Social Psychology: Bring it All Together - Essay Example

Social Psychology: Bring it all together

The social aspect of human beings relies greatly on the self-realization and interaction with the others. Social psychology defines self-perception through awareness, minding others, personal influence on others, and the group effect. The social psychology undergoes transition from one level to another as one grows and develops physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The kind of personality one develops determines how we interact with others. The research paper is a discussion of the all the aspects of social psychology which includes discovering oneself, relationship with others, influence of an individual on others, and dynamics of groups.

Self-Realization

The fundamental distinction in psychology is the ability of an individual to distinguish self from the rest. The process of self-realization entails knowing personal attributes, which is an integral part of anticipating what others feel, do, and feel about them. The knowledge helps one to interact with others effectively. According to Cacioppo & Freberg (2015), self is a conglomeration of affect, cognition, and behavior. The effective determinant of self is the self-esteem. The relationship with others and the environment influence the behavior of self. The process of thinking and organizing information is cognition. Interestingly, an individual does not live in isolation but in a social surrounding, that shapes the three concepts of self-awareness.

The definition of self-concept derives reference from demographic factors, personality, individual roles and the physical attributes. Self-schema is lifelong memories that include experiences, beliefs, and generalizations, which contributes in reflecting on self by influencing a view of self and interpersonal relationships. Self-concept, therefore, captures the way individuals perceive themselves often portrayed in self-schematic approach (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2015). When an individual develops a schematic view of self, he or she will be able to realize the weakness and efforts and respond as appropriate depending on the personality.

Self-awareness is the process of acknowledging the internal feelings, traits, memories, and roles. The awareness allows individuals to establish edges of self and other people. The various approaches to self-awareness include a mirror like view of self, a video, or standing out from the rest (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2015). Self-awareness gives a primary or a first- hand expression of what makes self. A personal view of self may turn out negative, or positive depending on the personal perception. Once an individual is aware of self, he or she will be able to associate appropriately with others. Personality will arise from self-awareness and will determine how an individual view others and relate with them.

Self-esteem becomes an integral part of discovery of self as it is the determinant of psychological well-being. Self-esteem reflects personal overall subjective evaluation of self-worth as well as attitude. The judgment based on self may not be accurate because an individual can be subjective depending on the circumstances. Some may have a positive illusion of self, which causes a sustained high sense of wellness. The positive illusion usually makes individuals to prefer self. The level of self-esteem an individual develops determines the kind of approach they will give to situations. Low self-esteem leads to pessimism and associated failures in attempts in life as they always anticipate a negative outcome in circumstances. Individuals with high self-esteem will always anticipate success in all the circumstance and, in case, of failure, some find consolation from previous achievements and efforts in other areas (Cacioppo & Freberg, 2015).

Interpersonal Relationships

The existence of self is never in isolation but with others with whom they interact on a daily basis. As individual interact with others in the society, it is important to consider what they think concerning others, and the judgment they have because the two will determine the kind of relationship existing. Self-judgment and perception towards others involve attributions, attitudes and generalized ideologies towards others. An interpersonal relationship brings about various concepts based on individual perception and environmental factors that can increase intolerance and tension among different social class. Attributions to the various interpersonal interactions rely on the internal explanatory style, external factors, and internal attitudes and behavior.

Stereotype is a presumed belief regarding a set of individuals that is not authentic or valid. Stereotype is a blanket branding of personally unknown people. Individuals learn stereotypes from predecessors and take little time to find out the truth about the members of the group (Franzoi, 2014). An individual may also stereotype a group based on the experience from one of the members. When a teacher finds on student from the class making noise, it would be a stereotype to brand the whole class as noisemakers. Research indicates that individuals will often stereotype members of outgroup compared to the members of group.

At times, a person may develop a negative attitude towards other otherwise known as prejudice. Prejudice comes of competition, preference, and social factors that affect attitude of one party towards others. Discrimination borrows from prejudice but refers to considerations or treatment in favor of against an individual or a group, category, or class based on the negative attitude (Franzoi, 2014). Discrimination and prejudice usually emerge in the case of two competing sides for limited resources. Whereas discrimination is visible because of the party discriminated against is sidelined, prejudice is rather subtle, not easily detectable. Prejudice usually occurs in social places where such attributes are unacceptable hence, an individual will give preference without the other party is unaware. Stereotype and prejudice arise from the insufficient memory and thought of self as there is inadequate capacity to ensure authentic and subtle representation. Persons will, therefore, tend to generalize a perception from the limited exposure to cater for the gap in knowledge. In other aspects, prejudice and stereotype may be an expression of fault in the thought process in humans. Some of the cases of stereotypes and prejudice are a product of illusory correlation and category accentuation. Stereotypes and prejudice not only limit the individuals thinking capacity but also they wish to think. The rate of stereotyping and prejudice varies among persons with the epistemic needs (Sutton & Douglas, 2013).

