Social Psychology Paper - Essay Example

One of its broadest stem is social psychology (Smith & Mackie, 2000). Since an individual has a great impact on oneself of the environment and surroundings, he is living in; therefore, the society or the environment plays a vital role on the performance and actions of the person. This study of how the human behavior comes under effect by the social power is social psychology. Scientific, systematic and methodical techniques are the ways that social psychology exercise in order to comprehend how real, anticipated and foreshadowed/hidden presence of other people plays an influential and convincing role on the moods, reactions, thoughts, psyche, behavior, and actions of an individual.

The social psychologist observes and analyzes a number of aspects when studying the human behavior. They generally observe one’s behavior in crowd, his social viewpoint, the way a person responds without using speech, hyperactive behavior, traditional values, intolerance, and management skills. The thinking or the idea of a person and the way a person interrelates in a social gathering are the prime and vital components that come under use for understanding the social behavior. Psychologist conducts the studies of social psychology in order to know the pattern of boilerplate, how individuals react to situations, the likings, and disliking of people in various scenarios, and attraction of opposite sex towards each other (Smith & Mackie, 2000).

The history of psychology tells that it was not until the nineteenth century that social psychology achieved recognition and popularity amongst the masses. After the Second World War, social psychology came under studies in detail. Twentieth century also experienced a boom in research related to social psychology. It was because of the studies that people gained the awareness of the activities and mindset of social beings. According to studies, it has come under observation that people often mix up social psychology with folk wisdom, personality psychology, and sociology (Smith & Mackie, 2000).

The frames of reference that summarize the four distinctive attributes of social psychology as outline in Social Beings are the socio cultural, the evolutionary, the social learning, and the social cognitive (DeLamater & Myers, 2007). The education, apprentice, knowledge and experiences that people acquire from the philosophies and concept of culture, traditions, customs and norms comes under the limelight of socio cultural aspect of social psychology. The culture plays a vital and crucial role in an individual’s life as the norms and traditions of a culture is a huge influencer in the life of people as it helps in developing the persons’ self-image or the identity.

The evolutionary characteristic defines that the genes, heredity, heritage, and legacy are the factors that helps in shaping the personality of an individual. Biological impact is another aspect that comes into focus when defining the evolutionary characteristic, that it plays a vital and critical role in forming the person’s behavior (DeLamater & Myers, 2007). The social learning attribute of social psychology has a different school of thought. According to this attribute, development of a person’s behavior depends upon not only the inheritance, but also the perception, recognition, imitation and parody, which develops an understanding into a distinct, exclusive, and unique experiences