Social Psychology - Essay Example

?Introduction Social psychology studies the richness and complexity of people's lives within their environments. There are two major divisions in social psychology which include epistemology and ontology which are what we think we know of humans in the social psychological forms they take and it is concerned with the limits and knowledge that exists in the social psychological world. Ontology is concerned with how we exist in nature and describes what it is like to be human. In a social environment, there are many methods that are used to determine the richness and complexity of people's lives which create a healthy environment and many factors that create a distorted unhealthy environment. There are also distortions in the type of research that is conducted by students in psychology because they only cover one age group and occupation. There are four interrogative themes in the social psychological world which include: power relations; situated knowledges; individual-society dualism; and agency-structure dualism. There are also four very critical social psychological perspectives which are cognitive social, discursive psychological, phenomenological and psychoanalytic perspectives. I will analyze how two of these perspectives work with and against a social psychological system and also provide a bit of a background on some psychological terms to ensure a clear understanding of the topic. Background and Body To keep a good head on our shoulders and stand strong, it is important to use the identity development technique of Erik Erikson which is to symbolize items we have left behind, symbolize items that we look forward to, have symbols of what we look above or up to, and have items below us; what we have to the left and right is also important. In social psychology, there tends to be a dualistic viewpoint of either seeing the individual's perspective or that of society. These items are referred to as dichotomies. Individual society dualism and agency structure dualism are very important dichotomies in social psychology. Dichotomous thinking is deemed unhelpful according to social psychologists. Emotion is looked at in social psychology and refinements to the epistemology and ontology aspects in this subject are constantly being reviewed and developed. Dualisms lead to distortions when handled improperly by individual or groups. Dualisms must be minimized as much as possible in order to create a free individual and society. Verbal and non-verbal emotion are constantly being analyzed in order to best meet the needs of the individuals or society in an environment. Embodiment is another social psychological topic that is important. There are critiques on mind-body, individual-society, and agency structure dualisms in order to capture this term's requirements. In order to be strong we must strive to balance all of the above dualisms. Social psychology has only existed for about 100 years. Social psychology had been defined and it was founded in North America. Social psychology is defined as the study of an individual, either male or female, and how they are involved in their surroundings and environments. The social scientists did not want to reduce psychology to an individual or social basis which is what the individual-social dualism is all about. There are two kinds of social psychologies in the field. They are named psychological social psychology and sociological social psychology. Psychological social psychology is about the individual while sociological social psychology is macro. Both of these types of psychology were developed in North America like most concepts and definitions of social psychology. Many forms of social psychology exist to be critiqued in order to analyze and develop new theories to its already extensive structural base. The first world war created a lack luster attitude toward social psychology and by the time the second world war came about, it was in demand to find new ways to treat people and remove the racism for lesser thans in society. The second world war caused many people to die so psychology was a refreshing change to make people feel like they were defeating the ways of the wars. Social psychology has methods based not on scientific experiment but on individual interviews, observations, and analyses of spontaneous conversation and text. Social psychology is like psychology but it focuses on the individual rather than the study of the mind; it is a branch of psychology. Finding a balance between the study of the individual and the social aspects of social psychology is the key to reducing the individual-social dualism that exists in our minds when we study this subject. In other words, the two branches known as psychology and sociology interplay when we are studying social psychology and we must find a balance between the two when working with them. Both North American and European researchers are mainly the ones who study and improve the methodologies involved in this branch of psychology. Psychometrics was developed in order to measure psychological theories in experiments. This form of study determined level of intelligence and personality to increase awareness and develop theories in more depth. Social psychometrics had been developed to measure attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and behaviors that soon followed general psychometrics. This is one of the most prevailing forms of study in society today in the social psychology field and this is the main aspect of this essay. Revealing how methods of study of people's lives can be rich and complex, yet also limited and distorted. Methods in social psychology are great to enable us a luxury to determine the qualities of people's intelligence and personality however it is not always useful in determining how people are in life so it is not always something that can be used to relate to people. Theories are great but not always beneficial in determining how all people are all of the time. Three kinds of social psychology were developed which include a humanistic-action oriented social psychology (which became extinct after the second world war), a social psychology that lacked interest in social relevance (mainly found in laboratories), and a fun and games psychology that involved clever experiments and produced counter intuitive findings of questionable relevance. There was an incredible state of profound intellectual disarray in social psychology which began the idea of a crisis in the field. There were two main claims reported against social psychological methods of experiments in 1967. The first used experimental methods that used variables in the study and deceived the participants to produce reductive and irrelevant findings. The second objected to the individualism of social psychology. This is where the individual is burdened by the American cultural ideal which causes great distress on being successful and not failing. This created a review on how social psychology should operate. Some people felt there was no crisis and others felt that it was resolved. Some people felt distortions existed because many dehumanizing aspects of social psychology existed and that people really did not act that way at all. The importance of symbols and interaction play a critical role in social psychology. I, the subject in language, and me, how I am interpreted, are two focuses in this study. In one experiment, students were asked to go home and act as lodgers and not the children of their parents which breached many social rules. This idea created normative disruption and is