Influencing Others

As stated earlier, self does not exist in isolation but among others. Therefore, as individuals interact, they tend to influence one another in the line in thought, attitude, and behavior. The art of influencing others lie in the power of persuasion. Persuasion is not necessarily the act of coercing individuals into accepting ideologies but rather the ability to change the attitude concerning information acquired from others. Persuasion is mutual because individuals will want to influence us just as we persuade them. Persuasion usually occurs among people of a particular class with whom they share features. The ability to persuade may be from the credibility of individual’s expression as well as the trustworthiness and expertise. The environment provides various ways persuading others including face-to-face, the Internet, social media, and printed media. However, the physical presence of the persuader always yields the best outcome. The kind of subjects of persuasion will also determine the extent of success depending on the intelligence and age. Persuading young children emotionally is easy while the adults require logics to move. Therefore, children change attitudes while their adult counterparts learned and intelligent are difficult to convince into following ideologies and principles (Cacioppo and Freberg, 2015).

The act of persuasion requires various features to convince others emotionally and logically. Other people will also agree to the persuasion owing to the benefits anticipated beyond the current state of affairs. The skills of a good persuader range from the self to interpersonal factors. First, the individual should believe in their content and themselves because one will only speak what they believe in. Second, subjects require some level of enthusiasm and passion that will help drills the ideologies into the people’s minds and hearts. Third, logical persuasion requires adequate knowledge of the ideals at hand in terms of the information, figures, statistics, and facts needed to convince the subjects. Fourth, in as much as that an individual will want to persuade the others, they must have a full scrutiny of the positive outcome on the rest of the population because negative persuasion will always lead to resilience. Always the persuader should bear in mind the fears of the target group. Fifth, persistence is an integral part in making people believes the authenticity of the ideals. Without persistence, most people will consider the persuader as not serious. The persuader should also be consistence with the information they intent to pass to others. Wavering individuals may make the subjects perceive the thoughts as inaccurate and untrustworthy. They must always stick the original concept intended as alterations will always raise questions of authenticity. Of importance is the relevance of class in a bid to have positive outcome the persuader should identify a suitable group or social class. Convincing members of the same class or lower would be easy while a little difficult in the case of individuals from higher social levels regarding age, intellectual capacity, age, and education (Cacioppo and Freberg, 2015).

Obedience and Conformity

Apart from persuasion, which does not involve attachment, the other form of interpersonal interaction involves the expression of emotional expression. Some of the emotional effects could be violent or peaceful. Social interactions usually involve a target and a source of influence interacting via a common object whether an opinion or behavior. The kind of association engaged and how will depend on terms applied in ma relationship. The two attributes emerge in interpersonal engagement that is obedience and conformation. Conformation is the alteration of feeling, thinking, or act because of pressure whether imaginary or real in relation to a group. Obedience, however, refers to modification manifested that involves undertaking directions as issued by others. Both conformation and obedience reflects states of submission and independence. According to the societal strata of social classes, some groups will find it hard to fully express their feelings and mind and instead resign themselves and submit to the other members of the society. Conformism and obedience is the basis of government systems, family, and the education systems. One party is dominant while the other remains subdued and managed by the ideologies of the leader. In the event of lack of obedience and conformism,the society would be chaotic (Bocchiaro and Zamperini, 2012). The resistance to obedience and conformism causes aggression and while submission results into integration through prosocial behavior such as relationship building, attraction, and love.

Aggression, submission, and conformation are a product of cognitive abilities. As individuals interact with others and ideologies, they tend to develop a social response. Human aggression, the intention to inflict damage to fellow human being, dates backs to the origin of man. The aggressive behavior may be an inborn animal instinct of self-defense or expression of dissatisfaction. Since origin, individuals have engaged in violent activities such as beating, clubbing, choking, stabbing, shooting, torturing, and changing as a show of animal ability and response to problems arising by the presence of others. Sutton and Douglas (2013), states it is normal nature of human beings to express aggressive behaviors. The natural features have seen the establishment of various law enforcing institutions to man aggression and violence among members of the society. Aggression could be physical where which involves harm but could also be social where it causes emotional torture and disruption of the social wellbeing of others (Sutton and Douglas, 2013).

Despite aggression, human beings too show expression of love, tranquility, and compassion to others. The major contributor of social cohesion and integration is the affiliations to groups and social relationships with others. The relationships can exist among member of a family, neighbors, peers, romantic partners, or coworkers. The principle of socializing and love develop out attraction and liking that could physical or emotional through continuous contacts and proximity. Physical attraction, emotional attachment, and love are the basis of intimate relationship among different sexes as well as marriage (Cacioppo and Freberg, 2015).

Group Dynamics

Groups emerged as human beings sought to establish intimate ties with others. As one develops likings for one group, they may create enmity against others of different associations. Group mentality has euphoric effects that can lead to competition or conflict depending on the ideologies and social variations. Most groups have rifts due power and dominations, which could be the basis of stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice depending on the affiliations (Forsyth, 2010).

Conclusion

The definition of self- reflects the ability of an individual to appreciate his or her existence as an entity independent of others. Self-awareness influences how individuals perceive themselves as well others. Pessimists will view themselves as failures and less as compared to other while the optimists always feel better than others do. Self-awareness determines personal traits and the interaction with the environment. Individuals have persuasive skills that make influence others to a particular line of thought. The social platforms also enable individuals to express emotional affect through aggression and prosocial behaviors such as relationship building, attraction, and love. Through attraction and relationships, individuals tend to associate in groups. Such groups form the basic social issues such as stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice. Importantly, social psychology plays a crucial role in shaping the society as present. Governments, religion, family, and social institutions are a product of social psychology. The various challenges faced in the social environment are attributions of social psychology.