Social Psychology

September 05, 2022

Social Psychology

Social psychology is the study of an individual’s mind and behavior, how he/she behaves with other people. Social psychology looks at the personality of people, their interpersonal relationships, and group behavior as well. 

The people we are surrounded by, influence our personality and behaviors. Just think, how we behave at family dinners and how we behave with coworkers similarly how we behave with multiple people we meet throughout the day. The recent pandemic situation is the best example of social psychology that brought good and bad in people and how they behave with others. People who were privileged enough were not helpful at all, on the other hand people with limited resources came up with a helping hand. How people behave with others tells us about their mental state. 

When we start Learning more about social psychology, we enrich our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. By learning more about how people view others, how they behave in groups, and how attitudes are formed, we start developing an understanding of how social relationships influence individual functioning. 

As we consider social psychology as a science, its nature is scientific. It studies the social aspect of human behavior through scientific methods. It is a science just like general psychology or sociology. Along with the study of individual behavior, social psychology also studies group dynamics. The aim of the study is to find out the facts to establish and maintain the relationships between cause and effect, to make laws on the basis of these relations and to use them in solving concrete social problems. 

Social psychology plays an important role in treatment of mental illness. Social psychology helps people manage stress, depression and other social issues and improve their decision making and predict accurate future behavior based on the understanding of past behavior. 

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As people and society are so complicated to understand, the topics in social psychology seem endless. But most topics in social psychology fall into one of seven major themes. You can think about these themes as a way to categorize the research that's done in social psychology. The major themes are mentioned below: 

1.   Social cognition and perception 

2.  The self in a social context:  

3.  Attitudes and persuasion 

4.  Group decisions 

5.  Attraction and close relationships 

6.  Prosocial behavior 

7.  Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination 

With the help of these themes, we can easily understand social psychology.