Social Psychology

Social psychology is a very fast growing, and increasingly relevant, explanation of human behaviour . There are a multitude of studies on human behaviour, including looking at areas such as social learning theory, social cognition and attribution theories. Understanding human behaviour in social contexts is a key element of social psychology, and, as Baron, Byrne and Suls (1989) explained, social psychology is ‘the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behaviour in social situations’ . Social psychologists focus on how individuals interact with others within society. Looking at different interactions between individuals in certain circumstances, psychologists understand in more depth the reasons for

The earliest social experiments were conducted by Triplett before the 1900s’, and were a revolutionary idea for new psychologists. It is said that Floyd Allport first founded the basics of social psychology back in the early twentieth century . His fundamental ideas did little to analyse the social problems at the time, and it wasn’t until the late 1930s’ that his work started to expand. Influences such as the Great Depression and the political upheaval were key in the development of social psychology, and enable early psychologists to form a group aimed at progressing with social issues and psychological analysis - the Psychological Study of Social Issues. This group is still alive today, and hopes to educate and encourage young people to learn about social issues. By the 1940s’ social psychology had greatly expanded, and psychologists Kurt Lewin and Leon Festinger had refined the experimentation of sociology on humans . Surprisingly, during the second world war, Adolf Hitler inspired many psychologists to attemot to understand the behaviour of others in greater depth. This is where many known psychologists emerged, such as Milgram who focused on obedience with his classic ‘electric shock experiment’, Asch who studied conformity with his ‘line study’, and finally Zimbardo’s well known ‘Prison Study’. These influential psychologists have defined social psychology today, and so with this

Although Asch himself did not conduct different cross-cultural studies of conformity, other researchers like Berry (1967) did conduct very similar experiments. Berry’s experiment was the same however focused on the Temne in Sierra Leone, and the Inuit’s of Canada. This found that different rates of conformity could be found in the differing cultures, as well as expectations on childrearing and lifestyle choices. This research thus extended Asch’s conformity study into an etic approach rather than focusing on an emic design. Therefore, it could be stated that social psychology and the research carried out by specific original psychologists has influenced the way society is interpreted today. The work carried out by Berry supports social psychology as it allows for a wider understanding of society globally, rather than purely focusing on the western civilisations that was the basis of Asch’s work. This study can help measure conformity, and the reasons for conformity, universally rather than an ethnocentric approach as was originally designed in