Social Psychology - Definition - Essay Example

The theoretical postulates in social facilitation help just in identifying and isolating the individual traits concerning the formation and transformation of the individual self. Despite excessive theorizing on the subject there has been a truly articulate wider focus on the phenomenon of social facilitation with a clearer contrast between autonomous individual actions and socially facilitated reflex-based responses. The underlying nuances are obviously delineated to produce a coherent process of development from one premise to the next (Heffernan, 2002).

In the first instance when Norman Triplett carried out research into the performance by cyclists taking part in a race, he realized that individual cyclists tended to perform better simply because they were being observed by others. Thus they separately developed a tendency to achieve faster times on the clock in each race (Sternberg, 2003). The critical perception of performance as is based on the cause-and-effect analysis would show that the theoretical parameters developed by Triplett were though original under the circumstances were essentially connected with a body of a priori principles that produce parallel processes of behavioral paradigms among individuals.

This causal link is so important in understanding the norm-based behaviors among certain classes of people. In fact in the process of theorizing the psychological perspective on conventional behaviors of the individual and the cognitive perceptive response to external stimuli have been combined together to produce a convergence/divergence contingency model of behavioral response (Baron, & Byrne, 2002). According to the Stanford Prison Experiment carried out by a group of researchers led by Professor Phillip Zimbardo at the University of Stanford in 1971 even before 36 hours lapsed on the experiment at least one prisoner in the experiment group was discovered to suffer from acute tension, continuous crying, anger and incoherent thinking (www.prisonexp.org).

The group that acted like authorities in the experiment did not believe him because they felt he was conning to compel them into releasing him. According to drive theory that human organisms have some needs. If and when these needs were deprived the subject person would experience some emotional disturbance or tension. As and when the need is satisfied the level of drive diminishes and the concerned organism would function as normally as it was before. However the theory tells that drive would increase as the time goes on (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973).

This process is similar to a feedback and control mechanism. Psychologists who have studied such creatures like rats and cockroaches have found that their behavioral tendencies in some instances closely resemble that of humans (Davey, 2004). Cottrell was responsible for the Evaluation Apprehension Theory (1972). According to EPT people rapidly learn what social rewards and punishments would be received by subject people for good performance and