Contemporary Social Psychology - Coursework Example

Contemporary Social Psychology BY YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANISATION HERE YOUR HERE HERE Contemporary Social Psychology Introduction The diversity of options for study offered by contemporary social psychology allow researchers to consider multiple levels of analysis, especially when dealing with human subjects as research variables. Through the years, social psychology has created theories regarding attribution, cognitive short-cuts and has even established the domain of discursive psychology in an attempt to understand human behaviour and motivation; among many others. This paper identifies many of the theories involved in contemporary social psychology and discusses their application in this field of study. Diversity and the human factor When various experts in the field of social psychology suggest that experiments involving humans can be likened to dirty test tubes, they are essentially suggesting that human behaviour, and its many complexities, make it significantly-difficult to establish control over the experiment. Humans are recognised as being complicated and sophisticated people and, when part of the experimental design, can create havoc on the consistency of research data. Other factors of the experiment can be controlled and monitored, such as tangible environment or the volume of people the subject should come into contact with during the experiment. However, based on individual motivations, the subjects will likely complicate the research experiment through various psychological behaviours such as trying to gain control of the experiment (control issues) or other behaviours. In this situation, much like the dirty lab equipment, research results can be inaccurate or tainted by abnormal or complex social behaviours from the human involved in the research study. For instance, in a controlled laboratory environment, a researcher may be attempting to determine whether the subject responds in a particular way (behaviourally) when exposed to different social scenarios or stimuli. The attempt in the experiment may be to determine whether groups of random subjects will respond according to predictable patterns when exposed to, for instance, graphic or morbid visuals. Some individuals may be more advanced, socially, in terms of having adequate coping mechanisms and, through controlled behaviours, add real value to the experiment. Other subjects, however, may have such outrageous or unpredictable reactions to the visuals in which their behaviours begin to erode the efficiency of the experimental design. This notion of humans being complicated and unpredictable variables is also tied in with the notion of social psychology being characterised by diversity. Because there are many dimensions of human behaviour and cognition, social psychologists must consider whether to study starting at the individual level or within the broader social context (Lecture 1). If the researcher chooses the individual level, by studying a single human in a variety of contexts or situations, social psychology provides multiple options for assessing issues regarding how humans process and act upon various social situations. Issues of personal cognition can be considered as relevant or even the constructs of how a person developed life-long values in their routine living environment. This shows that even at the individual level of study, there are multitudes of different explanations for why humans behave in the manner that they do, creating a diverse network of social studies and experimentation simply to understand the internal self. Does parental influence maintain importance in positive social development in today’s youths? Are the elderly beginning to find more personal gratification by adopting a more flexible, youth-oriented lifestyle? These social issues require assessing more than the individual. Issues of environment, social norms, cultural values, and a wide variety of other variables must be considered to create a solid theory of what drives human behaviour and positive emotional responses to various social stimuli. It is because of the vastness of variables which interact in the human social environment which provides researchers with a wealth of diverse methods such as the observational approach, the structured interview, surveys, behavioural experimentation in controlled environments, and many others. Without these research method options there is no viable way to measure the individual and the broader social community as no singular method can achieve desired research results. There are four specific categories in Doise’s levels of analysis. The first is the intrapersonal which involve elements within the person such as cognition and motivation (Lecture 1). The second level is the interpersonal, involving interactions between two or more people (Lecture 1). The third level is positional in which specific roles or group membership rules play a factor in social behaviours. The final level is ideological such as the existence of long-standing social values and cultural norms (Lecture 1). Doise’s theory strongly reinforces the theoretical diversity of modern social psychology in which more than merely the individual must be studied by the broader impact of social communities and interpersonal interaction are strong influences or catalyst for changing social behaviours. This level of analysis provides a template for other researchers to consider when attempting to find a solution to a question in social psychology. For example, the researcher may want to understand whether role status in the workplace dictates how the individual is treated by others. This cannot be accomplished only at the individual level but will require a measure of interpersonal communications, the positional relationship as well as the organisational culture which exists at the company that dictates acceptable behaviours. To merely measure interpersonal reactions would not fully determine whether role identity affects social treatment, thus each level of analysis must be identified for its relevancy prior to launching a social study or experiment. Cognition and attribution theories Long-standing social stereotypes are often at the foundation of cognitive short-cuts when processing clues or scenarios within a social and community context. Contemporary social psychology suggests that people build schemas, which are cognitive structures which help to navigate the social environment effectively and from which most human opinions are structured. Cognitive short-cuts are using basic stereotypes, social norms