this in more detail in Module 2 so please just keep this in the back of your mind for now. Second, it is the study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology desires to not only understand why people engage in the behavior that they do, but also how. What is going on in the brain to control the movement of our arms and legs when running downfield to catch the game winning touchdown, what affects the words we choose to say when madly in love, how do we interpret an event as benign or a threat when a loud sound is heard, and what makes an individual view another group in less than favorable terms? These are just a few of the questions that we ask as psychologists.

Now to the former – social. According to Oxford Dictionaries online, social is defined as relating to society or its organization. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social). Another form of the word implies a desire to be around people such as being a social butterfly. Really, both forms of the word are useful for the discussion to come in this textbook.

We now address their combination. Social psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes as they relate to how people interact with, or relate to, others. Our starting point is on the person, and not society. The latter is the focus of the field called sociology, or the study of society or groups, both large and small. According to the American Sociological Association (http://www.asanet.org/), sociology is a social science which involves studying the social lives of people, groups, and societies; studying our behavior as social beings; scientifically investigating social aggregations; and is “an overarching unification of all studies of humankind, including history, psychology, and economics.”

In contrast, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (Division 8 of the American Psychological Association; https://www.apa.org/about/division/div8.aspx; SPSP) defines social psychology as the “scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.” The study of social psychology occurs in a social context meaning the individual as he/she relates to others and is affected by others. Soundtoys little alterboy mac crack.

Personality and social psychology go hand-in-hand and so we should define personality psychology too. Simply, personality psychology is the scientific study of individual differences in people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and how these come together as a whole. A social psychologist may investigate whether an individual helped another person due to a situational or personal factor, while a personality psychologist would examine whether a certain personality type is more likely to make situational or dispositional attributions or look for traits that govern helping behavior.

1.1.2. How Social Psychologists Do Their Work?

The answer to the question guiding this section is really quite simple – observation. Psychology, as most fields in science, operates by observing the world around the observer. We take note of the actions of others in relation to tragic events such as a natural disaster or school shooting, how lovers behave in public and query them about their actions behind close doors, and a person’s reaction to the opening of a new restaurant or receiving poor service (and subsequent tipping behavior). Observation alone is not enough.

Once we take note of these different types of behaviors, we have to find a way to measure it and eventually record the behavior. If we want to study public displays of affection (PDAs) we have to clearly state what these displays are or how they will appear so we know for sure that they have occurred. This might be a gentle touch, an embrace, a passionate kiss or maybe just a quick one. Once we know what it is we are observing, we can record its occurrence in a notebook, through the use of a video recorder, in conjunction with another observer, or with a golf stroke counter.

Finally, scientists seek to manipulate the conditions in which people experience the world to see what the effect is on their social behavior. This is the hallmark of experimentation as you will come to see in Module 2.

So how do social psychologists do what they do? They observe the world, measure and record behavior, and then manipulate the conditions under which such behavior may occur so that they can make causal statements about social behavior.

1.1.3. Two Forms Their Work Might Take

Science has two forms – basic/pure and applied. Basic science is concerned with the acquisition of knowledge for the sake of the knowledge and nothing else while applied science desires to find solutions to real-world problems. You might think of it like this – the researcher decides on a question to investigate in pure science, but an outside source identifies the research question/problem in applied science. Of course, this is not always the case. A social psychologist doing basic re

Social Psychology Lecture Notes Pdf