Firstly, social psychology is argued to be found upon political movements and social philosophies in the United Stated of America (US). Secondly, it can be argued that social psychology has developed in response to social and political needs. There have been debates regarding whether social psychology should be dealt as a natural science or not. The ideology of natural science is very important as it affects the way the social psychologist deals with the situations. For example, if there are specific scientific objectives then the study can be laboratory based and use experimental procedures in order to gain knowledge.
What is CDA? Fairclough (1995, p. 132) has described CDA as aiming to “systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events, and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power.” CDA is now adopted and practiced by a huge posse of applied linguists, sociologists, political scientists, students of the media and cultural studies. 2.1. Principles of CDA Locke (2004) summarizes the key tenets of CDA as: • The existing social order stems in history, and is relative, socially created, and transitive. • The social structure and processes are dependent more on certain aspects of reality dubbed as discourses than on individuals.
Social psychology has to show all the complex mental life of societies is shaped and in turn reacts to the course development and operation of the individual. The moralisation of social psychology is the main problem of the individual by the society in which he is born. According to psychologist Gordon Allport, social psychology is a discipline the uses scientific methods to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of individual are influenced by the actual human beings. It is now that
(1990) Acts of Meaning, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Gergen, K. (1999) An Invitation to Social Construction, London, Sage. Hall, S. (1992) ‘The question of cultural identity’, in Hall, S., Held, D. and McGrew, T. (eds) Modernity and Its Futures, Cambridge, Polity/ The Open University. Keith, L. (2007) DSE212 Exploring Psychology [Audio programme 2], Milton Keynes, The Open University. Phoenix, A.
This shows that institutions do not control people; we can make our own decisions. (Structuration) My person opinion is that I do not believe either of these theories; I believe that society can often have restrictions on how we behave although it is our decision what we do. There is a theory that argues this case too. The Structuration Theory, it combines both the social structure and the social action theories. Anthony Gidden's defined it, he notes that `social life is more than random individual acts, but is not merely determined by social forces.'
The concept of sociological imaginations allows us to get out of one's own judgment zone with regards to how we think about social problems. C. Wright Mills argument is that we should develop a method or a way of looking at things in the society from the point of view of the person experiencing the sociological phenomenon. In essence, we cannot look at things from one's own moral point of view; we need to look at things from the point of view of the person experiencing it. Mills believes that cannot understand themselves as individuals; also they cannot understand their role and their perspectives as individuals in the society. We need to know the structure of the society, where one's current society stand in the development of human history and what varieties of men and women prevail in one's society.
Fundamentally, social psychology depends on group dynamics, or perceived presence of others in order to draw any conclusion about human nature. Thus, social psychology is insightful in regard to human nature when in a social environment, but not human nature on the individual scale. All social psychology phenomena are contingent on a perceived/actual presence of others or group dynamics; the mannerisms of human nature in social context cannot be applied to the
A cultural system entitles the recognition of moral codes, survival mechanisms, cognition and an interaction with the environment. Durkheim revolutionised anthropological thoughts amongst sociological theory but the phenomena of ‘culture’ can scarcely be defined. An explanation of culture may encompass the notion that a specific set of views and behaviours will be adopted by a people and they will respond in certain ways, which is their culture. It is a form of society and believing which deviates towards a state of equilibrium; a state which will incorporate shared ideals and morality. The mere complexity and dynamic structure of culture ensures difficulty when explaining the concept; without properly being able to distinguish what culture is, one is also unable to determine its meaning and purpose.
The development of the theories associated to the nature of deviance were necessary in explaining the human condition with regards to the functions and mechanism of the human mind and how it is affected by society itself and vice versa. Sociologist proposed different theories to explain this phenomenon, specifically Symbolic interactionist and Functionalist perspectives. Further, these theories investigated the individual and how societal groups influence a person 's behavior and state of mind that gives rise to deviant actions. Symbolic interactionist Edwin Sutherland developed the idea of differential association. This theory states that individuals develop attitudes, behavior, and motives through the interaction and association with a
In contrast to TP’s focus on individuals, CP holds a different ontological position as it is based on relativism and critical theory through critical examination of society and culture (Rogers, 2003). The aim of CP is to promote social change by being inquiry based and start with the problem rather than focusing solely on the individual (Fletcher, 1996). This is because it is believed that the individual is always and already located in society where we can’t separate from the social world, and social embeddedness of thinking and behaviour. CP approach contributes a qualitative different critical space and alternative research that breaks from the traditional positivist approach by the critiques of psychology and the politics of research raised