and individual values to quickly assess a person or scenario, process the information and ultimately make sense of it. A relevant example of schemas as part of cognitive short-cuts might be a discussion from a peer about a new, romantic relationship. The peer suggests the relationship partner is attractive, but does not describe the person in detail. Social psychology theorists suggest that this conversation triggers a schema in which the person quickly creates a visual image of the person being described in order to process what is being discussed. Green, Campbell and Davis (2005) offer the phenomenon of cognitive short-cuts and schema in terms of studying how romantic relationships affect self-esteem development. Using experimental design and structured surveys, it was determined that past relationships (either positive or negative) directly impact how a person views themselves. A bad previous relationship creates a schema in which human reaction toward a potential romantic encounter can bring up negative emotions or mental images. This cognitive short-cut, or jumping to the rapid conclusion that a romantic encounter would always be negative, becomes the foundation for future behaviours each time the subject is exposed to discussion about romantic involvement. Attribution theories are exactly as the name suggests: Determining what factors can be attributed as the catalyst for human motivations or behaviours (Lecture 4). For example, if a person is having difficulty adjusting to a new social environment, it could be that their social role is not important enough for the group to be recognised. It could also be that environmental factors are unfavourable for the person having difficulty, therefore they attribute maladjusted behaviours to their surroundings. This provides a practical template for social psychology researchers, as well as the individual, to make sense of the world around them and explain behaviours and motivations or predict what might occur in different scenarios (Lecture 4). The existence of various normative models do not accurately describe how attributions are made simply because the social environment and human motivations are different in a variety of unique situations. These models attempt to categorise people so that they fit into specific groups or motivational categories. These models, at their foundation, are predicting models that a specific outcome can be expected in a particular situation based on previous research into human behaviour. However, individual motivations as well as group behaviours are involved in how complex social systems interact, therefore no singular situation will likely have the same outcome. One social group may have a strong loyalty focus and chastise members for not showing loyalty. Another group may have no focus on loyalty whatsoever and provide a more inclusive group setting. No elegant normative model can accurately predict a specific outcome in the face of complicated human values and behaviours. One relevant application of the attribution theory involves a recent study to determine whether a sampling of 167 university students could mould their behaviours and responses based on three research instrument, which were articles describing an ecological catastrophe in business (Coombs and Holladay, 2007). Students were discovered to utilise various, long-standing cultural norms to place instant blame on the corporation highlighted in the ecological report. In this study, students relied on long-standing social schemas or cognitive short-cuts to quickly assess that the company described in the research article was at fault. This created further sensations of anger and hostility against the company, based solely on the single research article presented to them (Coombs and Holladay). This indicates that people in contemporary society generally hold a negative view of companies and their levels of personal accountability, therefore negative behavioural outcomes become a product of social attributions. Had this study been conducted with students from a developing country (instead of a Westernised nation), attributions may have been pointed toward different individuals or scenarios based on cultural expectations and feelings regarding corporate responsibility. In many ways, attribution theories add support to the notion of social psychology as being a diverse field of study as people will likely attribute their personal motivations or response behaviours to a wide variety of different stimuli. This would make the creation of a solid model regarding predictable outcomes associated with expected human attributions virtually impossible to construct. Comparing theories and discursive psychology The scientific paradigm of social psychology suggests that most situations will end up with predictable outcomes and this paradigm attempts to classify everyone in similar categories to make social psychology appear to be a rather clean effort with no margin for error. The scientific paradigm suggests that certain behaviours or social scenarios have very fixed solutions or outcomes and can be predicted against a scientific model of human behaviours. The social constructionist paradigm is quite opposite from the scientific viewpoint and suggests that social situations are unpredictable and that society, itself, is relatively unstable (Lecture 7). The social constructionist viewpoint suggests that a variety of life experiences and social learning dictate human behaviours and takes a relativist perspective where knowledge is constructed over a period of time. The major comparison between these two paradigms is the realist versus the relativist perspective. Scientific paradigms in social psychology are more rigid both in design and in approach where social constructionist paradigms allow for a more flexible view of social interaction and individual behaviours. The social constructionist view suggests that behaviours are dictated by shared social values such as the institutionalisation of laws and the study of organisational culture. Attitude theory maintains many weaknesses. Attitude is best defined as a series of behavioural responses to a variety of internal beliefs about a particular situation. Attitude theory suggests that an emotional response to a situation will lead to specific behaviours which can be predicted. For example, if a person interacted with another person who maintained what was perceived to be socially-maladjusted behaviours, the person observing the behaviours will use personal attitude against the behaviour to make a decision on how to respond. If the person is acting foolishly, long-standing