a key strategy in ethnomethodology. Ethnomethodology is the study of lay methods used in life to make sense of what is happening. People's interpretation of their social situation is more important than the actual situation. We are constantly providing impressions of ourselves and this is another key factor in the study of ethnomethodology. When women began in the field of social psychology, a feminist approach developed where challenges to psychology's epistemology existed, challenges to modes of enquiry resulted, and challenge's to the material studied also resulted. The methods made a shift from quantitative to qualitative studies because more women are social rather than scientific. Women also began looking out for other women. Women in the traditional setting with all of the men working in social psychology were more damaged by the material so that is another reason why woman and psychology research developed. The dominant beliefs, especially in traditional society, had women be inferior to men. In most relationships, men still consider the women to be inferior, however it is getting better. In 1968, a distortion of psychology and a reason why women started gaining momentum in the field is because women were considered inconsistent, emotionally unstable, lacking in a strong conscience or superego, weaker, nurturant rather than productive, intuitive rather than intelligent, and if they are at all normal, suited to the home and the family. This is why women are considered a minority. Power relations within research is quite prominent. This is typical of qualitative research. This occurs as a result of the resounding feminist perspectives that are more often introduced in society now as opposed to previous times. Ethics are much better now as a result to some extent. This is where some of the distortions have been minimized. People are now being listened to more often which has led to strengths and some problems. So the data is now focused on being used strictly for research purposes. Real world issues are looked at much more often and inequalities are being considered more important. Autonomy is now not only a maculine trait but there is a need for relationship to develop the self. Cognitive Social Perspective In the study of cognitive social psychology, researchers see people as thinkers in their society. This means that they create their own world based on their thoughts. In the mainstream, theories suggest that an individual is seen as a cognitive miser which limits their mental capacity. The other main theory is that group members contribute to the growth of the individual. The methods that are used to study this aspect of social psychology is mainly quantitative where the results are determined in a laboratory. Experiments can also be conducted outside of a laboratory in a classroom, workplace, or a crowd. Surveys and questionaires along with case studies and just ordinary observation can also be used to determine results and help to further the social psychology knowledge base. The minds of individuals is where the focus is on studies for this field. In order for research to be effective, it is important to focus the attention on freeing the individual. Self help and working on the individual is the basics to a cognitive social perspective. Personal factors of our belief system cause us to do what we do and be who we are. We also look back and approach our problems and move forward through analyzing ourselves. Our behaviour results from our transactions within our life experience. People do not simply react to everyday occurences or unimportant and trivial items, they are proactive and motivated to do what they need to do in order to be good people and function well in society. In order to be effective, people are in control of their own thought processes and motivate themselves. Human agency in this perspective is conceptualized in three different ways. One is the autonomy of the individual while the other two are the mechanically reactive agency and emergent interactive agency. It is quite rare that a human can operate entirely on their own. Personal and situational influences create human action. It is an internal system which is affected by external experiences. In order for an agency to be proactive, some reactive qualities must exist. Consciousness is the centre of this perspective. It is responsible for thinking about events, planning, constructing courses of action, and reflecting on the adequacy of one's thinking and actions. There is a difference between being conscious of one's experiences and consciously producing results for a desired outcome in an experience. Being conscious of one's own heart rate is good if a person needs to slow down their heart rate to relax. Without consciousness, people are devoid of personal identity and subjectivity. To conclude this section, it is important to note that social cognitive perspective is about the self and all aspects in connection to the self so that a person can relate to their world better. This particular perspective is filled with looking internally and recognizing forms of improved behaviour concerning ourselves. In order to be healthy individuals, this perspective includes extensive research on self help and cognitive improvement approaches for an individual. Once the individual is improved, their social environment and how they relate is also improved. Discursive Psychological Perspectives Communication does not happen in our heads but in groups that we work with and the people that we meet. A way to research this is to look at people and the groups that we work in much more closely so that we can better incorporate our ideas and communicate better. Through talk, our identities are formed. Dr Bianca Raabe looks at different conversations and studies how men and women relate to each other and differ. People are complex and their conversations take a variety of directions even when centred on one particular topic. Topics like racism are covered in this perspective. The study of discursive psychology is intertwined into every day social practices and is often overlooked. Discursive psychological perspectives deal with our interactions where we draw meaning in the process of talking to each other, drawing on cultural resources, and having a variety of discussions rather than only one topic. It is a much more active process than we have previously understood it to be. This is the opposite of the social cognitive perspective which is being exclusively and entirely in our own heads. They both blend because being in our heads can occur in social environments and communicating can also allow us to be in our heads but it is best to keep these two separate in the research results for now. Conclusion In conclusion, both cognitive social and discursive psychological are two opposites that blend and intertwine while both are useful mixed together, they also work extremely well individually. There is a time and place for both of these perspectives. A distortion can occur in the research when these are not used properly or when ethics have been breached. Sometimes it is great to be just in our own heads and use self help techniques, and other times it is extremely important that we communicate to others and leave behind what is in our heads. As mentioned, it is also going to occur where we can be in our heads in communicating and completely forget the other person. In communicating, we leave our minds normally in the process to be completely present. There are times however it is important to tune insignificant events out. Bibliography Read More