beliefs on this behaviour will likely make the assessing person shout, walk away, chastise, or any number of behaviours. Social representations theory, however, believes that behaviours are the product of a culmination of different social stimuli or scenarios which helps focus not only on attitudes, but on the essence of why these values are shared in the first place. What is it about society, today, that has developed a sense of shared meanings? Social representations broadens the scope of the impact of social beliefs and attempts to offer a more flexible view of how behaviours can be linked with attitudes. This reconceptualisation has been successful because it offers more layers of analysis to measure a higher volume of social influences than that of attitude theory. It is a more relativist perspective and takes into consideration more variables in the process for a fuller analysis. Discursive psychology has further streamlined social psychology as it allows for less quantitative analysis (such as the scientific paradigm) and offers new qualitative research approaches measuring linguistic impact on social development and human behaviours. Human language, unique to each region of the world, maintains different hidden and obvious meanings such as dictating social rules or using metaphors to describe common social situations. These language-oriented social aspects help to pinpoint motivations for different social and behavioural responses based on interpersonal communications and the broader social environment. Discursive psychology describes how a person builds a view of their self and the broader social world based on linguistic social factors. This domain of psychological study has assisted researchers by reinforcing the importance of linguistic style and presentation on developing positive or negative self-perceptions and also indicating how language can be used as a further catalyst for measuring human response to social situations. Discursive psychology, unlike traditional social psychology paradigms, teaches that language is an important, foundational element of the social environment, allowing for new qualitative research methods to be developed and giving social psychologists less reliance on scientific data through quantitative analysis only. Discussion of contemporary social psychology There is rarely a singular reason why people act out aggressively. It could be due to long-standing cultural beliefs, various interpersonal communications, individual schemas or cognitive short-cuts and specific group roles and status that people behave aggressively to social stimuli. Social psychology clearly suggests that there is a broad range of factors which dictate human behaviours, including both quantitative and qualitative factors. One person may act aggressively to a scenario simply because their parents, in early developmental years, used to create negative household environments through shouting and screaming each time a similar scenario occurred during childhood. In the face of similar stimuli, a single individual may lash out in anger and aggression whilst another, more-adjusted individual would simply dismiss the scenario and behave in a calm fashion. The very essence of social psychology is to examine multiple factors which impact motivations and behaviours and determine how they all, as a collective whole, impact decision-making or social relationships. Unlike other areas of study, social psychological research realises that there is no singular, predictive model that can assess all social situations, therefore contemporary social psychology offers multiple explanations for aggressive behaviour by examining more than merely a few, quantitatively-researched factors. Combining theories and research on different analysis levels is a necessity for understanding racism. In one social group, cultural beliefs may be liberal toward others of different ethnic backgrounds, making this a more cohesive group. Social psychological studies on this group would want to measure the reasoning for why this long-standing belief on racial inclusion exists, perhaps examining various legislation, linguistic styles, and the social structure of the local region to determine why racism is not an issue in this group. Another group, however, may believe in the superiority of their own race as a matter of shared, cultural values, making this group behave considerably different than a non-racist social group. To get to the root of the cause for racism, depending on the unique social scenario, qualitative and quantitative research may be required to assess interpersonal communications and correlate it with strong political agendas in the region (as one example) to identify why racism exists in different proportions in one group over another. A singular approach, such as the structured survey designed to test the attitude theory in these racist groups, would be inefficient in identifying all important social contributors to the racist beliefs and motivations. Social psychology offers this conglomerate of research options and theories so that multiple angles can be considered in analysis, recognizing that no group or individual can have their behaviours predicted with perfect accuracy without blending theoretical approaches and research options. Conclusion Social psychology appears to have created a new system of analysis by recognising that the human condition is unpredictable, challenging, and is influenced by a wide variety of factors. It provides a more effective system of analysis by changing the belief that all social scenarios will produce expected outcomes. It combines theories and approaches to create a fuller analysis and should be recognised for its flexibility and diversity of study. Bibliography Coombs, Timothy and Sherry J. Holladay. (2007). ‘The negative communication dynamic; Exploring the impact of stakeholder effect on behavioral intentions’. Journal of Communication Management, London. 11, no. 4: 300. Hewstone, M., and Stroebe, W. (Eds) (2001). Introduction to Social Psychology (3rd edition). Oxford: Blackwell. Jeffrey D Green, W Keith Campbell, Jody L Davis. (2007). ‘Ghosts from the Past: An Examination of Romantic Relationships and Self-Discrepancy’. The Journal of Social Psychology 147, no. 3 (June 1): 243-64. IBI/Inform Global database (accessed December 20, 2008). Lecture 1. ‘Contemporary Social Psychology: An Overview’. EH215002S. Lecture 4. ‘Attribution Theories’. Contemporary Social Psychology. Lecture 7. ‘Social Constructionism’. Part III: New Paradigms. Lecture 9. ‘Discursive Psychology’. Contemporary Social Psychology. Read More